The Results From A New Texas Poll

 These charts are from the newest Dallas Morning News / UT-Tyler Poll -- done on August 1st and 7th of 1,384 registered Texas voters, with a 2.6 point margin of error.

Dallas Newspaper Blasts Trump For His "Nationalist" Claim

(The caricature of Donald Trump is by DonkeyHotey. I added the tag line.)

Donald Trump recently claimed to be a "nationalist" -- echoing the beliefs of other authoritarians throughout history.

Here's what the Dallas Morning News editorial staff thinks of his audacious claim:

This week in Houston, before a cheering crowd of thousands, President Trump needed no dog whistle or code words to rile up the worst elements of the far-right in this country or rally those who fear what he calls “globalists” to his cause.

For the first time since Pat Buchanan’s nationalist and nativist leanings sank his chances of becoming president in 1992, 1996, and 2000, a prominent American leader — the president no less — has embraced the term “nationalist” and encouraged his supporters to describe themselves in the same manner.

We understand that many Americans feel they’ve been left behind by globalization and want a government that looks out for their economic interests. But we see no need for the president or his supporters to embrace a term that is heavy with negative connotations that include nativism, racism, and, yes, fascism.

Marching under a nationalist flag would be divisive and intimidating at any time in our nation’s history, given that ours is a country of immigrants with diverse backgrounds and ethnic roots that join them together under the banner of freedom, democracy, and plurality. Since this nation’s inception, E pluribus Unum (Out of many, one) has been our motto.

But in today’s America, with the country torn culturally and politically, the president’s use of the term “nationalist” is akin to shouting fire in a crowded theater.

Surely, our president understands that describing himself as a nationalist and encouraging others to do the same will not just rile up the base for next month’s election but further coarsen our discourse and perhaps motivate the most radical elements on the far right and left.

Even if Trump tries to walk back his embrace of the term nationalist, which he shows no sign of doing as yet, his willingness to describe himself and his followers with the term has already gone a long way toward normalizing the word. We can expect to see signs at marches and rallies across the country that read “I am a proud Nationalist” next to “Keep America Great” signs. This will in turn bring out more comparisons in response to past and present radical “nationalist” organizations in other countries, including Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party or modern far-right fascist movements.

We understand that in Europe and elsewhere there’s a mounting rebellion against what many see as the  overreach of the European Union and the diminishment of national pride in countries as diverse as France, Great Britain, Spain and Italy. The common currency, ease of travel between EU nations, and the great influx of immigrants from the Mideast, Africa and other war-torn and drought-stricken regions have tested democracies and contributed to a growing wave of nationalism and tribalism.

But America is exceptional in that it has always been a nation of nations. So much so that past nativist movements were often populated with the children or grandchildren of immigrants who made their way to America’s shores.

All of this reminds us that, 53 years ago this month, at the height of the Civil Rights movement and anti-Vietnam War protests, less than two years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, with shock and disillusionment still thick in the air, President Johnson traveled to the Statue of Liberty to sign the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 into law.

The 1965 law abolished the national origin quota system that favored immigrants from Northern and Western Europe and discriminated against aspiring Americans from Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The new law made room for immigrants based on their family connections to the U.S. and the skills and talents they had to offer the country. Race, creed, color or national origin was no longer to play a part in weighing who would be welcomed as an American.

LBJ spoke of unity, not strife, pluralism, not discord, and a nation of nations — not nationalism.

We look back at those trying times now, with a nation bitterly divided over so much, for any wisdom they might offer us today, and inspiration they might offer for the way forward. And we believe it is worth quoting President Johnson’s words at length:

Our beautiful America was built by a nation of strangers. From a hundred different places or more they have poured forth into an empty land, joining and blending in one mighty and irresistible tide.

The land flourished because it was fed from so many sources — because it was nourished by so many cultures and traditions and peoples.

