Special Collections Spotlight: African American and African Pamphlet collection
September 15, 2022 August 3, 2022 / hornbakelibrary / Leave a comment
The African-American and African Pamphlet Collection consists of 20th century materials on African, African-American, and Caribbean culture and literature. The collection spans the years 1905 -1979, although the majority of the pamphlets date from the 1960s and 1970s. The pamphlets are in English, French, and a variety of African languages, such as Swahili, Tsonga, Tswana and Xhosa. Some of the unique publications include a transcript of a 1931 worker’s trial by the U. S. Communist Party on a race-related incident, 1970s university studies on integration, and texts of speeches given by American radical leaders and leaders of African countries.
The collection is organized in thirteen series that include; African Culture and History, African Literature, African-American Culture and History, African-European Literature, American Literature, Black Workers in America, Canadian Literature – Poems, Caribbean Culture and History, Caribbean Literature, Desegregation, Race Relations and Racism, Revolutionary and Radical Literature.
Explore the African American and African Pamphlet collection finding aid.
To view any items in the collection visit the Maryland Room in Hornbake Library or if you have any questions, please contact us!
What is a finding aid?
A finding aid is a description of the contents of a collection, similar to a table of contents you would find in a book. A collection’s contents are often grouped logically and describe the group of items within each folder. You rarely find descriptions of the individual items within collections. Finding aids also contain information about the size and scope of collections. Additional contextual information may also be included.
New Exhibit: “…at the crossroads on the path to liberation”
February 22, 2022 February 21, 2022 / hornbakelibrary / Leave a comment
Come by the Maryland Room in Hornbake Library to see our latest exhibition “…at the crossroads on the path of liberation”: Changemakers in the Africa Diaspora on display now through mid-March.
This collection of material from our archives invites the University of Maryland community to explore some of the revolutionary and transformative literature in our collections created by changemakers throughout the African diaspora who challenged an oppressive status quo. Through both words and actions, these individuals changed the way people thought about race and class. These works present ideas that push us to take a more critical look at our culture, politics and systemic racism. Some of these authors will be known to you and some might be new. We encourage you to visit and to learn more about these changemakers.
Images from the exhibition “…at the crossroads on the path to liberation”: Changemakers in the Africa Diaspora
Digitizing the AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department records
January 13, 2022 January 7, 2022 / hornbakelibrary / Leave a comment
In May 2021, Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) began a three year grant project with Georgia State University’s Southern Labor Archive – “Advancing Workers Rights in the American South: Digitizing the Records of the AFL-CIO’s Civil Rights Division.”
SCUA will digitize and make accessible online approximately 45 linear feet (or 20-25%) from the AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department records (listed below), as well as 20 – 16mm films from the AFL-CIO Labor Film collection. Georgia State University’s Special Collections & Archives will be digitizing 119 linear feet and some audio recordings from the Records from the AFL-CIO’s Southern Area Director’s Office Civil Rights Division for online access. This project is supported by a Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. For more details about the grant award visit CLIR’s list of 2020 funded projects and the University of Maryland Libraries’ announcement.
Voter Suppression: Then and Now
June 1, 2021 July 7, 2021 / hornbakelibrary / Leave a comment
Following the 2020 presidential election, the ensuing debates over the integrity of the election and the violence of early 2021, voting rights and efforts to ensure fair and safe elections seem as important as ever.
The Brennan Center for Justice’s State Voting Bill Tracker 2021 reports that in just over one month, hundreds of restrictive bills were introduced across the country, some of which have already passed and been signed into law. Georgia, Arizona, Texas, Florida and Michigan’s legislative battles have dominated headlines for many weeks.
As debates rage, many have invoked terminology we thought a distant part of our nation’s troubled history, calling these newly introduced voting bills Jim Crow laws. Looking into our past using resources in our collections can help us better understand the ways laws meant to protect marginalized citizens failed. Politicians cloaked systemic bias into law by utilizing coded language and proxies for race to deny people of color access to the ballot.
Literacy Tests and Poll Taxes
Gerrymandering & the Attempted Elimination of Macon County, Alabama, 1957
April 20, 2021 May 10, 2021 / hornbakelibrary / Leave a comment
Despite its fundamental political motive–to reshape voting districts in order to benefit the electoral chances of one political party–gerrymandering may be one of the few practices that Republicans and Democrats have in common these days. Although the effects of Republican-led gerrymandering has arguably received more national attention during recent years, both parties have used this practice to gain political advantages. Districts across Maryland, for example, have been redrawn by both major parties during the last several decades. Take Baltimore–a longtime resident in southern Baltimore may have lived in as many as three different electoral districts during the last 20 years.
While gerrymandering has been utilized to both maximize and minimize the electoral impact of different groups of voters, its geographic effect typically follows a certain pattern. The shapes of different districts change every few years as a result of gerrymandering. However, in 1957 in southeast Alabama, the practice of gerrymandering almost led to the complete elimination of one county entirely. The reason? To severely curtail the voting power of African-American residents.
Despite ever-present resistance from white, pro-segregation factions, including violent intimidation tactics used by white nationalist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, black voter registration in the South rose steadily during the 1950s. A corresponding trend was also occurring in Macon County, Alabama–located about 40 miles east of Montgomery and home to the historically-black Tuskegee University. Whereas only 30 African-American residents were registered to vote in 1930, over 1,000–or roughly three percent of the total county population–were registered by 1957.
Of course, this trend also created heightened concern among white southerners who feared that black voters would be able to curtail long-standing segregation laws across the region. In turn, they worked with state legislators like Alabama senator Sam Engelherdt to develop and implement strategies to stop the growth of black voters.
Disenfranchisement in Mississippi, 1954
On February 3, 1870, the United States ratified the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The third and final amendment of the Reconstruction Amendments–enacted in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War to help rebuild the Union and establish a freer society unbound from slavery–prohibits states and the federal government from withholding a citizen’s right to vote based on that person’s “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” After Iowa ratified the amendment on February 3–becoming the 28th state to do so and fulfilling the three-fourths threshold for amendment ratification–celebrations sprung out across the country.
At the time, President Ulysses S. Grant claimed that the passage of the Fifthteenth Amendment “completes the greatest civil change and constitutes the most important event” in the nation’s history. Many other Republicans believed that the amendment would finally guarantee black Americans equal rights under the law. Future president James A. Garfield even declared that the amendment would ensure black Americans control over their collective well-being. Garfield proclaimed, “It places their fortunes in their own hands.”
Nevertheless, because the federal government failed to strongly enforce the Fifteenth Amendment at the state level after the Reconstruction Era, southern states used alternative methods to restrict the right to vote for black Americans. For many decades after the ratification of the amendment, the state of Mississippi became one of the more deliberate enablers of disenfranchisement methods. By 1875, only five years after the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, members of the Democratic Party in the state developed what came to be known as the Mississippi Plan–a series of measures used to suppress the black vote and keep their party in power. Eventually, these measures culminated in the passage of a new state constitution in 1890, which explicitly disenfranchised black voters through the implementation of poll taxes and literacy tests.
Disenfranchisement in Mississippi and other Southern states–enforced using voter registration measures like poll taxes as well as violent intimidation tactics organized by racist vigilante groups like the Ku Klux Klan–persisted throughout the late 1800s and well into the 20th century. However, by the mid-1950s, events like the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the emergence of grassroot civil rights groups like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference helped spur rejuvenated calls for actions to protect the rights and well-being of African-Americans across the country.
Racism as a Political Tool in the Southern Suffrage Movement
March 23, 2021 May 11, 2021 / hornbakelibrary / Leave a comment
In 1870, the 15th Amendment stated that “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” This amendment gave many men of color the right to vote, though racist state and local governments almost immediately drafted new laws to disenfranchise them.
Across the American South, racist politicians scrambled to restrict Black votes and maintain white supremacy. As soon as the federal government stopped enforcing the 15th Amendment after Reconstruction, Southern states successfully disenfranchised most Black men with Jim Crow laws and violent intimidation tactics.
However, as the women’s suffrage movement regained popularity, Southern politicians feared not only that the proposed Susan B. Anthony Amendment would enfranchise Black women voters, but that it would re-enfranchise Black male voters as well. As Congress debated the Amendment in 1919, South Carolina Senator Ellison “Cotton Ed” Smith argued that “the southern man who votes for the Susan B. Anthony Amendment votes to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment.”
Spotlight on Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
February 16, 2021 January 28, 2021 / hornbakelibrary / Leave a comment
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was an abolitionist, women’s rights activist, and acclaimed poet born in Baltimore in 1825. Born to free parents and orphaned at three, Watkins was raised by her maternal uncle Rev. William Watkins, an abolitionist and civil rights activist, and his wife Henrietta. She was educated at her uncle’s school, the Watkins Academy for Negro Youth. While she was still very young, Harper worked as a nursemaid and seamstress for a white family that owned a bookshop. There, she discovered her love for books and filled her free time with reading.
From there, Watkins grew up to become the first African American woman to publish a short story, and she published her first book of poetry, Forest Leaves, at age 20. Harper went on to publish another book of poetry, many short stories, and several novels, including her most popular work Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted. Watkins’ writing often addressed issues of race, gender, and their intersections.
The poem below, “Slave Mother,” highlights the painful relationship between motherhood and Blackness that Harper observed during her lifetime.
Heard you that shriek? It rose
So wildly on the air,
It seem’d as if a burden’d heart
Was breaking in despair.
