Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 112, No. 176, Ed. 1 Monday, January 25, 2016 Page: 6 of 18
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Democrats to decide on
revolutionary or pragmatist
before Congress, their preference matters
too.)
s their party’s caucuses and primaries
get underway, Democrats face as
stark a choice as any in modem
times. They must decide between a revolu-
tionary and an incrementalist: Bemie Sand-
ers, a democratic socialist who wants to
transform the political system, and Hillary
Clinton, a more cautious, conventional —
you might even say Clintonian — liberal.
For some voters, what matters most is
ideology: What kind of
progressive agenda do
they prefer? For oth-
ers, it’s electability —
although that’s notori-
ously hard to predict
before people actually
start casting ballots.
But there’s another
Democrats
A
Besides, Sanders hasn’t even begun to sell
single payer to the American public — un-
less you count giving his plan the comforting
title “Medicare for All.”
Almost nine months after he announced
his candidacy, he still hasn’t produced a full
description of how his proposal would work.
He released an eight-page summary before
the debate, but it focused on how he would
pay for the plan, not how it would actually
deliver care.
This notable lack of detail extends to oth-
er parts of Sanders’ agenda too, including his
proposals for free tuition at public universi-
ties and breaking up the nation’s biggest
banks.
£
How does Sanders intend to enact his au-
dacious program? He says the answer is sim-
ple: He’ll build a grassroots movement so
powerful that voters will sweep the GOP out
of power.
“Nothing real will happen unless we have
a political revolution where millions of peo-
ple finally stand up,” he said at the debate.
“What we’ve got to do is create a political rev-
olution which revitalizes American democ-
racy, which brings millions of young people
and working people into the political pro-
cess.”
factor
ought to consider: go-
vemability.
would President Sand-
ers get his revolutionary agenda through a
Congress in which at least one house will still
be run by a counterrevolutionary Republi-
can majority?
Take the issue on which the two candi-
dates diverge most sharply: health care re-
form.
Doyle
McManus
How
Sanders has an ambitious proposal for a
European-style, government-run health in-
surance system (known as “single payer”).
Clinton, meanwhile, merely aims to make
the Affordable Care Act, based on private in-
surance plans, work a little better.
Abstractly, that’s an easy choice for most
liberals and progressives (not to mention so-
cialists): Most of them prefer single payer. A
well-designed government-run system
works better and far more cheaply than our
crazy patchwork of public and private plans,
as Sweden and other countries with single-
payer systems have shown.
But as Clinton reminded voters during
the recent Democratic Party debate, Presi-
dent Barack Obama’s not-very-revolution-
ary health care law barely squeaked through
to passage in 2010.
“There was an opportunity to vote for
what was called the public option,” she noted
— a government-run plan that wasn’t even
as ambitious as single payer. ‘And even when
the Democrats were in charge of the Con-
gress, we couldn’t get the votes for that.”
In other words: You can’t get there from
That’s easier said than done, of course.
Barack Obama tried to turn his huge
2008 electoral majority into a grass-roots
movement called Organizing for America
and failed miserably. If Sanders doesn’t win
an ever larger majority than Obama, his ad-
ministration would encounter — or, per-
haps, engender — four years of continued
gridlock.
Clinton had a different answer to the
question of how she would govern.
“I will go anywhere, to meet with anyone,
any time, to find common ground. That’s
what I did as first lady, when I worked with
both Democrats and Republicans ... and it’s
what I did as secretary of state.”
In other words: Come, let us reason to-
gether. Yes, that’s essentially what Obama
tried to do — with little success once Repub-
licans held the majority. Clinton is arguing,
in effect, that she could do better, because
she has a longer bipartisan track record.
For progressives, Sanders is the political
equivalent of a Powerball ticket: The payoff
is huge, but there’s only a small chance of
winning. (For Sanders, remember, the revo-
lution requires not only the presidency, but
Congress too.) Clinton is more like a money
market fund: not very inspiring, but you’re
less likely to lose the grocery money.
DOYLE McMANUS writes for the Los
Angeles Times. His column is distributed
by MCT Information Services.
here.
Clinton is probably right. A Kaiser Fami-
ly Foundation poll last year found that only
26 percent of Americans want to expand
Obamacare — mostly Democrats. A far larg-
er number, 42 percent, want to scale the
plan back or scrap it entirely. (Most of those
are non-Democrats, but once the question is
Letters to the editor
Welfare wages
The low minimum wage ($7.25 an hour)
is a snake hidden in our economic prosper-
SUBMISSIONS
Letters for publication must include the writer’s
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thorship must be verified before publication.