And from this experience, almost unique in the history of nations, has come America's attitude toward the rest of the world. We, because of what we are, feel safer and stronger in a world as varied as the people who make it up--a world where no country rules another and all countries can deal with the basic problems of human dignity and deal with those problems in their own way.

Now, under the monument which has welcomed so many to our shores, the American nation returns to the finest of its traditions today.

It's Time To Remove Confederate Plaque From Capitol Bldg.

The plaque pictured above is in the Texas Capitol Building, and was placed there in 1959 (likely in response to the civil rights demonstrations that were starting to grow at that time). It is not only offensive to have a plaque honoring an enemy of the United States, but the plaque contains an obvious LIE -- that the Civil War was not fought over slavery. The plaque is an abomination to all decent Texas of all colors, and it needs to be removed.

Here is what the editorial board of The Dallas Morning News had to say:

It's never simple raising concerns about Confederate monuments and symbols in this state. There's a fiery debate anytime there's a mention of removing these relics.

Such was the case when state Rep. Eric Johnson started raising questions a full year ago about the Confederate plaque near his Capitol office. We understand the emotional feelings about not erasing history. But imagine suffering the indignity of being face-to-face day in and day out with a hurtful reminder that celebrates keeping your race of people in bondage.

This newspaper has repeatedly argued that these divisive tributes no longer belong in our public spaces. We're flummoxed as to why it's taken so long to get rid of this one. Not only is it offensive, but it also offers a distorted and widely debunked history lesson about the Civil War. It's past time for it to go.

The plaque, erected by the "Children of the Confederacy" in 1959, features the group's creed, including a "pledge ... to study and teach the truths of history (one of the most important of which is, that the War Between the States was not a rebellion, nor was its underlying cause to sustain slavery)."

Historians say that's hogwash. What's more, the time and context for when these tributes took place matter. Many were not done in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, but rather at the height of legally mandated segregation. Bent less on history than on subordinating people. 

So why is this plaque still hanging in the state Capitol in Austin? Stunningly, it seems to come down to a disagreement about who is authorized to remove it.

Johnson, a Dallas Democrat, first made his removal request to the Texas Preservation Board, charged with maintaining and preserving the Capitol, the Governor's Mansion and other properties.

Gov. Greg Abbott, the board's chairman, has said that because the Legislature authorized the plaque's installation, lawmakers should be involved in deciding whether to remove it. More than 40 lawmakers support its removal, according to the Austin American-Statesman. They include Republican House Speaker Joe Straus. 

Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, joined the cause in April, asking Attorney General Ken Paxton to offer an opinion on who has the authority to remove it.

We encourage Paxton to rule soon so this long-overdue removal process can get underway.

But Texas has already made great strides in the kind of state it wants to be today. The Southern Poverty Law Center says Texas has removed more Confederate symbols than any other state in the three years since the killing of nine people at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C., that renewed the effort to take them down.

Texas needs to add one more to the pile. The public seat of democracy is no place for such a thing.

Undocumented Immigrants Contribute To Texas/U.S. Economy

Donald Trump has waged a hate campaign against undocumented immigrants living and working in this country. He would have you believe these people take more from this country than they give. That's a LIE! It's certainly not true here in Texas, and I don't believe it's true for the nation either.

Here is part of an op-ed on the contribution of undocumented immigrants by Mitchell Schnurman in the Dallas Morning News:

In Texas, undocumented immigrants are an asset, and a valuable one.

That may not be obvious, given that many work off the books in lower-paying jobs and have less education than immigrants who came here legally. Their contributions are often discounted, too, because some Americans can’t get past the fact that these residents have violated the law.

But the undocumented are a major part of the workforce in Dallas-Fort Worth and the state, and for decades, they’ve helped create the Texas growth story.

By one estimate, they held 1.2 million jobs in Texas, about 11.5 percent of the private-sector workforce in 2015. They paid over $13 billion in total taxes and generated almost $145 billion in gross product.