Saw you those hands so sadly clasped—
The bowed and feeble head—
The shuddering of that fragile form—
That look of grief and dread?
Saw you the sad, imploring eye?
Its every glance was pain,
As if a storm of agony
Were sweeping through the brain.
She is a mother pale with fear,
Her boy clings to her side,
And in her kyrtle vainly tries
His trembling form to hide.
He is not hers, although she bore
For him a mother’s pains;
He is not hers, although her blood
Is coursing through his veins!
He is not hers, for cruel hands
May rudely tear apart
The only wreath of household love
That binds her breaking heart.
His love has been a joyous light
That o’er her pathway smiled,
A fountain gushing ever new,
Amid life’s desert wild.
His lightest word has been a tone
Of music round her heart,
Their lives a streamlet blent in one—
Oh, Father! must they part?
They tear him from her circling arms,
Her last and fond embrace.
Oh! never more may her sad eyes
Gaze on his mournful face.
No marvel, then, these bitter shrieks
Disturb the listening air:
She is a mother, and her heart
Is breaking in despair.
In her discussions of intersectionality, Watkins alienated many white suffragists. She criticized the racism and selfishness of their refusal to support the 15th Amendment. In response, she helped found the American Woman Suffrage Association, which actively supported the 15th Amendment. She was also active in the “Colored Section” of Philadelphia’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union.
Later, Watkins helped organize the National Association of Colored Women (NACW). The NACW focused on both black and women’s issues such as women’s suffrage, lynching, and Jim Crow laws, and became the most prominent organization of the African American Women’s Suffrage Movement.
Post by Rigby Philips
History, specializing in women’s history and the history of sexuality (2021)
New Exhibition Online: Get Out the Vote
We are thrilled to announce the launch of a new virtual exhibition, Get Out the Vote: Suffrage and Disenfranchisement in America.
Inspired by our collections of grassroots organizations, we used material from our collection to tell the story of voting rights in America, from the founding of this nation to our current electoral climate.
The ideal of universal suffrage, or “one person, one vote,” has compelled many to advocate for greater equity and inclusion in the electoral process. Over the years, voting rights have expanded and contracted for many marginalized communities. Election laws continue to evolve in America as citizens demand equitable representation in government and access to the ballot.
Despite the importance of suffrage in America, voting rights have not always been ensured for everyone. Barriers to voting have led many to advocate for a more representative electorate and to encourage greater participation in local, state, and national elections. Their efforts are crucial to ensure all ALL citizens have the opportunity to cast their ballot.
Visit the online exhibition, explore our collections, and contact us to learn more.
Washington, DC, 1 March 1913. Baltimore News American Collection
Undated.
Baltimore News American Collection
New York, NY, 19 October 1963.
AFL-CIO records
Undated. Frontlash records
African-Americans in the Early Labor Movement
DYK that labor unions did not allow African-Americans to become members back in the day? Being a member of a union was important to be able to bargain for workers’ rights and fight against the discrimination that black workers faced. Many skilled black workers sought to join unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL) between 1881 and 1915. But, white craft union members, who were primarily affiliated with the AFL, were afraid of the competition and didn’t allow African Americans to join. On the other hand, industrial unions were more accepting of black workers.
The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) union members pose with locomotive firemen, ca. 1940. AFL-CIO Photographic Print Collection (RG96-001)
Who were early allies?
The Knights of Labor, the AFL until 1915, the United Mine Workers of America, the International Longshoreman’s Union, and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
Some black workers allowed to join:
The Teamsters, the Cigar Makers, the Hotel and Restaurant Employees, the Carpenters, and the Printers.
Very few black workers allowed to join:
The Pressmen, the Lithographers, the Photo-Engravers, the Iron Steel and Tin Workers, the Molders, the Pattern Makers, the Glass Workers, the Boot and Shoe Workers, and the Wood Workers
For more information about the relationship of the civil rights movement and the labor movement, visit our exhibit “For Liberty, Justice, and Equality: Unions Making History in America” in person or online or email us at askhornbake@umd.edu.
Jen Eidson is a Special Collections Processing Archivist in the University of Maryland Libraries.


Liverpool vs Chelsea Betting Tips: Giroud to make the difference in a tight game at Anfield
class=”article_teaser__2t5do”>Boasting a strong record against the Reds, Al Hain-Cole thinks the Frenchman could provide the key to unlock a tight encounter for Tuchel's men
Liverpool will need to dig deep for inspiration when they take on Chelsea at Anfield in Thursday’s Premier League clash.
The Reds have failed to score a single goal from open play in their last five matches on home turf and are up against a team that has only conceded twice in nine games under Thomas Tuchel.
Mohamed Salah’s penalty in the 4-1 defeat against Manchester City is the only goal Jurgen Klopp’s men have scored at Anfield in 2021, with the Egyptian star leading the Premier League scoring charts with 17 goals.
On target seven times in his last nine appearances, he is bet365’s 3/1 (4.00) favourite to open the scoring against his former club and priced at just at 5/6 (1.83) to strike anytime.
Sadio Mane has scored just five league goals in 21 games since his match-winning double in September’s 2-0 reverse encounter at Stamford Bridge but he can be backed at 11/8 (2.38) to get back among the goals here.
Roberto Firmino had a much-needed confidence booster taken away when his deflected strike against Sheffield United went down as a Kean Bryan own goal on Monday, although he is available at 15/8 (2.88) to leave no room for doubt by scoring against Chelsea for the third league game in four.
With just 10 goals to their name in nine matches under their new manager, the Blues are also slightly lacking in cutting edge as they arrive on Merseyside.
Having scored twice in his last four appearances, Olivier Giroud is their 5/1 (6.00) favourite to break the deadlock and available at 6/4 (2.50) to strike anytime.
That anytime price could well be a good option considering the Frenchman has scored seven times in 13 league appearances against Liverpool, who have kept just one clean sheet in their last eight league fixtures.
Giroud is certainly ahead of Tammy Abraham in the pecking order, with the England striker priced at 7/4 (2.75) to score a first league goal under Tuchel.
Mason Mount has hit the back of the net in two of his last four league matches and is a tempting 10/3 (4.33) longer shot to get on the scoresheet in what promises to be a tight encounter.
Click Here: United Kingdom Rugby Jersey


Haaretz | Opinion
Israel, Take a Lesson From Brexit
Sami Peretz
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Demonstrators supporting Brexit protest outside of the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain, November 23, 2016.Credit: Toby Melville, Reuters
Ray, 65, from Birmingham, England was a keen supporter of the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union, saying he was fed up with the elites and the bureaucrats in Brussels deciding things for him – echoing a key complaint among Brexit supporters. Every revolution needs an enemy, and for the British, it was the elites in Britain and top EU officials. Immigrants were also viewed as an enemy (of course). The combination of an aloof, disconnected elite and the specter of an influx of migrants taking jobs away proved to be a lethally convincing formula that led to Brexit.
Israel's Jewish Fundamentalists are in Power. Here's What You Should Know
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Almost six years after London began the formal withdrawal process, many “Brexiteers” now have “Brexit remorse.” The process has not been kind to the British economy. Inflation is high, growth low and the pound sterling is weak. Bureaucracy has only increased and border crossings are less smooth. Ray is also a Brexit regretter: “The real meaning of it wasn’t explained to us,” he says. The anti-Brexit campaign may have been poorly run, but it’s also possible that Ray and millions of other Britons just didn’t want to listen, since anyone identified with the detached elites is summarily disqualified.
This is the situation here with the judicial coup being led by Benjamin Netanyahu. There are elements here that are similar to what happened with Brexit: On one side, elites talking about the dangers posed by the judicial coup to democracy, human rights and the economy; on the other, large numbers of people who relate more to messages about governance, nationalism and strength, and who despise elites.
In Britain, the decision on Brexit was made by a national referendum. Here, not only is the judicial overhaul not being put to a referendum, but no expert committee has even been established to examine the problems in the justice system that need fixing. This radical regime change is being made via an opportunistic grab in the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee and adheres to the pattern of constructing a common enemy and relentlessly vilifying it until it is perceived as the enemy of the people. We’ve just seen all the top politicians, from the prime minister to the Knesset speaker, lash out at the High Court of Justice in a show of support for Arye Dery. This was much more than an ostensible show of support for him. In practice, it was a show of mafia-style threats against the attorney general and the justice system, lest they dare discuss the possibility of declaring Netanyahu incapable of carrying out his duties, in order to reiterate the lie that the people’s elected choice supersedes every judicial and legal consideration. Dery was the first line of defense that the High Court knocked down, but the main issue is Netanyahu and his legal fate.
A time to strike
Is Israel already turning into authoritarian Erdogan's Turkey?
Prime Minister Netanyahu and his far-right allies wage war against the rule of law
The high-tech sector’s protest, the speech by Supreme Court President Esther Hayut, the open letters from CEOs, the Black Robes Protest by lawyers, the letter from the former Bank of Israel governors and all the other civil initiatives are very desirable and worthy efforts to prevent the radical judicial overhaul. So, too, are the public protests in the big cities. But these efforts all share one internal flaw: They are associated with the elites, and the message being promulgated by Netanyahu and his far right-Haredi government is that elites, and first and foremost the justice and law enforcement system, are an axis of evil. In such circumstances, even the most professional and genuine attempts to explain and warn of the dangers of the proposed judicial coup are liable to fall on deaf ears.