The Record-Chronicle reserves the right to edit
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P.0. Box 369
Denton, TX 76202
ity.
Columnist Walter E. Williams wrote re-
cently that low-skilled workers will be
harmed by an increase in the minimum
wage. The theory is that companies will hire
fewer workers if government raises the min-
imum wage.
Williams lives in a dream world and can-
not recognize that people must feel they
have a meaningful stake in our capitalist
economy in order to respect and enjoy it.
Some companies complain of high labor
costs. But when they move to an area with
cheaper labor and expenses, they don’t lower
prices for their goods.
In the end, nothing will satisfy a robber
baron’s greed. Welfare wages do not appeal
to people with hungry stomachs and no
home to call their own.
John Thompson,
Denton
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your commentary and your actions.
Immigrants
continue
to be pawns
of politicians
he Supreme Court recently decided to
take up the Obama administration’s
unilateral executive actions on immi-
gration, which will keep the issue on the
front burner for the presidential election.
That’s bad news for Republicans, includ-
ing Donald Trump. It was bound to happen,
of course. The administration has been noth-
ing if not Machiavellian when it comes to
playing the immigra-
tion issue for all it is
worth.
T
In November 2014,
Secretary of Homeland
Security Jeh Johnson
issued a series of mem-
oranda that, in effect,
delayed indefinitely the
deportation of illegal
immigrants who were
parents to American-
born children. The
move also granted them permission to work
in the U.S.
Of course the overwhelming majority of
these people were not going to be deported
anyway — two thirds have been living here 10
years or more — and the majority were al-
ready working, albeit not with proper autho-
rization.
The administration’s actions, therefore,
did very little to change the status quo for il-
legal immigrants beyond giving them a false
sense of security.
Meanwhile, several states sued and the
executive actions were put on hold while the
case wends its way through the courts.
Without actual changes to U.S. law, illegal
immigrants remain political pawns of who-
ever happens to be in power.
The Democrats say they will protect
them; but a Democrat president who en-
joyed two full years of his presidency with
Democrats in control of both houses of Con-
gress chose not to change the law.
Most Republicans have simply punted on
the issue, except for Donald Trump, who
promises he’ll deport them all, which is a real
crowd-pleaser among the voters he courts
but will come back to bite him if he manages
to win the GOP nomination.
Hispanic voters are not monolithic — as I
have been writing for three decades.
A majority usually supports the Demo-
cratic Party’s nominee in presidential elec-
tions, but GOP candidates have won from a
third to more than 40 percent of Hispanic
votes in a majority of elections going back to
Richard Nixon.
A new report from the Pew Research
Center shows that naturalizations and the
growing number of Hispanic youth attaining
voting age has pushed the number of poten-
tial Hispanic voters to 27.3 million, roughly
12 percent of the voting-eligible population.
As the Hispanic electorate grows, Repub-
licans increasingly need to win more His-
panic votes to be competitive in states such
as Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Florida
(where non-Cuban Hispanics now outnum-
ber the more Republican-leaning Cuban-
American population) and even Virginia,
which has grown more Democratic in recent
Linda
Chavez
years.
Pushing a line on illegal immigrants that
we should “round ’em up and kick ’em out”
will simply shove Hispanics into the Demo-
crats’ arms for generations. Democrats will
shake their heads in sympathy all the way to
Inauguration Day.
The Supreme Court is likely to issue its
decision in June or early July, by which time
the parties will likely have settled on a nomi-
nee even if the conventions will be weeks
away.
The decision could inject an issue back
into the campaign at a time when it may have
withered away.
I expect the decision to be closely divided,
and it could leave a muddled mess. Conser-
vatives, including me, are hoping that the
court will slap down the administration’s
abuse of executive power.
I’d like to see resolution of the status of
long-term illegal immigrants, but I believe
that Congress must act — not the president
alone — if we ever hope to solve the problem
in the long run.
But I think it is quite likely the court will
avoid dealing with the substance and rule
narrowly on whether the administration fol-
lowed proper procedure in taking the exec-
utive actions.
No one will be satisfied with such a deci-
sion, which will dump it right back into the
political maelstrom. The Democrat nominee
will use the fear of mass deportations to drive
young Hispanics to register and turn out to
vote.
When you add the large numbers of new
Hispanic voters to the ranks of Democrats’
solid base among blacks, union members
and single women, the path to the White
House for a Republican nominee becomes
much steeper.