Their benefits — and costs — are not divided uniformly. The feds enjoy the biggest fiscal surplus because the undocumented don’t get payments from Social Security and other programs. The state has a net gain, too, according to a 2016 report by the Perryman Group in Waco.

Much of the funding burden falls to local agencies in Texas, including school districts and health care providers. They supply billions more in services than undocumented immigrants pay in taxes locally, the report said.

Still, there’s enough upside to go around, especially when multiplier effects are included — if government would coordinate its policies.

“The overall fiscal surplus is quite substantial,” the Perryman report said. . . .

“Beneath all of the sound and fury, however, is one incontrovertible fact: TEXAS NEEDS THE WORKERS!!” the Perryman report said, using all caps and exclamation points to drive home the conclusion.

In an email, economist Ray Perryman said he’s been studying the relationship between immigration and the economy for decades.

“Without exception, every analysis has demonstrated that immigrants are beneficial,” he wrote. “Without the immigrant workforce, there would be a labor shortage in Texas even if every single unemployed person were working in a job now filled by an immigrant.”. . .

The economic argument for more immigration has long been supported by business leaders and traditional Republicans. But President Donald Trump has pushed for a border wall, more deportations and more enforcement agents. He’s also ending two temporary programs that allow thousands to stay here. And last year, Texas lawmakers passed a “show-me-your-papers” bill that bans sanctuary cities and has put many immigrants on edge.

Stan Marek, who runs a Houston construction company, said that some of his Hispanic workers have been stopped by police and required to show their documents even though they were born in the U.S.

“It’s like Texas is running them off,” Marek said. “And who’s gonna get hurt the most? Texas."

"Labor is gonna go where they're not gonna be hassled," Marek said. "If we lose our workers, Texas cannot be competitive on the national stage."

Texas has been growing at twice the rate of the nation for many years. In part, that's because it attracts so many newcomers from other countries and states, ensuring an ample labor supply.

GOP - 21st Century Version Of The Know Nothing Party

(This image was found at julia-harrell.com.)

The following is part of a thought-provoking op-ed by Frederic B. Hill in the Dallas Morning News:

It was first called the Order of United Americans. Then it was renamed the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner. Then it became the Native American Party. And that was shortened to the American Party.

Its popular name, derived from its origin as a secret society, was the Know Nothings. That stemmed from the anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant obsession of the party, its habits of passwords and hand signs, and the commitment of its members, if asked their political allegiance, to say: "I know nothing."

For nearly 20 years, the Know Nothings were a major third party in the United States in the mid-19th century, and generally a mean, destructive force.

They faded as the 1860 election neared. Slavery overtook immigration as the primary issue of the day and a little-known but courageous Illinois lawyer by the name of Abraham Lincoln pulled the Republican Party together.

That was all long ago, in the 1840s and 1850s.

Guess what? The Know Nothings are making a comeback in the early 21st century, largely as a result of the phenomenon of Donald J. Trump and his hateful, nativist behavior. And with open warfare now declared in the Republican Party, between traditional conservatives and a right-wing faction that wants to isolate the United States in world affairs, throw up walls against all immigrants, exalt racism and turn back the clock on social matters, there is a clear risk that the party of Lincoln could be split apart by the 21st century version of the Know Nothings. . . .

Noting such cleavages in the GOP, a respected columnist recently concluded that the party of Lincoln is becoming the party of Trump. Maybe in the short term; it is more likely that the party is on its way to becoming the party of the Know Nothings. The evidence is clear.

One, Trump and his supporters mimic the hateful rhetoric and actions of the largely white, Protestant members of the 19th century Know Nothings who torched churches, instigated riots and even elected 100 members of Congress at one point in their blind opposition to immigration, then largely from Ireland and Germany.

Two, Trump and his supporters show the same disdain for science and the future by withdrawing from the climate change accord and dismantling entire institutions such as the State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency designed to assure diplomatic engagement and promote public health. Despite overwhelming evidence that climate change stems in part from human activity, this president knows nothing. Climate change is a "Chinese hoax."