When educated, well-off people – judges, legal advisors, high-tech workers, executives, lawyers, doctors, academics – come out against the “reform,” it creates an impression that they stand to be hurt directly. But for the most part, they and their children are in good shape – with decent wages, assets and high pensions – and will stay that way even after the judicial coup. The cost of the damage to human rights and the economy, and of the increasing corruption, will mainly be borne by the weaker segments of the public. No good will come to them from politicians being handed more power. The politicians already have more than enough power to address important things like violence, education, infrastructure and the cost of living, with no court standing in their way, and what do they have to show for it? The challenge for opponents of the judicial coup is to get people to listen and to understand the inherent dangers, unlike what happened with Brexit.
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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2010 Week 05 Hansard (Thursday, 6 May 2010) . . Page.. 2064 ..
project scopes and associated cost vary, including shade sails, shade structures, the refurbishment of classrooms, libraries, school front entries and assembly halls, and the construction of new libraries, assembly halls, multi-purpose buildings and environmental centres. The cost will also vary with the extent of furniture fitout which may include, for example, interactive white boards, audio visual systems, and desks and chairs. The cost for these elements differ significantly and it would therefore be meaningless to aggregate as an average per metre figure.
At the start of the BER initiative’s implementation, it was decided that all projects would be custom designed and built on site, in consultation with school communities. The size of buildings, design features, environmental design initiatives, the level of fitout and other inclusions such as covered walkways was agreed on a school-by-school basis and therefore differ from one project to another. The project scope was however contained within the funding allocated for each school.
(2) Prior to the commencement of the BER initiative in February 2009, the ACT Government funded a range of capital improvements, new schools and new facilities across ACT public schools. This included the construction of Kingsford Smith School, new gymnasiums at Belconnen and Stromlo High Schools, the performing arts centre at Lyneham High School, and school refurbishments at older schools such as Alfred Deakin High School, Telopea Park School and Narrabundah College.
Similarly, the cost of these projects would be meaningless if aggregated and averaged. In addition, each project is managed and delivered through different construction methods and therefore each project cannot be compared on a cost per square metre basis.
With the assistance of ACT Procurement Solutions, the Department of Education and Training delivers capital infrastructure projects on a competitive and value for money tender basis.
(3) As explained above, cost comparisons are not feasible when such a wide range of project scopes is being undertaken.
Planning—Molonglo
(Question No 893)
Ms Le Couteur asked the Minister for Planning, upon notice, on 25 March 2010:
(1) What work has the ACT Planning and Land Authority done to meet the Government’s Children’s Plan commitments for Molonglo.
(2) Have any children been consulted at any stage through the planning processes.
Mr Barr: The answer to the member’s question is as follows:
(1) The ACT Planning and Land Authority participated on a Child Friendly City Sub Committee of a cross-Government interdepartmental committee that was established by the Department of Disability, Housing and Community Services in 2009.
During 2009, a process to revisit and refresh the ACT Children’s Plan was undertaken. This process involved consulting with children, families and people who


Jimmy Pitaro Praises ESPN’s Resilience In 2020
Sports TV News
“While Disney and ESPN both exemplified problem-solving skills throughout the year, they weren’t immune to the negative financial impacts of COVID-19, which led to many employee cuts.”
There is no handbook for sports media brands and companies when navigating a global pandemic. For that, ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro and Disney CEO Bob Chapek are proud of the way they handled the unprecedented challenges that popped up in 2020.
“No one could have anticipated the challenges we faced in 2020,” Pitaro said during ESPN’s annual town hall event, which was held virtually Thursday morning for ESPN employees nationwide. “And it’s times like these where people are often judged. And I promise you that history will show that the people of ESPN delivered . . . and did so with grace and integrity.”
According to ESPNFrontRow.com, Disney CEO Bob Chapek echoed Pitaro’s sentiment, believing ESPN’s parent company “demonstrated unbelievable resourcefulness and creativity.” Chapek highlighted the NBA Bubble as an example, which took a tremendous amount of planning by the league, Disney and ESPN to orchestrate as they crowned a season champion.
While Disney and ESPN both exemplified problem-solving skills throughout the year, they weren’t immune to the negative financial impacts of COVID-19, which led to many employee cuts. The day before Thanksgiving, Disney announced 32,000 workers would be laid off during the first half of 2021.
ESPN similarly had their largest round of layoffs ever late last year, cutting 300 jobs and leaving another 200 open positions unfilled. The cuts eliminated 500 jobs in total from a company that has 4,000 employees working out of Bristol and 6,000 worldwide.
Despite those unfortunate realities, both Pitaro and Chapek are optimistic for the futures of ESPN and Disney.
“Likewise, here at ESPN, and for so many reasons, I feel optimistic about the year ahead,” Pitaro said. “At the same time, I’m also realistic about the business challenges we face. The changes we’ve seen over the last few months have, at times, felt sudden and difficult, but I can assure you this strategic business shift is something we’ve been building towards for years, at Disney and at ESPN.”
Brandon Contes is a former reporter for BSM, now working for Awful Announcing. You can find him on Twitter @BrandonContes or reach him by email at Brandon.Contes@gmail.com.
Related Topics:Barrett Sports MediaBob ChapekBSMDisneyESPNJason BarrettJimmy PitaroSports Television
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“ESPN has certainly mentioned going up to 12 games or more, and Eli and I held strong.“
There’s no secret based on the last two seasons that NFL fans really do enjoy tuning in to watch Peyton and Eli Manning on Monday nights.
Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli, affectionately known as the ManningCast, has proven to be a ratings success for ESPN. Monday night’s wild card playoff edition drew in an audience of 1.7 million. That’s an increase of 17% compared to last year.
The Mannings spoke to Jeff Beer of Fast Company and Peyton said as much as the fans love watching, the two brothers and legendary quarterbacks love doing the show.
“One thing I think comes through is just how much Eli and I enjoy this,” Peyton said.
But Peyton added that they do care about oversaturating the space, which is why he said they turned down the idea of increasing the number of shows this season from 10 to 12.
“We laugh a lot. If you maybe go to 17 games, maybe we’re not laughing as much, and it starts to get repetitive,” he said. “ESPN has certainly mentioned going up to 12 games or more, and Eli and I held strong. We just feel the show is better if we keep it to the 10.”
“I don’t want to see him every week and get his voice memos of breaking down (game) film,” Eli joked. “There’s something to people wanting more, and if we’re on too much, they might not want more. It keeps me motivated.”
One of the things that people love so much about the show is just how organic the exchanges between Peyton and Eli and Peyton, Eli and their guests can be. Peyton gets the appeal from fans and knows viewers think of it as meeting up with them at a bar to watch the game.
“Football is always more fun when you watch it with friends,” Peyton said. “Eli and I get to sit on our couches and watch it together, and the viewers are all of our friends, and the guest is just right there with us. We’re on the couch, we’re at a bar, let’s have a conversation.”
Eli said they do try to make sure things stay focused on football and the game they’re watching when the time calls for it. But he also admitted that he and his older brother are always going to find ways to have fun with each other when they can as well.
“If there’s great football happening, and it’s a tight game, you want to keep it about football,” he said. “But if it’s a blowout, you have to do something else, maybe tell a story, take a shot at Peyton, you don’t know where that’s going to go. It’s authentic. That’s what would happen if we were sitting on the couch watching the game and it’s a bit boring; I might take a pillow and throw it at my brother’s head.”
“The 2023 edition of the show was on NBC after the two sides struck a one-year deal back in September.”
There’s no hiding the fact that the NFL reigns supreme in TV ratings. Unfortunately for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which puts on the Golden Globe Awards, the NFL is too strong to compete against.
Since the NFL expanded the regular season to 17 games over 18 weeks, and added a seventh playoff team in each conference, in 2021-22, NBC’s obligation to football has taken precedent over its obligation to airing the Golden Globes.
The award show this year aired on Tuesday, January 10. On January 8, NBC aired the final regular season game of the year on Sunday Night Football between the Lions and Packers. The game drew an audience of 23.9 million, which NBC said was the highest rating a SNF finale has gotten in six years. NBC carried an AFC wild card playoff game this past Sunday night with the Bengals and Ravens. That game averaged 21.2 million.
Meanwhile the Golden Globes drew in 6.3 million. That number was down 9% compared to the 2021 ceremony. NBC didn’t air the Golden Globes in 2022 amid a Los Angeles Times expose into the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
With the HFPA mired in scandal and waning interest in their award show, NBC could be done with the Golden Globes. The 2023 edition of the show was on NBC after the two sides struck a one-year deal back in September. So there are questions abound about if NBC will continue to air it. However knowing that even with the expanded season and playoffs, the option to shift the award show to later in January on a Sunday night after NBC has fulfilled its obligation to the league is on the table. But that could throw a wrench in the award season schedule as well.
“LIV Golf television analyst David Feherty had hinted that the upstart league could potentially have a deal in place with The CW Network for American television rights.”
According to a report from Front Office Sports, LIV Golf has laid out a deal with The CW Network for television carriage in the United States.
The deal is a multi-year agreement that will see the tour own real estate in lesser-viewed time slots on the network. A revenue-sharing relationship between the tour and the television network is expected to be struck.
After a standup comedy show in West Palm Beach last week, Feherty reportedly told the crowd “Have you heard of CW? I might get fired for this, but…,” according to report from Tom D’Angelo of The Palm Beach Post.
Sports Business Journal reporter John Ourand had previously reported a deal between the Saudi-backed breakaway golf tour and the network was likely.
Nexstar Media Group — the nation’s largest television owner — is the majority owner of The CW Network. There are around 220 affiliates of the network on over-the-air television stations. Rumors of an acquisition of LIV Golf’s rights come on the heels of The CW Network being linked to the potential launch of a college football bowl game that would air exclusively on the network.


Parting Shot: What's Wrong with The World
Guest commentary by Postmodern Conservative.
I won't be posting as often to Liberty Corner in the coming weeks, as I catch up on some offline projects. Meanwhile, let me share my explanation of what's wrong with the world (of politics) in less than 300 words.
What's wrong has to do with human nature. That nature is flawed and it is also unchanging. However the safeguards that were once in place to deal with man's frailties are falling away bit by bit. So the drift to the left has, as you've probably guessed, only increased.
Leftists dominate politics because they promise more than candidates and officials on the right. It's not what you deliver but what you promise. Leftists can raise the gas tax but they can still promise more programs.
Leftists have an edge because they cater to people with too much time on their hands: welfare recipients and comfortable ideologues. Leftists, as a general rule, don't like to raise their children. Other people can do that. Now these people have more time to spend on their leftist politics.
Political responsibility is not just a question of keeping busy, but what you keep busy with. For leftists it always seems to be someone else's business. Leftists also offer more perks than conservatives for those who want to spend their time irresponsibly. People can do what they want and the consequences are either ignored or become the justification for more leftist programs.
Leftists offer meaningless freedoms. Real freedom requires responsibility and has to be worked for. It means that rewards are greater, but they are deferred. Leftists cater to instant gratification. They let consenting adults do whatever they want (except own firearms).
Finally, the leftist creed offers all the spiritual satisfaction of religion. You can feel better than others without changing your lifestyle. You just need to recycle more stuff. You can worship the earth, but you don't have to obey the Ten Commandments. And any rules that are made are made for someone else ("not me"), imposed by means of government programs.
Posted by Anonymous at 12:45 PM
Categories: Conservatism and True Libertarianism, Leftism - Statism - Democracy
Classics on Film: Last of the Mohicans
When watching film versions of great books I am reminded of the old "classic comics"—those illustrated presentations of famous literature that were put out in the '50s and '60s. I managed to get hold of one or two ragged copies of them as a kid in the '70s. Of course, there is always the danger that popular presentations of classic stories, abridged in print or film, can result in the dumbing-down of great literature. The Veggie Tales series, for example, goes too far in that direction, turning stories of the Bible and famous novels into silly preschool caricatures. It reveals the tendency of adults to underestimate children. But if done right, movies can give young people a taste for good books, and they can be enjoyable in their own right.
This past week my kids and I watched the 1971 BBC miniseries of James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. Like a lot of British productions from the period it is low budget and you can see them recycling some of the same actors as both British soldiers and Indians. Yet they really did the most with what they had. There are memorable characters and good dialogue. Cooper has Indians declaiming like Shakespearean actors. But that is no more anachronistic than having ancient Romans talking like Elizabethan Englishmen. What matters is the story. That is probably why my kids also liked the 1953 version of Julius Caesar. And there's plenty of well choreographed action in Last of the Mohicans—realistic but not too violent for younger viewers. No doubt because it was a British non-Hollywood production it was true to the original story, more accurate (and I would say probably more enjoyable) than the 1992 version.
Posted by Anonymous at 8:32 AM
China Options?
Even conservatives are divided on how to deal with China. Most are agreed that it is ruled by an oppressive regime, but they often part ways on how to remedy that. Can China be coaxed along through burgeoning capitalism into accepting a de facto western economic and political order? Or is this just appeasement? According to China expert Lloyd Richardson in The Policy Review (in a book review that was recently forwarded to me), those who benefit most from the controlled capitalism of Bejing are a tiny minority of urban Chinese, not the broad masses in the countryside. Moreover, these Chinese yuppies are entirely beholden to the Communist Party for their tenuous position. Quoting James Mann's book Soothing China, it is possible that in two or three decades "China will be wealthier, and the entrenched interests opposing democracy will probably be much stronger. By then China will be so thoroughly integrated into the world’s financial and diplomatic systems, because of its sheer commercial power, . . . there would be no international support for any movement to open up China’s political system." In conclusion, there may be no easy answers. But it does not help that, in Richardson's view, there has been no honest debate about China for decades.
Categories: War - Peace - Foreign Affairs
Poisonous Light Bulbs?
Guest commentary by Postmodern Conservative
Brought to you by the same people who helped create the government-subsidized ethanol fuel driven food shortage.... According to WorldNetDaily the new compact fluorescent light bulbs, which are meant to phase out standard incandescent bulbs in 2012, can cause toxic exposure if broken. Mercury vapor from the broken bulbs can potentially result in toxic levels 100 times that considered safe by the EPA. It's yet another example of what happens when the government tries to make decisions better handled by the marketplace. My wife brought this to my attention. After reading the article she looked all over the bulbs and couldn't find anything. Then she looked at the box they came in. There is an easily overlooked warning about mercury and the need to dispose of the bulbs properly at the county landfill, not in one's trashcan. When you consider the loud, colorful warnings on all sorts of other household products this sort of oversight is just a little scandalous.
It just goes to show that concerns for the environment are highly selective, no doubt depending on which special interest lobbies are at work. It's rather like the way in which the ill-considered DDT ban of the 1960s has resulted in the return of epidemic levels of malaria in Africa. The propaganda of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (the original eco-panic bestseller) to the contrary, even the World Health Organization has come out advocating limited use of DDT in households to prevent outbreaks of malaria which are deadly to nearly 1 million children each year, under the age of five in sub-Saharan countries.
Categories: Climate Change and Environmentalism
Historical Bias 101
Stupid bias in books is ubiquitous, but it is particularly obvious in children's literature. There is a reason for that. Not only are most works of popularized history and social sciences low brow, but the level of juvenile books is even lower. For that reason I give my twelve-year-old credit for spotting the obvious bias in The Cold War by Britta Bjornlund, which we got from our local library. Reagan was an "aggressive" leader but Gorbachev gets all the credit for ending the forty year standoff of East and West. Ms. Bjornlund also has a pet cat named "Trotsky," so go figure.
But there are some good books for younger readers if you hunt for them. A truly first-rate study is Albert Marrin's Stalin: Russia's Man of Steel which was put out by Viking Penguin in the late 80s, and which draws heavily on the work of scholars like Robert Conquest—the British historian who was one of the first to tell western readers about the full scope of Russia's mass murders. I'd recommend Marrin's work for older readers as well. It provides an accurate and unflinching portrayal of the USSR and the man who came to rule it.
A Guide to Social Graces
“Every man of any education would rather be called a rascal, than be accused of deficiency in the graces.“—Samuel Johnson
The following is a list of social graces compiled by a gentleman of experience, who has offended against most of them.
1. Don’t invite yourself into the conversations of others. Do not ask “what are you talking about?” or “what are you laughing about?” If people want you to know they’ll tell you.
2. Prefer brevity to volubility. Keep your answers relevant, and do not go into intimate details when unnecessary. When people ask “how are you doing?” reply “I am fine.” They do not want your life story.
3. If you find the conversation of most people boring, assume they feel the same about you. The less we speak, the better conversationalists we become, and the more people will prefer our company.
4. Avoid activity that draws attention to yourself. Do not guffaw loudly or talk at high volume among strangers. Do not assume that the entire world is interested in your cell-phone conversation.
5. Be observant. Size up the situation and the audience before speaking. Do not act like a talk show host who dispenses opinions indiscriminately.
6. Do not be unduly helpful. Quiet compassion is more appreciated than ostentatious sympathy. The latter is an excuse to indulge our own emotions rather than to soothe those of others.
7. Do not spend much time being “unique.” People who make a point of not being boring become predictable in their non-conformity.
8. Choose your battles. Don’t be a zealot about everything, especially matters of taste. Your judgments will carry more weight the more sparingly you utter them.
9. Complain less. Most of our trials are minor irritations that everyone is subject to. The amount of sympathy we obtain is inversely proportional to our whining.
10. Be slow to criticize. Do not offer unsolicited advice.
(P.S. Point 10 may be optional, especially if one is a blogger.)
Posted by Anonymous at 11:13 AM
Poland: Winning the Culture Wars
Popular culture in Poland is very different from ours. There is widespread outcry over the fact that a 14-year-old girl is being pressured by Planned Parenthood to abort her unborn child. Most Poles find this politically-motivated emotional exploitation reprehensible. See: Poland in an Uproar after Coercive Abortion Pressure Put on 14-Year-Old by Planned Parenthood.
On a related note is the story of a Agata Mroz, a 26-year-old champion Polish volleyball player who chose to delay invasive therapy for a fatal case of leukemia until the birth of her baby daughter (April 2008) even though it lead to her death just three months later. See: 2005 Polish Volleyball Champion Sacrificed Her Life for Unborn Child.
This sums up what the culture war is really about, more than just ideology or polemics. As Edmund Burke pointed out long ago, the most important things in life are beyond politics and it is these things that define our political values, not the other way around. That may explain why the Poles are more successful in fighting the culture wars than many of their Western counterparts, despite the fact that they have the added liability of a totalitarian past. Nor can it be put down to simply a political reaction. After all, Russia is still a huge mess. The difference is Poland's strong religious heritage which has survived political and cultural vicissitudes.
For a related commentary on Polish social conservatism, see our January 24 post.
Categories: Philosophy - Religion - Science - Pseudoscience, Self Ownership: Abortion - Euthanasia - Gender - Etc.
Boswell's Book
On a more uplifting note, here is a piece about James Boswell's Life of Johnson, a 1,200+ page book I've read through twice, by Henrik Bering in Policy Review:
Among the great encounters of literature, none ranks higher than the one that took place between James Boswell and Samuel Johnson in Tom Davis’s bookstore in Russell Street, Covent Garden on Monday, May 16, 1763.
Of particular interest are [Johnson's] reading habits. Dropping by for a visit, Boswell found Johnson dusting his books, with a “cloud of dust flying around him,” “wearing a pair of large gloves such as hedgers use,” and living up to Boswell’s uncle’s characterization of him as “a Herculean genius, born to grapple with whole libraries.” (When visiting others, Johnson would make a beeline for their bookshelves and lose himself completely, “almost brushing the books with his eyelashes,” as the novelist Fanny Burney has noted.) One of the Life’s nicest images shows us Johnson outside “swinging upon the low gate” of the Thrale residence without his hat, totally absorbed in his book.
Johnson was a host of contradictions: by turns kind and brutal, stern and forgiving, a subtle intellect which could be incredibly rigid, an intellectual bruiser and a kind and humane man, and for Boswell it was imperative to get the emphasis right ("The
Ultimate Literary Portrait").
Policy Review always has good political and social analysis. This is the first time I've seen a literary essay. It was enjoyable.
Slavery: East and West
Islam expert Robert Spencer writes in First Things how it is unacknowledged that "Christian principles played" a big role in the abolition of slavery in the West, which was "an enterprise unprecedented in the annals of human history." By contrast,
Slavery was taken for granted throughout Islamic history, as it was, of course, in the West as well up until relatively recent times. Yet while the European and American slave trade get lavish attention from historians... the Islamic slave trade actually lasted longer and brought suffering to a larger number of people.... There is evidence that slavery still continues beneath the surface in some majority-Muslim countries as well... ("Slavery, Christianity, and Islam").
Posted by Anonymous at 1:12 PM
Moral Culture Clash: Europe and the US
Say what you like about American "puritanism" and the rest of it, there are some things we do have over the Europeans, like social priorities. According to veteran Catholic reporter John L. Allen, who provides sometimes sensible analysis for the National Catholic Reporter, there is a huge moral divide between American and European Catholics, and presumably between Americans and Europeans generally. Speaking about a visit to Rome this past April, he noted that
if the dominant “single issue” temptation for American Catholics is to focus almost exclusively on abortion, the analogous “single issue” tendency within Catholicism in Italy and elsewhere in Europe is the death penalty.
Although my guess is that Allen also opposes the death penalty, like many Catholic leaders, including the current pope, he points out that
For American Catholics, this focus on the death penalty rather than abortion can often seem terribly imbalanced. According to Amnesty International, there were 1,591 executions worldwide in 2006, while the estimated number of abortions around the world each year is on the order of 45 million. On a purely quantitative basis, some would argue, there’s no comparison in terms of which is the more grave threat to human life. Moreover, many abortion opponents would also argue that while all killing is wrong, with the death penalty we’re usually talking about convicted criminals, while abortion strikes at the most innocent and vulnerable ("What
abortion is to American Catholics, the death penalty is for Italians").
It should be pointed out (and Allen does point out) that opposition to the death penalty on the part of the Church is a prudential option rather than a matter of dogma. Some believe that executing criminals is "unnecessary." I respect those who are at least consistent in being against the death penalty and killing the unborn. But personally I say: punish the guilty, protect the innocent. To me the two are inextricably intertwined.
Categories: Philosophy - Religion - Science - Pseudoscience
Plato's Republic Redux
Another good piece in First Things is by R. R. Reno who warns that we are coming closer to realizing Plato's utopian design in which the state defines all relationships, not only political and economic, but also social and domestic, with new state backing of same-sex unions. Reno calls it the "politicization of culture."
[T]he left imagines itself expanding the scope of freedom for all. It seems all gain and no loss. In California, homosexuals can get married, and nobody is prohibiting heterosexual marriage. Everybody seems to be getting what he or she wants. But what seems is not necessarily so. When the state can rise up to redefine marriage, then the counterweight of tradition is diminished, the political instruments of power are emboldened, and our collective liberty is at peril ("Personal Freedom Without Political Liberty").
Richard Scarry Gets Scary?
Actually, Richard Scarry books have be dumbed-down for years, but I only noticed it recently because of my young children. I regret now that some of their older Scarry books have bit the dust from over-use. As it turns out, they were irreplaceable.
What about new editions and reprints? Don't count on it. For example, I own a copy of Richard Scarry's Best Storybook Ever, an original from the 1960s. It's in rather poor shape so I was thrilled to see that it has been re-issued. It's the most visually appealing of all his books with some great stories. But it turns out that the story of the Quebec bruin, "Pierre Bear," is gone. I imagine it's because he is shown hunting seals and turning their pelts into fur coats.
For a sad comparison of Scarry's popular Best Word Book Ever between 1963 and 1991 editions, see this. Not only is the artwork altered in the name of political correctness, in many cases it just plain remedial compared to Scarry's originals. Another point made by critics is that the language has been made stupider compared to what kids a generation or two ago were reading. Unlike Scarry, these publishers don't know how to write for children, only overindulged leftist adults.
Library Daycare
On my way to work I stopped by my local library to drop some items in the book return slot and found both doors and a couple of windows boarded up. According to some people nearby, kids had knocked them out with rocks.
In recent years I've seen the place became a daycare center for kids waiting for their parents after school. I've often encountered gangs of loud and ill-mannered adolescents hanging around the entrance, who like to occasionally hassle and intimidate other (well-behaved) children. I had to up put with plenty of that in my youth, but never around the library. But things have changed, and public institutions seem bent on feeding the problems that plague them.
Perhaps what annoys me most is the fact that there are multiple computer banks most of which are used by young people to surf the internet or play online games. It's tax-supported entertainment. And considering just how ubiquitous PCs and the internet is today, I can't imagine the justification for it. Pay phones, for instance, have been taken out of most public places because cell phones are so common. And you can be sure all the loud kids at the library have cell phones—it's the only way their parents get in touch with them. Of course, libraries have long provided useless media for young people, like trashy books and magazines and the so-called "graphic novels." When I was growing up in the 1970s and early '80s I liked comic books (when they were still largely aimed at kids) but I didn't expect my library to stock them anymore that I expected to go there to watch television.
This is another example of the hazards of "public" institutions. If it were a private library, with even a token membership fee, I doubt it would keep out any of the deserving residents—those who are serious about reading and studying—while it might give the rock-throwing juveniles a reason to congregate somewhere else. It's an old lesson of civilization that as soon as you make anything "free" you provide an open invitation to freeloaders and riff-raff. The people who really could make the best use of these things are gradually driven off.
"Great" Britain No Longer
Tom Bethell addresses this topic in a recent article for The American Specator. As a British expatriate, he tells us
I go to England fairly often as I have family there -- a brother, two sisters, and my 95-year-old mother. Otherwise I doubt if I would go back.
In particular, he points to socialist-driven economic decline and the related social rot:
The same culture war that is being waged in the United States is already much further advanced in Britain. Over there, the forces of resistance are negligible, so the cultural revolution has almost completely triumphed.... The ruling-class embrace of semi-capitalism has brought about the rise in prosperity, but this has been accompanied by mounting social chaos. One of the main indicators is the rise of family breakdown (or non-formation) and out-of-wedlock childbearing. The key enabler of this change has been the transfer of tens of billions of pounds to fatherless households. Only a society wealthy enough to collect and redistribute revenue on this scale can sustain widespread illegitimacy.
I can contribute some further thoughts: I was told that in the UK people now speak of "Britain," not "Great Britain." I guess it's considered too imperial and anachronistic. But even this small change in usage is revealing. Quite simply, in all the years that I've been to Britain, beginning in the 1980s, I became slowly aware it is no longer the "blessed plot" of Shakespeare. Like most Americans, my vision of a quaint, gentile civilization was derived from old film depictions. For that reason I was an Anglophile, and even now I can't quite shake my love of England (or least the England that once was). I like hot tea with milk, Youngs and Sam Smith stout, and most of my favorite authors are English.
Of course every culture has it downside. When I speak of Britain I am thinking specifically of the English, since they have been its rulers and imparted to it many of its virtues, as well some of its vices. England always had a checkered past: the persecution of Catholics under the Tudors, the ill-treatment of the Irish, the massacres at Culloden, the depredations of the American Revolution, the Boer War concentration camps, to name a few instances. But in general the English have held up pretty well.... at least until the last two or three decades.
I was reading some comments in Orwell about how, in the 1940s, the English even then regarded Americans as purveyors of decadence. But, to take the example of rock music, the American variety wasn't politically subversive. British rock was. But then it came out of a totally different political and economic climate. (One thing I learned in my travels in the UK was that a permanent welfare class need not be relatively new or relatively non-white. In England it goes back to the 1950s, if not earlier, and is traditionally white.)
Elvis was no saint, but his vices were normal and he was as patriotic as the next American. By contrast the music of "British Invasion" was more explicit in its promotion of sexual decadence, drugs and political radicalism. But if hippie scene was bad, the punk rockers of the following decade were overtly nihilistic. It's this punk/skinhead subculture that gradually spread through the UK and into the US. In those years I've seen fringe behavior become mainstream, like body piercing and extensive tattooing, not only of men but women as well. And we got all of this from the UK.
