The Whole Star

From LatinaLista, where this story was first published.

Over the last couple of weeks, the U.S. Census began releasing 2010 Census data as it begins the arduous task of compiling population statistics for each state in the country.

Even before the numbers were released for some states, the Census bureau issued preliminary data about current state populations.

What was discovered was that Texas was a big winner when it comes to population increases, which translates into more seats in Congress.

According to the US Census, Texas, and many other states that saw an increase in their population, owe it to an increase in the Latino population. Because the Census doesn’t allow for anyone to be asked their citizenship, there’s no telling how much of the state population increases can be attributed to the undocumented population and how much to the growing families of Latino citizens.

Yet, it was clear from the beginning, when US Census officials started crediting Latinos for state population increases, that some people would not be happy with the growth of the Latino population.

The natural assumption is that those who are unhappy would be the states that either lost seats in Congress or remain stagnant. But no, the first known lawsuit challenging new congressional redistricting based on the 2010 Census, are three people from Texas — the state that gained the most seats.

The plaintiffs, Kaaren Teuber, Jim K. Burg and Ricky L. Grunden, are suing the State of Texas for counting undocumented immigrants. Their reason is that there is an unfair and illegal effect on voters in districts with smaller numbers of non-citizens.

According to their lawsuit:

…Plaintiffs’ districts, the Fourth and Twenty-Sixth Congressional Districts, each has a smaller population of undocumented immigrants than the Twenty-Third District. As a result, the strength of Plaintiffs’ votes in the Fourth and Twenty-Sixth Districts might be diluted when compared with the citizens’ votes in the Twenty-Third District. This violates Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution…”

That’s an interesting theory but no more true than during a time when blacks were counted in the US Census, and boosted population levels of certain political districts, but prevented from exercising their right to vote. So, it’s a nice try but one gets the feeling there’s a definite ulterior motive here.

We don’t have to wait long to hear it:

Further, the inclusion of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. Census might have the purpose and effect of strengthening the Hispanic vote, and if so this practice could violate the equal protection and due process guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment and Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and Article I, Sections 3, 3a, 19, and 29 of the Texas Constitution.

And that’s the crux of the complaint from these three, who are rumored to be Tea Party activists. It’s strange how they don’t seem to understand that undocumented residents can’t vote. Or maybe they’re looking ahead to the day when immigration reform is passed and these current undocumented resident become tomorrow’s voters.

The three don’t want the Texas legislature to even begin redistricting until the state of Texas complies with their demands, which include:

Convene a three-judge court to oversee their complaint Declare that the use of inaccurate census data for purposes of reapportionment and redistricting in the State of Texas denies Plaintiffs their rights as guaranteed by the United States Constitution and federal law;

Grant preliminary and permanent injunctive relief restraining and enjoining the State Defendants from using the inaccurate 2010 census population counts for reapportionment of Texas Congressional, State Senate, State House, and State School Board Districts;

Order into effect an adjustment of the 2010 census population by Federal Defendants or State Defendants to be used in the reapportionment of Texas Congressional, State Senate, State House, and State Board of Education Districts;

Declare the current Texas Congressional, State Senate, State House, and State School Board Districts to be unconstitutional and of no further force and effect.

All of this because they don’t want the Hispanic vote strengthened?

It doesn’t get any more racist than this.

From LatinaLista.net, where this story was first reported.

From LatinaLista.net, where this blog was first published.

“Mommy, I want some peaches,” cried the little girl. Then with the same urgency, her brother said, “Mama, if she gets peaches I get grapes.”  The clearly frustrated mother calmly told them that they could not have fruit today. Grapes and peaches, she said, would come when her check arrived.

That a mother would deny her children a few dollars worth of fruit seems incomprehensible at first. But this woman, like many in my city of Waco, was barely scraping by.  According to recent census data the number of poor Americans today is higher than it has been since government started tracking poverty 51 years ago.

The sad image of the children stayed with me long after I left the store so I decided to take a look at poverty in McLennan County. One of the indicators for poverty is the unemployment rate, so I contacted David Davis, Director at Heart of Texas Workforce. I asked him about unemployment in McLennan County. He informed me that the unemployment rate was 7.4 percent in McLennan County and 8.3 percent in the state.

But that rate doesn’t tell the whole story, only who is filing for benefits.

To find those who no longer receive help, Davis informed me that Texas Workforce periodically sends out surveys. While they get some response, he said, it is difficult to track those who are no longer receiving unemployment benefits if they are no longer in the system.  

I put my feelers out and was able to make contact with a couple of people who were unemployed and looking for work. Ms. Smith, as I will call her, has been unemployed since October 2009 and her unemployment benefits ended in July. At the time, she and her sister lived together in a small apartment on her unemployment benefits and her sister’s tuition grant. In addition, Ms. Smith received a monthly allotment of $133.00 in food stamps for her sister and herself.

After her unemployment ended, Ms. Smith was given a monthly increase in food stamps to $200.00. Both she and her sister recently moved back home with their single mother and their employment situation remains unchanged. Ms. Smith says that she no longer goes to Texas Workforce for assistance finding a job, but that both she and her sister continue to look. Will they sink deeper into poverty or will they have help as they battle to survive?

Another young lady with whom I spoke is presently receiving unemployment benefits and has three children whom she has to care for. She has received $404.00 in unemployment benefits every two months since December 2009 and approximately $16.00 a month in food stamps as an individual. She also receives sporadic help with her rent and food from relatives. This young lady, whom I will call Ms. Jones, is about 26 years old and says she took in her relatives’ children because there was no one else who was willing. With her unemployment benefits coming to an end sometime in October, she should receive additional benefits in food stamps but it won’t be more than $200.00 a month because as a non-custodial guardian, she cannot get benefits for the children.

Ms. Jones is struggling with keeping her vehicle legal and managing her life as a new parent with two school age children and a baby. Her struggle to feed and clothe the children is an ongoing one. “I’m so stressed because I only had $100.00 left in my unemployment account when I checked today,” Ms. Jones said. “What I really want to do is get a job so that I can take care of myself and the children.”.

After a little research, it became evident that the rising number of people seeking food stamps is an important indicator of poverty in McLennan County and elsewhere in the United States. Census data shows that there were 81,349 households in McLennan County in 2009 with 21.1 percent of them below the poverty level. Of that number, 9, 831 households received food stamps (that’s 62.5 percent of those living below poverty level).

I spoke with several agencies regarding poverty in the area and each time I was told that they are seeing increases in the number of people seeking assistance. Some of the clients are newly unemployed and new to the system. Lydia Chavez, director of emergency assistance at Caritas, said that from 2007 to 2010 they have seen a 25 percent increase in the number of clients served. She said that they see a lot of single mothers and homeless veterans, and that Caritas might serve as many as 3,000 clients in a month.

Eva Cruz, executive director of McLennan County Health Services, also reports an increase in the number of clients served. According to their records, the client population has grown 100 percent since last year. Ms. Cruz said the county has streamlined its policies to provide easier access to services and that all clients are now taken on a walk-in basis. This is one battle being fought on a local front that seems to show a little promise but more funding is desperately needed.

With the unemployment rate so high across the country and with the slowdown in production, there is of course a slowdown in consumer spending. As businesses continue to close their doors or file for bankruptcy, more and more residents of McLennan County will get caught up in the struggle.

We hear a lot about high unemployment, foreclosures and welfare benefits from the mainstream media. But we don’t hear a lot about solutions to this crisis. We hear a lot of blame being dumped on hard-working Americans for the foreclosure problem; for them being too lazy to work or look for a job; for them using food stamps, healthcare benefits and even social security.

I want to hear what our local, state and federal legislators are doing to address this economic crisis other than to blame the victims while they allow Corporate America free rein with the economy? How can they continue to justify outlandish military spending when the real war for so many is to put food on the table? Or how to come up with the monthly mortgage payment when they are trying to subsist on unemployment benefits and food stamps.

The needs of struggling Americans are clearly not a priority for our elected officials. They don’t have to go to the grocery store with their children in tow and deny them fresh fruit or explain why the children can no longer go to the movies. And they certainly don’t have to apologize to their children for not being able to buy them a pair of basketball sneakers for practice or short them on lunch money!

Some of our legislators think that the unemployed and other struggling Americans should just be happy that they are getting by – that they have shelter, food stamps and other welfare benefits to turn to, but all of us want a piece of the American Dream.

Our politicians and others need to declare a war on the debilitating poverty that is gripping our communities.We have too many legislators voting against issues tied directly to the economic well-being of our country and our populace.

Our governor stood against the recent education jobs-funding bill aimed at saving the jobs of educators. Educators in Texas are praising U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Waco) for his support while his District 17 challenger is attacking him. U.S. Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn both voted against the bill according to Grading Texas: Clay Robinson’s report card on education and the Texas political arena.

Both Senators also have an anti-union and an anti-minimum wage voting record while Senator Edwards has a record of voting for union issues and for minimum wage increases. But when it comes to Big Business and especially oil interests, these same Republican senators cast favorable votes and even have personal oil holdings.

We have past the time of putting Main Street on the back burner in favor of Big Business. It is time to implement a strategic ‘War on Poverty’ which will address the economic issues of  wage stagnation, the rising cost of goods, loss of jobs and employment opportunities, the foreclosure crisis and all related problems facing our country.