Three, on economic policy, Trump is pursuing "beautiful tax cut" legislation that benefits mainly corporations and the wealthiest 1 percent, increases middle-class taxes and will raise the national deficit by $1.5 trillion. In a new book, The Truth Matters, Republican economist Bruce Bartlett describes GOP glorification of tax cuts as "total mythology" and its "trickle down" approach as "complete nonsense."

Lastly, on foreign policy, Trump and his cohort, including his alter-ego, Steve Bannon, support isolationism, a disastrous policy of the 1930s GOP that emboldened Nazi Germany and Japan to initiate World War II. Sen. John McCain, R.-Ariz., describes Trump's foreign policy as "half-baked, spurious nationalism."

While the U.S. did not have an international standing at the time of the original Know Nothings, we do now. The U.S. has been a leader of the democratic free world — until Trump. Asked his view of Russian intervention in the 2016 election, confirmed by all American intelligence agencies, Trump has said: "I know nothing [about Russia.]"

"America Alone Is Not America First"

(This image of Donald Trump is from CNN Money.)

The following is an op-ed in the Dallas Morning News. It was written by Robert Hutchings -- professor of national security at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas (Austin). He writes:

President Donald Trump's tweets and foreign policy moves have made him a laughingstock, but the damage they have done to our standing in the world and to our own interests is no laughing matter.

Trump is not the first American leader to lecture the Europeans about military spending, just the least informed. It is a fundamentally flawed position. Europeans don't spend for defense the way we do, but not because they lack seriousness or political will, or because they are free riders who refuse to shoulder their share of the defense burden. They spend less on defense because they do not agree with the over-militarized approach to foreign policy that they see from the United States, whose military spending is already larger than that of the next eight highest-spending countries combined.

We would do well to study rather than condemn the European approach to foreign policy. And the American public needs to understand that more spending for defense does not mean more security. As the Afghanistan and Iraq misadventures have demonstrated, the exercise of military power can make us less secure. I made this point more than a decade ago when I was chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council, warning (all too accurately) that Iraq under U.S. occupation would prove to be the breeding ground for the next generation of terrorists.

I take Trump's crude remarks on Germany personally. In 1989-92, I was part of the diplomatic team under President George H.W. Bush that helped negotiate German unification and the collapse of the Soviet empire. We and the Germans forged the closest possible partnership, and our successful management of the end of the Cold War enabled the U.S. to draw down its huge military presence in Europe, leaving it to our allies, led by Germany, to take the lead in Europe.

The Germans stepped up to the task, even while maintaining the historic partnership with the U.S. that Trump is throwing this away. He seems to think there is another "deal" out there and that this one can be discarded. No, President Trump: There is only one NATO, only one trans-Atlantic partnership, the work of more than a dozen U.S. administrations before you. If you throw these achievements away, we are left with nothing.What is needed is not America-first bluster or infantile tweets but a sustained effort to reinvigorate and modernize the alliance. Here's a start: We should restore and then increase the budgets for the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development, and we should signal our readiness to re-enter the Paris agreement. In return the Europeans should step up their timetable for meeting the agreed commitment to increased defense spending.

The trans-Atlantic alliance, the strongest and most enduring in history, is much more than a defense pact. It has endured despite periodic disputes because it is built on the solid foundation of shared values and common interests. Alliances, like marriages, prosper when both sides respect that their partners have different priorities and when they understand that compromise and adjustment are keys to a successful relationship.

The alliance is also more than an arena for economic competition. The global trading system, with the U.S.-European trade relations its driving force, has been an enormous benefit to America's prosperity and well-being. Of course, we, like Germany, will defend our own economic interests and protect our citizens, and we have ample means of doing so — most of them domestic measures that have little to do with trade imbalances. Instead, Trump is focusing on things he can do with the stroke of a pen — like backing out of the Paris agreement and the Pacific trade pact — with disregard for the consequences. This is not leadership. This is not strength.

We are at a turning point in our nation's history. There are few signs that Trump will change, so we must place our hope in America's institutions and look to the enablers — his foreign policy team, which has gone along with too much already, and Republicans in Congress — to show some political courage by putting America first.

Conservative Newspaper Eviscerates Trumpcare

Only the most ignorant and hardcore trumpistas could support the abomination called Trumpcare passed by the Republicans in the House of Representatives. Here is what the editorial board of the traditionally conservative Dallas Morning News thinks:

President Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers promised they would repeal and propose a better health care solution than the Affordable Care Act. 

 Well, so much for keeping promises. The House bill passed on a 217-213 vote Thursday does the opposite. It threatens to drive up out-of-pocket costs for most Americans and make others virtually uninsurable. The Senate should reject it.

Comprehensive health care reform requires shared sacrifice to balance the interests of consumers, taxpayers, medical providers and insurance companies. But Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan have tilted health care reform away from consumers while pretending that they have improved health care in this country. They haven't.  

If you have a pre-existing medical condition, the bill increases the odds that you will be denied or priced out of insurance coverage — thanks to a provision that allows states to opt out of the federal mandate and for insurance companies to cut back or deny coverage.

 Gone also is the all-important individual mandate to buy health insurance — a critical provision to create a large enough pool of healthy people to keep overall prices affordable. It gets worse: The bill also guts the Medicaid program, which provides health care to about 74 million poor, disabled and elderly Americans, stripping away $880 billion over 10 years or about one-fourth of its budget.

How can any GOP lawmaker in good faith tell constituents that this is a better deal? It is not a better deal to shift billions of dollars in Medicaid and other costs to the states, who are likely to slash benefits and restrict eligibility — and/or unravel core elements of a health-care plan with a substitute that creates more problems than it solves. 

The hypocrisy is staggering. For seven years, House Republicans blamed the Obama administration for rushing health care reform through Congress. Yet, just weeks after their first attempt at reform failed, the GOP-leadership in the House rammed through a hasty revamp of one-sixth of the U.S. economy. 

They did it without support from consumer groups, doctors, insurance companies or hospitals. Nor did they bother to hold hearings to give the American public time to comment or wait for the Congressional Budget Office to assess the bill's fiscal impact.

Real conservatives would be embarrassed to be part of this unconscionable charade. Among Texas GOP House members, only Rep. Will Hurd showed the courage to vote against this bill. The others, we predict, will hear from constituents outraged over the effect this measure will have on them if the Senate doesn't step in to fix the mess. 

Let us be clear: The Affordable Care Act has weaknesses and needs reforms to protect key benefits and reduce overall costs without reducing access. This replacement bill, however, would only make most things worse.

The Senate should kill this bill and let House Republicans who voted for this monstrosity dangle on their record as having cast this vote. Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the chamber, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz should step up and oppose this bill. 

Conservative Newspaper Says No To Pruitt Heading The EPA

Trump choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency is Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (caricatured here by DonkeyHotey). The choice horrified Democrats and environmentalists. They knew Pruitt as an enemy of the EPA, and an official who had long been bought off by the big oil and gas industries.

But it's not just those on the left who oppose the nomination of Scott Pruitt. The traditionally conservative newspaper, the Dallas Morning News, has also come out against Pruitt heading the EPA. Here is the editorial written by that paper's editorial board:

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a veteran of a years-long courthouse campaign to undermine the Environmental Protection Agency, is the wrong choice to lead the agency under President Donald Trump. It's hard to imagine a worse choice, and when his nomination comes to the Senate floor, likely next week, Texas Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz should vote no. 