No matter who the GOP nominee is, if
he’s smart he’ll wish the immigration issue
would simply go away.
LINDA CHAVEZ’S column is distrib-
uted by Creators Syndicate Inc.
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Other voices
Vaccines proven
to save lives
he debate about vaccinations has gone from silly to
outright scary in recent years as more and more
parents, citing frizzy information and myths, choose
to not vaccinate their children.
The recent case of a child infected with measles at-
tending a Plano school was a reminder of the importance
of vaccinations. Authorities said it is likely the child was
infected after visiting a foreign country. The child was not
vaccinated. A vaccinated child would have been nine
times less likely to contract the disease.
But the important thing about vaccinations isn’t just
that they protect the individual. Vaccinations protect the
group and over time can lead to the elimination of a dis-
ease. Measles has been identified as a potentially eradica-
te disease, but it will take widespread adoption of vacci-
nations to get there.
So why are we seeing more cases of diseases like
mumps, measles, rubella, whooping cough and other
infections easily prevented by vaccinations? In many
cases, it’s because parents are getting bad information.
One of the biggest factors that has driven concerns
about vaccine safety is a 1998 paper in a medical journal
that suggested a link between vaccinations and autism.
That research has been repeatedly debunked, the paper
was retracted by the journal and the lead author was
accused of falsifying data and lost his medical license.
You’ve heard it countless times, but we’ll say it again:
There is no reason to believe vaccines are unsafe. They
are one of the grandest achievements of modem medi-
cine, right up there with the discovery of penicillin. Eng-
land’s National Health Service says vaccinations have
saved more lives in the past 50 years than any other med-
ical product or procedure.
Around 900 AD in China, healthy people were pur-
posefully exposed to the scabs caused by smallpox. Often
that was done by putting it under the skin or grinding it
into a dried powder administered up the nose.
Vaccine science has come a long way since then. The
semms are subjected to even higher safety standards than
most medicines because of their universal administration.
Yet, we still hear this argument about autism and safe-
ty in general. It strikes at parents’ worst fears: That some-
thing bad will happen to their child. The best way to com-
bat fear is accurate information. If you have questions
about vaccinations, talk to your doctor. They are there to
give you sound guidance.
There are some legitimate medical and religious rea-
sons for avoiding vaccinations, and protecting those who
can’t be vaccinated is all the more reason the rest of us
should follow the recommendations of medical profes-
sionals.
T
— Herald Democrat (Sherman)
This day in history: January 25
In 1924, the first Winter
Olympic Games opened in Cha-
monix, France.
In 1945, the World War II
Battle of the Bulge ended as Ger-
man forces were pushed back to
their original positions. Grand
Rapids, Michigan, became the
first community to add fluoride
to its public water supply.
In 1947, American gangster
A1 Capone died in Miami Beach,
Florida, at age 48.
In 1955, the Soviet Union
formally ended its state of war
with Germany.
In 1961, President John F.
Kennedy held the first presiden-
tial news conference to be car-
ried live on radio and television.
In 1981, the 52 Americans
held hostage by Iran for 444 days
arrived in the United States.
In 1990, an Avianca Boeing
707 ran out of fuel and crashed in
Cove Neck on Long Island, New
York; 73 of the 158 people aboard
were killed. Actress Ava Gardner
died in London at age 67.
— The Associated Press
Today is Monday, Jan. 25,
the 25lb day of 2016. There
are 341 days left in the year.
On Jan. 25,1915, America’s
first official transcontinental
telephone call took place as Al-
exander Graham Bell, who was
in New York, spoke to his former
assistant, Thomas Watson, who
was in San Francisco, over a line
set up by American Telephone &
Telegraph.
In 1533, England’s King
Henry VIII secretly married his
second wife, Anne Boleyn, who
later gave birth to Elizabeth I.
In 1890, reporter Nellie Bly
(Elizabeth Cochrane) of the
New York World completed a
round-the-world journey in 72
days, 6 hours and 11 minutes.
The United Mine Workers of
America was founded in Colum-
bus, Ohio.
In 1915, the U.S. Supreme
Court, in Coppage v. Kansas, up-
held the right of employers to
bar employees from belonging
to labor unions by making them
sign a “yellow dog contract.”
OPINION
6A
Monday, January 25, 2016
Denton Record-Chronicle
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Parks, Scott K. Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 112, No. 176, Ed. 1 Monday, January 25, 2016, newspaper, January 25, 2016; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1127329/m1/6/: accessed August 15, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .