Learning to be a citizen

Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayer has been touring the country promoting civic awareness and education.  She’s been to 38 states so far, and she has said, “No one is born a citizen.  You have to be taught what that means.”

The picture is bleak.  Almost a third of Americans cannot name a single branch of government.  Almost 40% cannot cite a right guaranteed by the First Amendment, although I’ll bet almost all of them know what is in the Second.

At a meeting in Jim Thorpe last Tuesday I learned that the Jim Thorpe School District no longer teaches government or civics.  The emphasis is on STEM–science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.  We are turning out graduates who are proficient in science but know very little about the responsibilities of citizenship.

Perhaps the students themselves can demand more courses in government.  Our country obviously is in need of that.

I found the statistics and the Sotomayor quote in Timothy Egan, “Actually, You Can Fix Stupid, New York Times, (March 31, 2018), p. A21.

Roseanne

The TV show Roseanne ran for seven seasons.  Somehow I never saw even one of those episodes.  I could not understand why anyone would want to spend time with a loud crude stupid person.  

Now Roseanne is back in a new series.  In the series she plays a Trump supporter, not a stretch for the actress, since she brags about having voted for Trump.

What amazes me is that Trump supporters are pleased that they are at last represented on television.  I cannot imagine being pleased by being represented by a loud crude stupid person, but then again, I’m not a Trump voter.  

I understand that many Trump voters are angry with people like me who look down upon them as ignorant louts who know nothing about the Constitution while spouting ideas like Obama was born in Kenya, the Parkland students are actors, and coal is coming back.  I’m glad they now have a hero on TV to represent them.  

Five who have to go

I understand the need for Democrats to tilt toward the middle in conservative districts.  The PA 9th Congressional district, where I now live, is considered safe Republican.  In this district any Democrat who wants to win better be closer to Montana Senator John Tester than Senator Kamela Harris of California.

On the other hand, if the 9th does elect a Democrat, he or she should generally vote with the Democrats and support overall party goals.  

In New York five state senators, organizing themselves as “The Independent Democratic Conference,” consistently vote with the Republicans, giving that party control of the state Senate.  This isn’t being middle-of-the road, this is outright betrayal of the party and the voters.

Now Democrats in their districts are organizing to defeat them in the primary.  Scared by the growing movement, the five are now in talks to return to the fold.  If I voted in their districts, I would say it was too late.  I like at least some integrity in my elected officials.

Tax law errors

It turns out that that tax “reform” jammed throughout Congress in less than two months with no hearings and changes made in pencil in the margins is full of errors.  Businesses, big and small, are discovering all sorts of problems.  They are asking for legislative help.

In fact, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent the Treasury Department 15 pages of detailed requests for clarifications.

If you were a Democrat in Congress, would you help?  Remember when the Democrats asked for help with the Health Care bill?  Did Republicans help?

Democrats, of course, are supposed to turn the other cheek.  Be noble.  Act like mature adults.

Screw that.

(An article earlier this month detailed all sorts of ambiguities and mistakes in the tax code.  There are so many.  See Jim Tankersley and Alan Rappeport, “Tax Law’s Errors Upset Employers as Leaders Feud:  A Rush Caused Mistakes,”  New York Times, (March 11, 2018), p. 1, 15.)

Linda Carol Brown, 1943-2018

Linda Carol Brown was a little kid in Topeka, Kansas, in the early 50s.  To reach her school she had to walk through a rail yard, then cross a busy street, then take a bus.  She could have gone to Sumner Elementary, which was much closer, except for one thing.  Sumner was a white school; Linda Carol Brown was black.  Her father went to court with the backing of the NAACP.

The case was “Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.”  (Note Kansas, not Mississippi or Alabama.)  The US. Supreme Court ruled 9-0 to overturn “Plessy v. Ferguson,” the 1896 case that said “separate but equal” did not violate the equal protection clause.  The Court opinion said that separating children on the basis of race “generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely to ever be undone.”

Linda Carol Brown and I were almost the same age.

School shooting suggestions

We’ve seen some really dumb suggestions to deal with school shootings.  If Trump were there, of course, he would rush in, even without a weapon, but that is an unlikely scenario.

Then we have the call to “arm the teachers.”  Since even trained police officers often shoot bystanders or each other, this strikes me as a really bad idea.  

One Pennsylvania school is putting buckets of river rocks in each class room so the students can stone the shooter.  I’m serious.

Finally, the prize winner.  Rickie Santorum wants to teach the students CPR.  Picture a kid lying on the floor with a sucking chest wound.  Another student shouts, “Let me through.  I know CPR.”

Rickie Santorum was considered to be one of the dumbest U.S. Senators when he represented Pennsylvania.  It is refreshing to know that he continues to live up to his reputation.

Signs at the demonstrations

Yesterday’s demonstrations were truly amazing.  The kids are taking on the N.R.A., shill for gun manufacturers. The N.R.A. isn’t about the 2nd Amendment, it is about sales and making money.

I loved the sign “What part of well regulated don’t you understand?”  Here were four others:

“The only thing easier to buy than a gun is a GOP candidate.”

“Talk to me about the sanctity of the second amendment when it is your kid bleeding out on the floor of his first grade classroom.”

“I can’t even bring peanut butter to school.”

and the best one:

“When I said I’d rather die than go to math class?  That was hyperbole, asshole.”

Should you take Monsanto's money?

Monsanto is an evil company.  It ranks right up there with WalMart, Facebook, Phillip Morris, and PennEast.  It produces Roundup and controls GMO soybeans specially developed for Monsanto chemicals.

Monsanto also funds the America’s Farmers Grow Rural Education program that grants local school districts $10,000 to $25,000 to design a program that enhances STEM education.  You go to <GrowRuralEducation.com> to apply.

Should you do this?  Of course you should.  In your application, however, explain that your program will emphasize the dangers of the chemicals, the pesticides, the insecticides, and the moral issues of using genetic engineering to enrich corporations.  If Monsanto is willing to fund the program, take the money.  (Or you could do all that, and not tell them.  Why not?)

See “Monsanto Fund Seeks Schools for Rural Education Program Grants,” Lancaster Farming, (24 March 2018), p. B-7.

The new budget

The President signed a $1.3 trillion spending bill.  It wasn’t a great bill, but:

the “wall” was reduced to 33 miles of fencing.  Mexico isn’t paying.

the proposal by Betsy DeVos to eliminate money for after-school programs for low-income students was rejected.  DeVos’s attempt to cut programs to help low income college students was rejected.  

the EPA budget was not slashed 30% as Trump wanted.  The appropriation is about what it was last year.  

National Endowment for the Arts defunding was not approved.  In fact, the NEA received more money.  

the Inspector General’s office, which is investigating Pruitt’s spending, received the same amount as last year.

the Chesapeake Bay cleanup was funded.

funds for the H.I.V programs in Africa that President Bush started,were kept level.

Trump’s proposal for a $7.5 billion cut to the National Institutes of Health was rejected.

Trump proposed to eliminate the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy that funds research into energy technologies.  Its budget was increased 16%.

All in all, we can live with this.  Evidently the Groper in Chief can also live with it.  After the usual bluster, he did sign it.

(I learned this from Julie Hirschfeld Davis, “A Republican Budget, but Not Exactly What the President Asked For,” New York Times, (March 23, 2018), p.A20.)

Protecting our votes

When problems have self-evident solutions, but the solutions are not adopted, you have to wonder why.  We have known for years that paper ballots provide a barrier to hacking.  Way back in 2000 I was in charge of a polling place in San Anselmo, California.  Voters were handed a paper ballot which they marked.  They then ran the ballot through a scanner.  The results were available immediately after the polls closed, but if there was even a hint of a problem, the paper ballots could be examined and counted.  They had been deposited in a bin underneath the scanner.

Even if somehow someone tampered with the scanner, we had a paper record of the votes.  That was 18 years ago, and we are still debating how to prevent hacking of our elections.  Instead of adopting a simple technology, Republicans in state after state are focusing on in-person vote fraud, a non-issue.  It is so painfully obvious why they are doing that. 

What Zuckerberg thinks of you

“Zuckerberg, in a well-known incident he now surely regrets, was asked in the early days of Facebook why people would hand over their personal information to him.  He responded, 'They trust me–dumb fucks.”’

I’m not on Facebook.

The quotation is from Tamsin Shaw, “Beware the Big Five,” The New York Review of Books, (April 5, 2018), p. 35.  The Big Five are Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Google.

38 white male scientists and one black woman

March is National Women’s History month.  Here’s an example of why we need it.  Today the New York Times ran a photo of 38 male scientists at the International Conference on the Biology  of Whales held in Virginia in 1971.  In the middle of all the men, in the second row, stands a partially obscured black woman.  She has an Afro and is wearing a headband.

Ms. Candace Jean Anderson, working on a book about marine mammals, found the picture.  All the men were identified, but not the woman.  Anderson turned to social media, was helped by the author of the book “Hidden Figures,” and finally found the identity of that lone black woman.  She was a museum technician at the time and she was Sheila Minor Huff.  She is now retired, a 71-year-old grandmother of five who volunteers at her church and lives in Virginia.  

When she retired she was a GS-14 federal employee in the Interior Department.  Ms. Huff, when contacted, said “It’s kind of like, no big deal.  When I try to do good, when I try and add back to this wonderful earth that we have, when I try to protect it, does it matter that anybody knows my name?”

At a time when Interior Secretary Zinke is doing his best to dismantle our environmental protections, Ms. Huff is truly an inspiration.

You can find the full story in today’s Times.  See Jacey Fortin, “She Was the Only Woman in a Photo of 38 Scientists.  Now She Has a Name.”  p. B4.  

Jim Zbick–Full Time Job

I am coming out of retirement and starting a full-time job.  Jim Zbick is a frequent editorial writer for the Lehighton Times News, and I have been hired to correct his errors, expose his wrong-headed statements, and explain where he went wrong.  It’s a frustrating job, but somebody has to do it.

Today, for example, he writes that the Democrats don’t have a deep bench for 2020.  First of all, it is rather early to be worried about 2020.  He may not realize we have congressional elections in 2018.  Jim, all the House members must run every two years; one-third of the Senate runs every two years.  

Ironically, this past Sunday’s Times ran an article by Frank Bruni discussing the deep bench of potential Democratic candidates for the presidency.  The list included Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris.  There’s New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and Representative Seth Moulton.  There are the old guys, Sanders and Biden.  There’s Amy Klobuchar and Sherrod Brown.  There’s Gov. Gina Raimondo of Rhode Isalnd and Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles.  Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of some of these people.  It doesn’t take long for a candidate to catch fire in the modern era.  

As they say on the TV commercials, but wait, there’s more.  Zbick’s column goes on to criticize Nancy Pelosi’s concern for the working poor by noting that she is rich.  Here are three worlds for you:  Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  Zbick is probably thinking of Trump, whose tax “reform” benefits himself and his rich friends.

Zbick ends his column with examples of “some of the biggest liberal gaffes” of Democratic politicians and critiques the media for ignoring them.  Wow.  Impressive finish there, Zbick.

No class outfit

When Comey was fired, he read the news on a TV broadcast.  When Tillerson was fired, Trump couldn’t do it face to face.  When McCabe was fired, three days before he was set to retire, Trump tweeted insulting things about him, though not to his face.

According to poll data, a majority of Republicans think Trump is a good role model for children.  

Irregular Workers

Approximately 1/3 of American workers are not in traditional permanent jobs.  If you are an hourly employee, there’s a good chance you won’t know when you are working next week.  You can be called in if business is heavy or sent home if it is slow.  

Lonnie Golden, an economist at Penn State University, found that about 17% of hourly workers have “unstable work shift schedules.”  Mr. Golden also found that roughly 41% of hourly workers receive their schedules no more than a week in advance.  

This is sometimes called the “gig economy.”  What it means, of course, is that hourly workers are being exploited, mistreated, and often working without benefits.  

While some states, like Oregon, have passed a “fair scheduling law” to protect workers and give them a more reasonable life, Pennsylvania is not among them.

Stormy Daniels (Vocals by Donald J. Trump)

I know why there’s no sun up in the sky

Stormy Daniels

She said I was her own little spaniel,

Keeps rainin’ all the time.

Skin was bare, booze and lipstick everywhere,

Blond-haired Stormy.

Just might be the ending for me.

I’ve gone way too far this time,

Finally too far this time.

When she went away the lawyers walked in and met me

And now that prosecutor Mueller’s goin’ to get me.