The post of EPA administrator is a critical one, and no where is that more tangible than here in energy-rich Texas. Many industry voices have already raised toasts to Pruitt's nomination, concluding that his plans to eviscerate the EPA's regulatory oversight of oil and gas companies, and other polluters, will strengthen the state's economic fortunes.

But Cruz and Cornyn must look beyond that short-sighted calculus and vote in the long-term interests of Texas. Put simply, Texas' economy will be stronger over time if its environment is cleaner and if its people are healthier. 

There is room, especially under a Republican president, to adopt a less-aggressive stance at the EPA than has been its posture under President Barack Obama. Not since the agency was created by Richard Nixon in 1970 has it taken on such a wide array of major enforcement actions as it pursued under Obama.

 But there is such a thing as an over-correction, and placing Pruitt in the EPA administrator's seat would be a  reckless example.

Pruitt has spent his career arguing that each state, and not the U.S. government, should monitor companies' compliance with environmental safeguards. Now in his seventh year as Oklahoma's chief legal officer, he has sued the EPA at least 14 times. He would have Americans rely on a patchwork of rules, with enforcement priorities shifting from state to state, despite the obvious inefficiencies that would create for companies whose interests, just like the pollution they produce, regularly cross states lines.

But even as he argued for a larger state role, as attorney general he dissolved that office's standalone environmental crimes unit, which had been responsible for scores of enforcement actions against polluters and others since 1996.

States are often under tremendous pressure to go easy on the industries they regulate. In Pruitt's case, that pressure has too often proved too hard to resist. In 2011, for example, just before an Oklahoma oil company was due to meet with EPA officials in Washington, Pruitt sent a letter on state letterhead arguing that the EPA was grossly overstating the impact of air pollution from natural gas wells in Oklahoma.

"Fantastic!" the company's chief lobbyist wrote to Pruitt soon after, according to a Pulitzer Prize-winning expose by The New York Times in 2014. No wonder the company was excited. The stories also revealed that Pruitt's letter, like many others he wrote as attorney general, had been carefully drafted by the company's lobbyists. 

That kind of coziness was wrong for the Oklahoma attorney general. It could prove disastrous on a national level. And it's just one reason why he's profoundly unsuited to lead the agency charged with safeguarding Americans' health and environment.

Largest Conservative Newspaper In Texas Endorses Clinton

If there is a Hell, it must be freezing over right now. That's because the largest newspaper in Texas, the Dallas Morning News, has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.

This is monumental. The DMN has been a bastion of conservatism, and has not endorsed a Democrat for president in the last three-quarters of a century.

Here's what the editorial board had to say about Hillary Clinton:

There is only one serious candidate on the presidential ballot in November. We recommend Hillary Clinton.

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.

We've been critical of Clinton's handling of certain issues in the past. But unlike Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton has experience in actual governance, a record of service and a willingness to delve into real policy.

Resume vs. resume, judgment vs. judgment, this election is no contest.  

Resume vs. resume, judgment vs. judgment, this election is no contest.  

We've been critical of Clinton's handling of certain issues in the past. But unlike Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton has experience in actual governance, a record of service and a willingness to delve into real policy.Resume vs. resume, judgment vs. judgment, this election is no contest.

In Clinton's eight years in the U.S. Senate, she displayed reach and influence in foreign affairs. Though conservatives like to paint her as nakedly partisan, on Capitol Hill she gained respect from Republicans for working across the aisle: Two-thirds of her bills had GOP co-sponsors and included common ground with some of Congress' most conservative lawmakers.

As President Barack Obama's first secretary of state, she helped make tough calls on the Middle East and the complex struggle against radical Islamic terrorism. It's no accident that hundreds of Republican foreign policy hands back Clinton. She also has the support of dozens of top advisers from previous Republican administrations, including Henry Paulson, John Negroponte, Richard Armitage and Brent Scowcroft. Also on this list is Jim Glassman, the founding executive director of the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas.