It is time for our legislators to go to their districts and various locales and walk with and talk to their constituents as they try to comprehend the gravity of poverty’s grip on their communities. It is time for them to say no to Wall Street and say yes to their constituents. Now is the time for them to pick up the gauntlet and pay homage to the real meaning of The Constitution of the United States.

Bring back the ‘War on Poverty’ and bring it back with a vengeance!

 

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of The Texas Observer. The author is solely responsible for its content.

 

Dull your wits and sharpen your prejudices—Beck University is back again.

Now Beck’s temple of knowledge has a completely new curriculum, and this “semester” concludes with a sledgehammer course: “Presidents You Need to Hate.”

This did not come from The Onion.  “Presidents You Need to Hate” is the actual name of the course, if you can call a one-hour lecture, divided into two segments, a course. 

Students will already know whom they are supposed to hate, because the objects of hatred are right there in the course description:  Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Beck U’s most treacherous “progressive” of all, Franklin D. Roosevelt.  (Be sure to pay up and watch on December 8.)

A few months ago, at a joint appearance with Beck in Tyler, Rick Perry proudly proclaimed that Beck was, by God, “an honorary Texan.”  Holding out the proclamation, Perry watched as Beck gave it a cursory look, and then—handed it right back to Perry, who was forced to walk off the stage holding the framed proclamation, as if it were a carnation turned down by his date.  

Perry’s fawning might have gained him tea party support, but how proud can he be that he desperately sought the spotlight with a man who advocates hatred and who treated him, and by sad extension, Texas, with disrespect?  

(And what about Teddy Roosevelt, anyway?  Remember the Rough Riders, who trained and lived in San Antonio before charging up Cuba’s San Juan Hill in 1898?  Teddy organized his famous unit in the bar of the Menger Hotel, adjacent to the Alamo.  Beck’s last experience in the state was as a failed disc jockey Houston.)

If Beck’s current propaganda project, a sham university with hired shills for instructors openly professing—and promoting– the “value” of hatred, does not bring real ignominy down on Beck’s unscrupulous head, what will? 

The course bluntly summarizes Beck’s mission.  With his rambling musings about a fanciful past and the creation of his “university,” he tries to give his agenda a veneer of historical heft, identifying bad guys from the old days who are the direct ancestors of Beck’s bad guys of the present.  All the bad guys are then demonized; they are not people with whom we disagree, they are people whom we now, openly, should hate.   Not just hate because we don’t like their looks, or because of their occasional sensible utterances, but hate because they deserve our hatred.

Beck has now become the Joseph McCarthy of our time.  In some ways, he has one-upped McCarthy.   The senator from Wisconsin sputtered and perspired his way to outrageous accusations, gaining traction through suspicion, causing the fearful to imagine dangers where none existed and demand security where none was required.

But Beck often affects a boyish concern and the alarm of an innocent.  He is the naïf just now being awakened by his self-appointed sages to an awareness of the corruption about him.  Being awakened, he has found a sacred mission, to show us all how we have strayed from the wisdom and piety of our forebears. He must show us how much we need to embrace the misty past of Beck’s creation, impose it on real life, and inhabit a dream world that we create after the objects of our hatred have been vanquished.

Beck’s admirers are charmed and manipulated, rather than bullied, into his fantasy world, joining the Boy Himself on his journey of discovery, feeling as innocent and self-righteous as he, while learning—thanks be to God!– just how evil the bad guys are. 

While imbibing his innocence, Beck’s followers learn that it extends to their most selfish needs and aspirations. The president is not only a bad-guy progressive but also not a real Christian because he believes that Christianity demands more than a concern for our own salvation. Indeed, the president believes that our salvation is in large measure dependent on their salvation, and after all, Jesus only cared for each person’s soul.

So Beck’s essential message is that selfishness is a sign of authentic faith, and that hating progressives is but the rage of the innocent upon being aroused. Not satisfied with one-upping McCarthy, Beck has gone on to one-up the very Puritans whose static Christianity he extols. For the original Puritans, hard, honest work and Christian charity were paramount. Beck’s followers can forget the charity, and by the way, the work does not have to be all that hard or scrupulous either.

The question is not:  Is anyone listening?  Many people are.  The question is, how does this man keep getting away with these incitements to hate?  How much more dangerous can a person be, even an apparent buffoon, whose message makes it easy for people to hate and easier to be selfish and scornful of the “other”?  It is tempting to sit back and say, well, only fools would believe this stuff, and anyway, contesting such a person only brings him more attention. He will go away.  The people will know better.  This is America.

Beck will go away.  So did Joe McCarthy.  Didn’t he?

 

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of The Texas Observer. The author is solely responsible for its content.