Colin Firth, star of the 1990s version of Pride and Prejudice, said that: "The English people, a lot of them, would not be able to understand a word of spoken Shakespeare. There are people who do and I'm not denying they exist. But it's a far more philistine country than people think." Say what you like, the last great figure in English history was Margaret Thatcher, who embodied all the best qualities of "Britishness." At least she was no philistine.
Categories: Leftism - Statism - Democracy, Nostalgia - Trivia - Popular Culture
Will Obama Campaign Set Back Race Relations?
So many commentators have remarked on the surprising racial component of Hillary's campaign against Obama, it's hard to add to the pile. But one snippet I picked up yesterday from The American Spectator was indicative. It quoted an aging Democrat harridan screaming:
"And the Democrats are throwing the election away! For what? An inadequate black male who would not have been running had it not been a white woman that was running for president!"
It is this sort of racial motivation (which Liberty Corner commented on previously) that has caused discomfort for Democrats and no doubt played into Obama's hands. To sum up, here are some things worth pondering:
1. As many have noted, an Obama nomination will push many fence-sitters over to McCain. It's the "racial crossover vote." But as I pointed out, these people are superficial, cultural reactionaries, not true conservatives and in most cases definitely not social (i.e., moral) conservatives.
2. Unfortunately even some Republicans share this racial prejudice. However, amongst both crossovers and Republicans a certain subtlety should be thrown in: often times what is hastily perceived as anti-black prejudice is really just an annoyance with a certain type of black culture and black politics—whining victimization theory and leftist welfare state politics that contains, one might add, a degree of black racist assumptions, whether conscious or not. (In my own place of work it is notable that when blacks speak of "diversity" what they often mean is a pro-black emphasis, blatantly ignoring Asians, Latinos, etc.)
3. Despite his ambiguous March 18 speech on race, with some sensible statements thrown in, Obama failed to divest himself completely of the biased liberal race agenda.
4. In the short term a liberal black candidacy will favor McCain, possibly winning him an election that previously seemed out of reach due to the controversies surrounding the Bush administration. Note my emphasis, because a black conservative candidate would presumably pick up many black votes as well as most white conservative votes.
5. In the long term, because of the clannish attitude of the majority of blacks (see previous comments) the election could become as racially divisive as the Rodney King and O.J. Simpson trials of the 1990s. They will assume, as they have been indoctrinated to do for generations, that a vote for McCain is a vote against them. This has already happened in the case of Hillary's shameless opportunism in playing the race card for her own benefit.
6. One regrets that the views of outstanding black Americans like Thomas Sowell, Judge Clarence Thomas and J.C. Watts are not nearly as popularized as those of Oprah, Al Sharpton or, for that matter, Barack Obama. One wishes that liberals of whatever color could heed the words of actor Morgan Freeman who (though no Republican) has said: "I don't want a black history month. Black history is American history" and "Stop talking about race and racism will end." Now as it turns out, Freeman has endorsed Obama, but at least, as he was keen to point out, it wasn't for racial reasons.
7. One last thought: a positive development could come out of this if enough minorities like Asians and Latinos were to clearly favor McCain, then what at first sight seems a rehash of ideologically driven black favoritism might finally give way to a more sensible (in fact equitable) view on race relations.
Guest post by Postmodern Conservative.
Today I had to take an online employee harassment seminar which, to some, might seem a form of harassment itself. Joking aside, much of it was common sense. The things that had to do with sexual harassment are questions of basic morality. My workplace is very conservative in that regard, partly because of the nature of the industry—a professional services firm—and partly because (I am guessing) the more traditional region I live in (the South).
Likeminded individuals will say that not only are unsolicited sexual actions disagreeable, but so are "welcome" ones. The same goes for dirty jokes, etc. A couple of years ago my supervisor, an aging frat boy, tried to show me an online striptease game. I passed on it saying, "No thanks, I've already got one naked woman in my life," since I'm a married man.
No doubt modern sensitivities about this sort of thing are probably an improvement on the culture of twenty or thirty years ago. But with the good comes the bad, especially in our ideologically-driven workplace. One example was given in the slideshow of a man dating another man and how co-workers expressed their dislike... not persecution, mind you, but just quiet disapproval. But even that's frowned upon. This goes to show that with many HR issues, it is an agenda that is being promoted that demands not just "tolerance" but acceptance. Fortunately, the very mentality that makes our firm conservative on male-female relationships have also keep this sort of thought-policing at bay.... at least for the moment.
Finally, I just had to laugh when I read in the online quiz that a party given to a 40-year-old, which joked about someone being "over the hill" and "ready for retirement," might be considered age discrimination.... at least for someone with no sense of humor. I'm now 41 and I honestly never thought of myself as belonging to a protected category. Too bad!
Categories: Affirmative Action - Immigration - Race


Patrick Murray, Director
National Legislative Service
Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States
Before the
Committee on Veterans’ Affairs
With Respect To
Chairman Takano, Ranking Member Roe, and members of the committee, on behalf of the men and women of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States (VFW) and its Auxiliary, thank you for the opportunity to provide views on these important pieces of legislation.
Eliminating suicide among our nation’s veterans continues to be a top priority for the VFW. The most recent analysis of veteran suicide data found suicide has remained fairly consistent within the veteran community in recent years. An average of 20 veterans and service members die by suicide every day. While this number must be reduced to zero, it is worth noting that the number of veterans who die by suicide has remained consistent in recent years, while non-veteran suicides have continued to increase.
The Government Accountability Office has identified several key barriers that deter veterans from seeking mental health care. These include stigma, lack of understanding or awareness of the potential for improvement, lack of child care or transportation, and work or family commitments. Early intervention and timely access to mental health care can greatly improve quality of life, promote recovery, prevent suicide, obviate long-term health consequences, and minimize the disabling effects of mental illness.
The VFW is proud to have partnered with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and community and corporate partners to raise awareness of mental health conditions, foster community engagement, improve research, and provide intervention for those affected by invisible injuries and emotional stress through the VFW Mental Wellness Campaign. Since Fall 2016, nearly 300 VFW posts around the world and 13,000 volunteers have successfully reached 25,000 people in the past four “A Day to Change Direction” events, hosted in partnership with Give an Hour’s Campaign to Change Direction.
The focus of the VFW’s Mental Wellness Campaign is to teach veterans and caregivers how to identify when they or their loved ones are experiencing the signs of emotional suffering–– personality change, agitation, being withdrawn, poor self-care, and hopelessness. In an effort to destigmatize mental health, participants are informed that mental health conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are common reactions to abnormal experiences.
The goal is to also reduce the number of veterans who die by suicide each day without having contacted VA health care services. Research indicates that veterans who do not use VA for their health care are at an increased risk of suicide. This comes as no surprise to the VFW, as our members have continuously informed us that they prefer VA health care because of the high-quality and veteran-centric care VA provides. To better assist all veterans, veterans service organizations, VA, and Congress must know more about the two-thirds of veterans who die by suicide each day without any contact with VA.
That is exactly why this discussion today is so important. The John Scott Hannon or COMPACT Act is aggressively seeking to change the focus on suicide prevention from previous years. Continually pursuing the same solutions and expecting different results was not working. Exploring solutions with community partners, engaging in holistic programs that do not require pharmaceuticals, seeking to draw in more veterans through expanded eligibility, and rigorous studies to determine as many quantitative factors that lead to suicide as possible are just some of the proposals discussed today that may finally help decrease the number of veteran suicides.
H.R. 8084, Lethal Means Safety Training Act
The VFW supports the intent of this bill as it aligns with the President’s Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End a National Tragedy of Suicide (PREVENTS). We support lethal means interventions as an important step in reducing veteran suicide. However, to what extent should VA provide the mandatory training? Requiring such training to all other VA employees, as directed by the Secretary of VA, may be too heavy of a lift. We fear Veterans Health Administration (VHA) frontline employees will not receive this training with the urgency that it was intended, and non-VHA employees will find it unnecessary and useless in their line of work.
At the VFW, we know the value of lethal means prevention. Any separation of the individual veteran with time and distance to their own lethal means is an important step in preventing a fatal decision. We have a coworker whom many of us at the VFW call a friend, who might not be here if lethal means intervention had not been discussed with him. After difficult bouts of post-traumatic stress following years of service and a deployment overseas, our friend was at a critical point in his life and realized he needed serious help. One of the first steps he needed to take was to give his weapons to his father to temporarily hold until he was better. The very real fear being he might not still be here today if he had access to his firearms during some of his more difficult times.
Our friend received the help he needed, had his firearms returned to him when he was ready, and as he states it, is “as regular of a functioning redneck as ever.” I cannot personally think of another individual who is more passionate about their mission of helping veterans and a leader in our community, and if not for lethal means intervention we might not have our friend with us here today.
Our organization embraces the importance of lethal means intervention, and understands firsthand the effect it can have on a veteran during a period of crisis. Had the right intervention not taken place, we could be without a valued leader, coworker, and friend at the VFW. We say this all while cautioning the expansion of this important training. For those VA employees who interact with patients and are trained in patient evaluation, this training could be a life-saving tool in their toolboxes. For individuals who are not trained in these same evaluation skills, lethal means discussions could be cumbersome and unnecessary, and possibly lead to unintended negative interactions with VA patients if not performed correctly. We recognize the value of lethal means training, but think it should be applied more judiciously, and not spread widely to so many people immediately.
Discussion Draft, ACCESS Act
The VFW recognizes the potential barrier to some veterans seeking emergency mental health care is financially driven, which could be caused by different eligibility criteria. The VFW lauds Congress and VA for recent action to expand VA mental health care services to recently discharged veterans and veterans with Other Than Honorable discharges. VA also has the ability to treat any veteran who is not eligible for VA care through its humanitarian care authority under section 1784 of title 38, United States Code (U.S.C.). However, VA is required to charge veterans the full cost of urgent or emergent mental health care. It is understandable for VA to bill other health insurance for such care, but VA must not be required to place an undue burden on veterans who have survived a mental health crisis, particularly because financial instability is often a contributing factor to mental health crises.
The VFW worked with a veteran who was rushed to a VA hospital during a mental health crisis caused by untreated bipolar disorder and depression. The veteran was admitted to the medical center’s inpatient mental health care clinic for two weeks, despite not being eligible for VA health care. VA saved his life, but he then had a $20,000 bill. His mental health crisis was exacerbated by unemployment and his inability to provide for his family. With proper treatment he was able to return to work, but still lacked the resources to pay the VA bill. The VFW worked to have his bill waived, but he will never return to VA if he has another mental health crisis.
The fear of being turned down or billed for care should never prevent a veteran from seeking the urgent or emergent VA mental health care they need. Congress must amend section 1784 of title 38, U.S.C., to exempt those who have worn our nation’s uniform who receive urgent or emergent mental health care under VA’s humanitarian care authority from having to pay the full cost of such care.
The VFW is also open to expanding eligibility of care for certain discharge categories, as was done for veterans with Other Than Honorable discharges. However, the VFW will not support a provision that would allow for this care to be delivered to ex-service members who have a Dishonorable Discharge from the military. There are certain veterans who served their country and made mistakes, and we feel those veterans should still have a home at VA during times of need, but ex-service members who were dishonorably discharged should not be afforded those same services and protections.
A suggestion to simplify who can and cannot receive VA care is to change the classification of discharges within VA definitions to mirror those of current Department of Defense discharges. VA recognizes Honorable, General, and Dishonorable as discharge categories. The VFW suggests prohibiting Dishonorable Discharged ex-service members as is currently practiced, but not considering Other Than Honorable, and Bad Conduct Discharge the same as Dishonorable. Allow VA to consider the separate discharge statuses and apply different eligibility standards for each separate category, rather than group them all together.
H.R. 7469, Modernizing Veterans’ Healthcare Eligibility Act
The VFW cannot support this proposal at this time. While we agree VA’s eligibility standards may not be perfect and could be improved or streamlined, we do not think a complete overhaul of the system is called for at this point. We also do not think a proposed commission is the way to accomplish that goal. Commissions like the one described in this proposal are needed when subject matter experts are required for an issue and an outside commission is established. The VFW feels if changes are needed for eligibility, there is more than enough knowledge and expertise between veterans’ stakeholders, Congress, and veteran health providers, that an expert commission is unnecessary. Additionally, a major issue we have with the proposed goal is it is too vague.
Typically, we would like to see a proposal have a specific directive, examples such as diminished or expanded eligibility, or to consolidate priority groups. We think the mission of the proposed commission is not narrowly defined, which could lead to creating solutions for problems that do not exist. The VFW welcomes the discussion to improve care and access to care by modifying existing eligibility requirements, especially for emergency situations, but does not think the entire system needs an overhaul.
H.R. 6092, Veteran’s Prostate Cancer Treatment and Research Act
The VFW supports this proposal to expand knowledge and treatment provisions within VA to help combat prostate cancer. We are encouraged this proposal would require VA to partner with organizations pursuing similar goals in order to combine efforts to ultimately defeat this disease. The VFW also supports more studies and ways to acquire demographic information such as age, race, socioeconomic status, exposure risks, and genetic risks, to develop better, evidence-based screening procedures.
H.R. 7879, VA Telehealth Expansion Act; H.R. 7888, REACH VET Reporting Act; H.R. 7964, Peer Support for Veteran Families Act; H.R. 8033, Access to Suicide Prevention Coordinators Act; H.R. 8107, VA Emergency Department Safety Planning Act; H.R. 8108, To direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to develop clinical practice guidelines for the treatment of serious mental illnesses; H.R. 8130, To direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to conduct an assessment of the capacity of peer specialist of the Department of Veterans Affairs who are women; H.R. 8144, VA Mental Health Staffing Act; H.R. 8147, To direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to expand an existing pilot program, and to establish a new pilot program, related to complementary and integrative health services for veterans; H.R. 8148, VA Data Analytics and Technology Assistance Act; H.R. 8149, VA Precision Medicine Act; Discussion Draft, VA ECHO (Expanded Care Hours) Act; Discussion Draft, VA High Altitude and Suicide Research Act; Discussion Draft, VA Research Technology Act
The VFW supports many of the bills and provisions within the drafts that reflect the Senate passed version of S. 785, Commander John Scott Hannon Veterans Mental Health Care Improvement Act of 2019. This comprehensive legislation touches on multiple aspects of a veteran’s health and well-being utilizing an ecological model approach. Ensuring proper mental health care workforce ratio and hiring plans, improving accommodation by extending hours, and expanding complementary and integrative health services are ways to enable a veteran on an intrapersonal level. Education and peer support for family members of a veteran empowers the veteran’s immediate support system. Assessing current programs on their effectiveness, involving academic institutions for statistical analyses and data evaluation––including institutional review boards outside of VA––and implementing evidence-based research programs involve both communities and other organizations. In order to reduce the stigma around mental health and support the veteran population, care should be taken to pursue programs that are valuable and remove those that waste resources.
Eliminating suicide among our nation’s veterans continues to be a top priority of the VFW. The VFW does not have a specific resolution regarding each piece of legislation. However, one VFW resolution strongly urges VA to continue to adequately staff VA mental health treatment and research programs and dedicate adequate resources to address the alarming rate at which veterans die by suicide.
Out of the more than 6,900 veterans who participated in the VFW’s recent “Our Care” survey, 31 percent of respondents stated they use VA health benefits to receive mental health care. Women veterans also reported they are more likely to receive VA mental health care than male veterans by nearly 44 percent versus 31 percent, respectfully. Only six percent of veterans stated they received mental health care through community care. When asked about noticeable improvements at their VA medical center, 74 percent responded they had seen improvements within the past year or that no improvements were needed, while 26 percent reported not seeing any progress, but stated that improvements are needed.
The VFW concluded that VA’s ongoing transformation to streamline and improve access to VA health care has improved. Since our last report, more veterans would recommend VA care to their fellow veterans. While VA health care is trending in the right direction, the VFW knows this is why we need to continue the momentum. The veteran suicide rate slightly decreased over the past ten years, meaning there is still more work to be done, especially in the area of mental health.
H.R. 7879, VA Telehealth Expansion Act
The VFW supports this legislation and is proud to be part of the solution. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, access to connectivity remained a critical issue for rural and underserved veterans. Through Project Advancing Telehealth through Local Access Stations (ATLAS), the VFW has worked with VA and Philips to leverage VA's anywhere to anywhere authority to expand telehealth options for veterans who live in rural areas. More than 20 VFW posts have been identified as possible telehealth centers, with plans to deploy five VFW ATLAS sites in the first phase.
Shortly before March 13, 2020, VA instructed veterans with previously scheduled care appointments to contact their facilities. In May 2020, the VFW surveyed our membership. Respondents were asked how their routine care appointments with VA or non-VA providers were handled after March 13. The survey reported that 47 percent of VA routine care appointments were converted to telehealth, 34 percent were canceled, 10 percent were unchanged, and seven percent were rescheduled. Most non-VA appointments––34 percent––were either converted to telehealth or canceled, 33 percent were unchanged, and three percent were rescheduled. Due to social distancing requirements, quarantining, and the abrupt change to health care appointments, veterans who had access to the proper technology reported they adapted quickly to telehealth. During a recent House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs hearing, the VHA reported an increase in telehealth satisfaction levels since March 2020.
Technology is ever-changing and the VFW urges Congress to support VA to stay current with technology while identifying improvement areas. A recent report from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) shows the value technology had in carrying out VA appointments throughout March 15 through May 1, 2020. Although, the report indicated gaps in follow-up and tracking of appointments, and how facilities lack a tracking process associated with these cancellations. Out of the 7.3 million appointments canceled in that short period, 32 percent could not be identified to follow up or track the appointment’s progress. VHA issued a guideline and stressed the importance of tracking cancellations. However, only 55 percent of cancellations included the instructed keyword for future search capabilities. OIG’s recommendation was to develop and carry out a follow-up and canceled appointment strategic plan, and develop tools to properly note a cancellation follow-up correctly. The VFW believes many lessons learned during that period can be evaluated, discussed, and shared across VHA.
The VFW is glad this legislation would expand such opportunities through a grant program. Doing so would provide veterans the ability to receive VA health care closer to home.
H.R. 7504, VA Clinical TEAM Culture Act of 2020; H.R. 7541, VA Zero Suicide Demonstration Project Act of 2020; H.R. 7747, To direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to submit to Congress an annual report on the Solid Start program of the Department of Veterans Affairs; H.R. 8068, To direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to make certain improvements relating to mental health and suicide prevention outreach to minority veterans and American Indian and Alaska Native veterans; H.R. 8145, VA Mental Health Counseling
The VFW supports the above legislation, which would educate mental health community care providers, establish the Zero Suicide Initiative pilot program, evaluate the transitioning veterans program, connect outreach with minority veterans and American Indian and Alaska Native veterans, and create staffing plans.
The VFW firmly believes that the treatment veterans receive for mental health via community care should have a similar foundation as if the course of treatment came from VA. Our members trust and urge VA to do more for veterans, including initiating evidence-based pilot programs that could become permanent programs within VA. The VFW agrees with creating an annual report for the Solid Start program. This transparency can shed light on gaps that remain for transitioning veterans. The VFW understands suicide prevention coordinators are instrumental in the efforts to reduce suicides among veterans, and that it is crucial to collaborate with minority veterans and American Indian and Alaska Native veterans’ stakeholders. The VFW supports the plan to address the shortages of licensed professional mental health counselors, and marriage and family therapists, and understand the role veterans’ families play in their well-being.
Discussion Draft, Veterans Comprehensive Prevention, Access to Care, and Treatment Act of 2020
The VFW supports the intent of this bill and many of its provisions to continue the mission to decrease veteran suicide and strengthen VA mental health services while achieving the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Comprehensive Seven Pillar Approach. Still, there are individual sections of this legislation that cause concern.
Many of the sections mirror S. 785, Commander John Scott Hannon Veterans Mental Health Care Improvement Act of 2019, for which the VFW has voiced support. Other bills that the VFW also supports are integrated into this legislation, namely H.R. 2422, SFC Richard Stayskal Military Medical Accountability Act of 2019, and H.R. 3224, Deborah Sampson Act.
The VFW believes that VA grants to entities to provide or coordinate suicide prevention services for eligible veterans and their families can make a significant difference in so many lives. The entities receiving the grants must specify their commitment to coordinate VA clinical services, inform veterans of VA eligibility, and provide the veteran with a point of contact to begin the process of enrollment.
The transparency of VA’s mental health professional workforce levels can allow for other stakeholders, such as academic institutions, to gauge the need to fill the gap within VA. An OIG report released in September 2019 found psychiatry has a severe occupational shortage in nearly 61 percent of the facilities.
The VFW supports the intent of this bill to help expand the duties and responsibilities of psychologists to fill staffing voids throughout VA. However, we caution that more needs to be done to investigate the justification to expose veterans to a psychologist’s altered role. The VFW continues to support the work being done to ensure veterans are afforded the opportunity to receive complementary and integrative alternative therapies to pharmacotherapy. The VFW feels changing the treatment scope of a psychologist would be a step backward with VA’s concerted efforts to ensure appropriate pharmaceutical treatments. VA must continue to expand research on non-traditional medical therapies, such as medical cannabis and other holistic approaches for mental health care conditions. Veterans want more mental health care providers at their VA medical facilities, but within the scope of their profession and education.
H.R. 7784, VA Police Improvement and Accountability Act
This legislation would improve the staffing, transparency, and accountability of the law enforcement operations of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VFW does not have a specific resolution regarding the VA Police Force. While the VFW generally supports measures to improve overall training, safety, and transparency at VA, we have not received feedback from our membership regarding these particular issues.
H.R. 3450, To prohibit the Secretary of Veterans Affairs from transmitting certain information to the Department of Justice for use by the national instant criminal background check system.
The VFW supports this legislation, which would prevent VA from transmitting personally identifying information of veterans to the Department of Justice (DOJ) solely on the basis of an individual having a service-connected disability. This commonsense bill would ensure that veterans with service-connected disabilities are not deprived of their Second Amendment right to bear arms without due process of law. The VFW supports legislation that safeguards veterans’ rights under the Constitution of the United States.
H.R. 3826, Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act
The VFW supports this legislation, which would prevent VA from transmitting personally identifiable information to DOJ of veterans whose benefits are paid to a fiduciary without the order or finding of a judge, magistrate, or other judicial authority that such beneficiary is a danger to themselves or others. Veterans who have been assigned a fiduciary should not be deprived of their Second Amendment right to bear arms without due process of law. The VFW supports legislation that safeguards veterans’ rights under the Constitution of the United States.
H.R. 3788, VA Child Care Protection Act of 2019
This legislation would prohibit VA from making payments to child care providers that employ individuals charged with certain offenses. The VFW cannot support this bill at this time because it would deprive individuals of their right to due process of law. The VFW agrees that child care providers that hire individuals who have been convicted of a sex offense, an offense involving a child victim, a violent crime, or a drug felony should not be eligible to receive funds from VA. However, such restrictions should apply only after an individual has been convicted of any of these offenses and not simply charged.
Discussion Draft, Veterans Burn Pits Exposure Recognition Act of 2020
The VFW supports this legislation, which would concede exposure to airborne hazards and toxins from burn pits. The use of open air burn pits in combat zones has caused invisible, but grave health complications for many service members, past and present. Particulate matter, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds and dioxins––the destructive compound found in Agent Orange––and other harmful materials are all present in burn pits, creating clouds of hazardous chemical compounds that are unavoidable to those in close proximity.
The VFW continues to hear from members who suffer from debilitating respiratory conditions believed to be caused by exposure to toxic burn pits. In 2017, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine published a report entitled Assessment of the Department of Veterans Affairs Airborne Hazards and Open Burn Pit Registry. That report noted a connection between burn pit exposure and numerous health conditions including emphysema, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and asthma. An additional study, New-onset Asthma Among Soldiers Serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, published in the Allergy & Asthma Proceedings and conducted by staff at the VA Medical Center in Northport, New York, found a connection between deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan and asthma among the 6,200 veterans reviewed. Many other studies have shown similar evidence of association between pulmonary conditions and exposure to toxic burn pits.
Despite the volume of scientific research on this topic, veterans face onerous administrative burdens to establishing service-connection for disabilities related to their exposure to burn pits. First, veterans must prove that they were exposed to burn pits during military service. This condition must be met even though most veterans do not have a record of exposure in their official military personnel file.
Next, if a veteran does prove exposure to a burn pit and, at the time of filing a claim has a diagnosed disability, he or she must obtain a medical opinion to establish a nexus between exposure and that disability. This is nearly impossible. There is no current guidance from VA to medical providers regarding the specific chemicals and toxins emitted from burn pits. This legislation would require VA to concede that veterans who served in covered locations were exposed to a litany of toxic substances from burn pits, which would facilitate the development of claims for disability benefits.
Discussion Draft, Ensuring Veterans’ Smooth Transition (EVEST) Act
The VFW agrees with the intent of this legislation to provide for the automatic enrollment of eligible veterans into the VA health care patient system. For years, the VFW has advocated for individual enrollment of all eligible veterans into the VA health care system while those individuals are going through separation. This proposal would make that enrollment an additional step in the transition process. Having a seamless transition from the armed forces to civilian life is an important step, and making sure health care and benefits are covered throughout this process is a significant burden lifted off the shoulders of the transitioning service member.
While the VFW supports the prospect of having all eligible transitioning service members enrolled in VA, we do realize that could be a significant increase in VA’s patient capacity. With upwards of 200,000 service members transitioning annually, we see a potential increase in workload with a corresponding backlog due to the new patient influx. Accordingly, we urge this committee to consider including a provision in this legislation that would add internal resources for VA to carry out its purpose.
Chairman Takano, Ranking Member Roe, this concludes my testimony. Thank you for the opportunity to present the VFW’s input today. I look forward to engaging in further discussion with you or any members of the committee on these issues.
Information Required by Rule XI2(g)(4) of the House of Representatives
Pursuant to Rule XI2(g)(4) of the House of Representatives, the VFW has not received any federal grants in Fiscal Year 2020, nor has it received any federal grants in the two previous Fiscal Years.
The VFW has not received payments or contracts from any foreign governments in the current year or preceding two calendar years.
Fulfilling our Pact: Ensuring Effective Implementation of Toxic Exposure Legislation
The Department of Veterans Affairs Implementation of the SFC Heath Robinson Honoring our PACT Act
Veteran Suicide Prevention: Capitalizing on What Works and Increasing Innovative Approaches
The Status of Military Recruiting and Retention Efforts Across the Department of Defense


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Witness: Driver Was Texting Before Crash That Killed 13
There's no statewide Texas law against it
Posted Apr 1, 2017 8:22 AM CDT
Authorities investigate after a deadly crash involving a van carrying church members and a pickup truck on US 83 outside Garner State Park in northern Uvalde County, Texas. (Zeke MacCormack)
A witness says the driver of a pickup truck that collided with a church minibus in rural Texas, killing 13 people, acknowledged he had been texting while driving—highlighting the dangers of sending messages on smartphones while behind the wheel. Texas Department of Public Safety Sgt. Conrad Hein wouldn't comment Friday on whether texting might have played a role in the Wednesday collision on a two-lane road about 75 miles west of San Antonio. But officials have said the truck driver appeared to have crossed the center line. The witness, Jody Kuchler, a 55-year-old self-employed welder, tells the AP he and his girlfriend were driving home when he came across a truck that was driving erratically across the road.
"He kept going off the road and into oncoming traffic and he just kept doing that," says Kuchler. He says he followed the truck for at least 15 minutes and called the sheriff's offices for both Uvalde and Real counties, telling them "they needed to get him off the road before he hit somebody." Kuchler says he witnessed the crash and afterward, he checked on both the bus and the truck and was able to speak with the driver of the truck, who has been identified as 20-year-old Jack Dillon Young. "He said, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I was texting,'" Kuchler says. "I said, 'Son, do you know what you just did?' He said, 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry.'" Texas is unusual in that it has no statewide ban on texting while driving. (Read more Texas stories.)