All I do is pray they’ll let me tweet each day from the prison.

Can’t go on, ev’ry thing I had is gone

It’s that Stormy,

Putin can’t do nothin’ for me.

Keeps rainin’ all the time.

(Apologies to Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler.  If you want to hear a slightly better version, go to Youtube and listen to Lena Horne.)

Class structure in America

Dalton Conley, a sociology professor at Princeton University and an expert on class structure and economic mobility in the U.S.was asked, “If someone has achieved a higher socioeconomic status than his or her parents, which factors proved most significant?”

Conley replied:  “Only two measurable socio-economic aspects of the parents really matter in predicting who succeeds:  the parents’ education, which is the most important, and the family’s wealth, which is the second most important.  By ‘wealth’ I don’t mean how much the parents make a year.  I mean net worth, including savings, property, and other financial resources.”

Can the American system of education widen that path to success?  I’m not sure, but it certainly won’t happen while Betsy DeVos is in charge.

Integrity in ICE

James Schwab, a spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, resigned last week because he no longer could stomach the lies being told.

When Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf warned the residents of Oakland that an ICE raid was forthcoming, ICE’s deputy director, Thomas D. Homan said that the warning had helped “864 criminal aliens and public safety threats” evade capture.

This was echoed by Jeff Sessions, who claimed that the Mayor’s action’s had allowed hundreds to escape.  Then Trump weighed in, saying almost a thousand dangerous criminals escaped capture.

Mr. Schwab stated,”I just couldn’t bear the burden–continuing on as a representative of the agency and charged with upholding integrity, knowing that information was false.”  Schwab said in his 16 years in government service, he had never been asked to lie before this.

For a full discussion of Mr. Schwab’s resignation, see Jonah Engel Bromwich, “Protesting ‘Falsehoods,’ A Spokesman for ICE Quits,” New York Times, (Mar. 14, 2018), p. A11.

First woman to head the CIA

Also first woman to run a secret torture site in Thailand.  First woman to supervise water boarding torture of prisoners.  

This is not the country I grew up in.

"Your daughter never existed"

Pastor Frank Pomeroy was sitting in his car outside his church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, when he noticed a man and a woman approaching the church.  The woman, Jodi Mann, began defacing a poster left for people to sign to express their condolences for the November 5 gun massacre at the church.  You may recall that that massacre left 26 people dead.  One of them was Pastor Pomeroy’s 14-year-old daughter Annabelle.

Pomeroy got out of his car to intervene.  The man, Robert Ussery, then yelled at Pastor Pomeroy, “Your daughter never even existed.  Show me her birth certificate.  Show me anything to say she was here.”

What do you do with a man like that?  Here’s my recommendation.  You punch that bastard right in the face as hard as you can.  If he says “Ow,” you say, “Sorry, that never happened.  You don’t even exist.”

I learned about this incident in a column by Leonard Pitts in the March 11, 2018, issue of the Morning Call, p. 27.  

Mr. Geiger

My high school English teacher Mr. Geiger died three weeks ago.  He taught English at the Palmerton High School for 35 years and then served as library director for the Palmerton Library for more years.  I have been writing and reading poetry ever since I was a senior at Palmerton High, thanks to Mr. Geiger.  

I emailed my friend Ray Carazo about a week ago telling him about Geiger’s death.  In high school Ray was a star athlete in football, baseball, and especially basketball and, I thought, probably not a big fan of Mr. Geiger.  Ray wrote back that because of Mr. Geiger’s influence, he has enjoyed a lifetime of listening to classical music. 

That’s a pretty good legacy.  Two guys with little in common, but both inspired for a lifetime of enjoyment by one amazing teacher.  

Preventing a veteran from voting

Ohio resident Joseph Helle registered to vote before he left for tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.  When he returned in 2011 he had been removed from the voting rolls because he hadn't voted while overseas.  Helle, now the mayor of Oak Harbor, Ohio, is one of thousands of Ohio residents with similar stories.  

Ohio’s Secretary of State says the state’s actions are necessary to ensure election security.  A federal appeals court disagreed last year and ordered that 7,515 ballots cast by voters whose names had been removed should be counted.  Trump disagrees with the ruling.

The Supreme Court will issue its ruling in June.  Given the views of Gorsuch and the other four conservatives, I anticipate the ruling will favor purging the Ohio rolls, denying people their right to vote.  I hope I’m wrong.

For more facts on this case, see Julie Carr Smyth and Mark Sherman, Ohio moves to toss inactive voters from rolls goes to court,” Morning Call, (Jan. 6, 2018), p. 21.

TPP signed, minus the U.S.

The purpose of the Trans-Pacific Partnership was originally conceived as a counterweight to China.  President Obama said, when supporting the pact, “America should call the shots,” not China. 

The proposed treaty had some of the same problems with labor and environmental protections as NAFTA, and Trump, Clinton, and Sanders all said they opposed it, although the lessons of NAFTA suggested that negotiations might improve matters.

The negotiations never took place.  One of Trump’s first acts as President was to pull the U.S. out of the TPP.  Today’s signing represents 11 Pacific rim countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, China, Mexico, Vietnam, Chile, and Peru. 

The pact will open markets in countries that represent about a seventh of the world’s economy.  It will, for example allow New Zealand, Canadian, and Australian beef to be imported into Japan.  American beef will face a 38.5% tariff.

To read more about the signing, see Ernesto Londoño and Motoko Rich, “Allies Sign Sweeping Pacific Trade Accord in a Challenge to Trump,” New York Times, (Mar. 8, 2018), p. A10.

Bean Soup Day at the Big Creek Grange

The Big Creek Grange sells bean soup as a fundraiser.  Preparation is a major two-day undertaking.  Approximately 350 quarts of bean soup are processed and sold.

My job is to cool the soup down after it is taken from the burners and before it is packaged.  Large tubs filled with ice are involved.  Every year this job seems to get harder; the average age of the Grange members is on the north side of 60.  The Big Creek Grange is the last Grange in Carbon County, and the number of farmers is in decline.

I noticed the conversations were on three main topics.  One was about deer hunting, deer population, venison preparation, and other deer-related subjects.  Another big topic was the recent storm, who lost electricity and for how long.  Most of the talk, however, was old people talk about operations, doctors, who was dying and who had died.  On the other hand, at least people weren’t talking about Trump.  That really would have been depressing.

Don't blame the Russians

If you were a reasonable person, would you believe that Hillary Clinton praised Shariah law?  Would you believe that the Black Lives Matter movement was killing police officers?  Would you believe that the Florida students working for gun safety were “actors”?  Would you believe that Hillary Clinton ran a pedophile ring out of the cellar of a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C.?

When did we get so stupid?  Russian meddling only works on gullible people willing to believe idiotic charges, but so many of us seem to be gullible.  In fact, our country is now in the hands of a man who believed that President Obama was born in Kenya.  

H.L.Mencken said it best.  “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”  Today even H. L. Mencken would be amazed.  

Did you know that immunization injections cause autism?  That global warming is a Chinese plot?  That Democrats want to take away your guns?    

It is truly amazing.

Would Jim Zbick turn in Anne Frank?

Recently the mayor of Oakland, California, warned the residents of Oakland that agents of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE, were planning to conduct raids in Oakland.  Columnist Jim Zbick pointed out in the March 5 issue of the Times News that the mayor was openly defying Federal law.  He quotes an ICE official comparing what the mayor did to “a gang lookout yelling ‘police.’”

Miep Gies, the Dutch woman who helped to hide Anne Frank and her family, was also breaking the law.  She was defying the law then in force in the Netherlands.  She had an obligation to turn in the Frank family, but she didn’t.

When Thoreau refused to pay taxes because of his opposition to slavery, he was breaking the law.  When the Suffragettes demonstrated at the White House, they were breaking the law.  When Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, she was breaking the law. 

The laws they were breaking were laws passed by government officials and enforced by government employees.  They all believed in a higher law.  Our country’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence, is based on that higher law.  “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Note that the rights enumerated in the Declaration precede government.  We are born with them.

I am fully aware that the people deported by ICE are not taken to a concentration camp to be killed.  (I should qualify that; some people fleeing the violence of El Salvador or Venezuela will be killed if they are returned.)  Nonetheless, Mr. Zbick might want to review the definition of “genocide.”

The word was coined by Rafael Lemkin in his 1944 book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe.  Lemkin defined genocide as “a coordinated strategy to destroy a group of people.”  ICE raids, often done in early morning hours, split families, leave children behind, and are completely arbitrary.  These actions are beneath us as a people.

And please, oh please, do not ask me “what part of illegal don’t you understand?”  The vast majority of deportees are “status offenders.”  They have committed no defined crime except to immigrate without papers.  If you want to build Trump’s wall, go ahead, build the damn thing.  But stop the deportations.  

I am proud of the mayor of Oakland.  I am proud we have sanctuary cities.  I am proud that there are still people like Miep Gies who do the right thing.

Bears Ears and Oil

It turns out that Sen. Hatch of Utah was involved in an effort to shrink the Bears Ears National Monument early in the Trump administration.  An email from Hatch to the Interior Department in March 2017 referred to oil and gas sites on a large portion of the Monument.

The map Hatch provided was given to the new Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who then recommended that Bears Ears be reduced by 85%.  It turns out that coal lies beneath the ground in the boundaries of Bears Ears delineated by Obama.  An email memo asked the staff of the Interior Department to prepare a report on all national monuments, emphasizing the “annual production of coal, oil, gas, and renewables (if any) on site.”

Sen. Hatch said he is glad these emails were released because they show he was “looking out for the people of Utah.”  I’d bet he was far more concerned with the coal and oil industry.  He certainly was not looking out for the American public nor the Indians of the Southwest.

In any other administration, this would be a scandal.  Under the Trump regime, it is business as usual.

If you want to read more about this sordid story, see Eric Lipton and Lisa Friedman, “Oil Was Central in Decision to Shrink Protected Utah Site, Emails Show, “ New York Times, (Mar. 5, 2018), p. A11.

Tax cut scam

So far the tax cuts are going just about as you might expect.  About $6 billion have gone to bonuses for workers.  More than $170 billion have gone to stock buybacks, giving money to wealthy stockholders.  The money going to buybacks is not going to plants and equipment.

The saddest thing is that the people getting that measly three and a half percent of the tax cut are grateful.  They should be furious.

Historic Palmerton

This week Jane Borbe, president of the Palmerton Area Historical Society, announced that the U.S. Department of the Interior had approved Palmerton’s application for official recognition on the National Register of Historic Places.

Palmerton was a company town, and the economic gradations of an early 20th century company town are still visible.  The New Jersey Zinc Company built worker houses along Mauch Chunk Avenue, West Princeton and West Edgemont, Avenues A and B, and Lehigh Street.  The distinctive small one-story houses, built assembly-line style, were for blue collar workers, many of them immigrants from Eastern Europe.  

When you move slightly up in elevation to Franklin, Lafayette, and Columbia Streets, you are in middle management territory.  These two-story houses are more substantial and definitely middle class. 

Higher up in elevation and income, you reach Residence Park, partially separated from the town by a stone wall.  This neighborhood, with its curved streets and upscale homes with actual yards, was home to the Zinc Company executives.

Very few company towns show the economic gradations this clearly.  Palmerton deserves its designation on the National Register, and I am pleased to be a member of the Palmerton Area Historical Society which went through a long precess to win the official recognition.

Billy Graham

Billy Graham was buried today, and I thought I should say something about him.  My mother always told me, if you can’t say anything good about a person, don’t say anything.

You can't always get what you want

Pennsylvania’s new congressional districts are compact, contiguous, and don’t split many municipalities.  However, unfortunately for most residents of Carbon County, we lose our Congressman Matt Cartwright, one of the best members currently serving in the House.  Cartwright is intelligent, responsive to his constituents, has an excellent staff both in the district and in Washington, is able to work with Republicans, and is a real American patriot.

Carbon could have been lumped with Lehigh and Northampton, which probably would have been a Democratic district.  Carbon could have been attached to Lackawanna and Luzerne, which also would also lean Democratic.

Instead our new district, the 9th, goes west and south and includes Columbia, Montour, Schuylkill, Lebanon, and part of Berks, though not Reading.  Winning the district will be an uphill battle for Democrats; Billy O’Gurek, the Democratic County Chair, noted that the district went for Trump in 2016 by something like 68%.  On the other hand, the wheels are coming off what once was the Trump bandwagon, so Democrats have a real opportunity.