Clinton has remained dogged by questions about her honesty, her willingness to shade the truth. Her use of a private email server while secretary of state is a clear example of poor judgment. She should take additional steps to divorce allegations of influence peddling from the Clinton Foundation. And she must be more forthright with the public by holding news conferences, as opposed to relying on a shield of carefully scripted appearances and speeches.

Those are real shortcomings. But they pale in comparison to the litany of evils some opponents accuse her of. Treason? Murder? Her being cleared of crimes by investigation after investigation has no effect on these political hyenas; they refuse to see anything but conspiracies and cover-ups.

We reject the politics of personal destruction. Clinton has made mistakes and displayed bad judgment, but her errors are plainly in a different universe than her opponent's.

Trump's values are hostile to conservatism. He plays on fear — exploiting base instincts of xenophobia, racism and misogyny — to bring out the worst in all of us, rather than the best. His serial shifts on fundamental issues reveal an astounding absence of preparedness. And his improvisational insults and midnight tweets exhibit a dangerous lack of judgment and impulse control.

After nearly four decades in the public spotlight, 25 of them on the national stage, Clinton is a known quantity. For all her warts, she is the candidate more likely to keep our nation safe, to protect American ideals and to work across the aisle to uphold the vital domestic institutions that rely on a competent, experienced president.

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

And here's what they had to say about Donald Trump:

What does it mean to be a Republican?

For generations, the answer had been clear: A belief in individual liberty. Free markets. Strong national defense.

But what does it mean to be a Republican today? With Donald Trump as the party's new standard-bearer, it's impossible to say.

Even before Trump's name reached the top of the GOP presidential ticket, the party was pulled in different directions. Many Republicans held fast to the good-governing principles of the past, while a growing wing of the party yanked hard from the right to force a conscripted definition of conservatism.

Inexplicably, the presidential candidate who emerged from that ideological tug of war was the one who thumbed his nose at conservative orthodoxy altogether. Trump is — or has been — at odds with nearly every GOP ideal this newspaper holds dear.  

Donald Trump is no Republican and certainly no conservative.

Individual liberty? Trump has displayed an authoritarian streak that should horrify limited-government advocates. This impulsive, unbridled New York real estate billionaire and reality-TV star wants to deport people who were born in the U.S. and don't meet his standard for loyalty. He has proposed banning all Muslims from entering the country, even those escaping Islamist rule, and won't rule out creating a database of Muslims already living here.

His open admiration of Russia's Vladimir Putin is alarming.

Free markets? Economic conservatism? Ronald Reagan once said that "protectionism is destructionism." Trump, on the other hand, has called the Trans-Pacific Partnership "a rape of our country."

Businesses who invest overseas, he says, should pay a hefty fine on imports. (We'll leave aside for a moment his hypocrisy in pretending that investing in hotels abroad, as he does, is somehow different from a manufacturer investing in foreign car factories.) His protectionism would likely force the U.S. into trade wars, increase the deficit and sink the U.S. economy back into a recession.  

Trump's idea of fiscal conservatism is reducing expenses by financing mountains of soul-crushing debt.

Strong national defense? Trump pledges to make our military "so big, so powerful, so strong that nobody — absolutely nobody — is going to mess with us." But what does he want to do with that military? He says he supports killing the families of Muslim terrorists and allowing interrogation methods "a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding." And if the military balks at obeying such orders?  "If I say do it, they're gonna do it," he says.

His isolationist prescriptions put sound bites over sound policy: Invite the Russians into our elections. Bomb the Middle East into dust. Withdraw from NATO.

It's not easy to offer a shorthand list of such tenets, since Trump flips from one side to the other, issue after issue, sometimes within a single news cycle. Regardless, his ideas are so far from Republicanism that they have spawned a new description: Trumpism.

We have no interest in a Republican nominee for whom all principles are negotiable, nor in a Republican Party that is willing to trade away principle for pursuit of electoral victory.

Trump doesn't reflect Republican ideals of the past; we are certain he shouldn't reflect the GOP of the future.

Donald Trump is not qualified to serve as president and does not deserve your vote.

(The caricatures of Clinton and Trump above are by DonkeyHotey.)

Largest Texas Newspaper Calls For Medicaid Expansion

Texas still has the largest number and percentage of citizens without any kind of health insurance coverage. That shouldn't surprise anyone, because the state also has the largest number and percentage of people making the minimum wage or less -- and workers making a poverty wage can't afford to buy health insurance. Most of these people don't qualify for a subsidy to help them buy insurance. Obamacare was designed to provide insurance for them through an expansion of the Medicaid program.

But as the chart above shows (from the Kaiser Family Foundation), Texas still refuses to expand the Medicaid program. That's because the state has a Republican governor and a Republican-dominated legislature -- and they have been far more interested in attacking Obamacare by playing political games than in helping any citizens to get health care coverage. This is causing many Texans to go without preventative care (which saves lives), and is also affecting many county hospitals in the state (who are stuck with the burden of trying to provide a minimum of care to the poor.

The crazy part of this is that expanding Medicaid would bring a huge amount of new money to the state, which would be a big boost to the state's economy. That's why many business groups have joined the effort to expand Medicaid. Now the state's largest newspaper, the Dallas Morning News (a bastion of conservatism) has joined that fight. Below is their editorial, asking the state officials to expand Medicaid:

Texas has never come to grips with the realities of providing health care to its poorest residents. It needs to now.

At the end of August, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services plan to pull the plug on a stop-gap solution that Parkland Memorial Hospital and other county hospital districts in Texas have used to obtain federal funding matches to serve Texas' poor. Dallas Morning News Austin reporter Robert T. Garrett disclosed this threat in a recent front page story.  

If those dollars go away, Parkland could lose $10 million annually, and if the feds apply the same approach to other related Medicaid programs, the financial impact could approach $24 million, Dr. Frederick Cerise, Parkland's president and chief executive officer, told us.  Unless something is worked out, Parkland would have to reduce services and that could have ripple effects across North Texas. 

A similar scenario could play out in other Texas counties as well. 

While the loss of these funds may not seem like much in Parkland's $1.5 billion budget, the hospital is facing a $100 million budget deficit, so the threat to quality care is real. The dilemma underscores the reason the state needs to do more to live up to its responsibility to properly fund Medicaid.

To meet their responsibility to serve the poor and to help offset costs, Parkland and other county hospitals acquired the operating licenses of  nursing home chains. A provision in the federal law made the hospitals and nursing homes eligible for supplemental Medicaid payments. 

Now the feds want to end this arrangement and have changed the policy to discourage providers from using supplemental payments to make up the financial shortfalls created from inadequate Medicaid funding at the state and local level.

It's a sad state of affairs that Parkland and other providers have had to resort to workarounds to perform their mission. When given the opportunity to access federal dollars by expanding coverage under the Affordable Care Act, Texas refused. That setback came after years of state officials authorizing ridiculously low fees to Medicaid service providers.

Over time, state lawmakers virtually guaranteed that hospitals like Parkland would lose money every time they treated a poor person. And, by not expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, which would have provided federal matching funds, the state forced hospitals like Parkland to find creative ways to provide Medicaid services.

Short term, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services would be wise to temporarily suspend action on Parkland's arrangement to allow all parties more time to unwind these complex arrangements. We don't want to see a bad situation made worse.  But for the long run, the Legislature simply must step up to its funding responsibilities. 

Many in the Texas business community, including the Dallas Citizens Council, the Texas Association of Business and various chambers of commerce, favor a robust Medicaid expansion program. They recognize the spiraling dangers of an underfunded health care system. 

We urge lawmakers to listen to these organizations. Texas is forfeiting billions of federal dollars that could help Parkland and other hospitals cover their Medicaid costs. Now we're seeing the unfortunate  consequences of the state's inaction.