Democratic Presidential Candidate Debates

Dear Friends,

Despite tons of criticism, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, continues to stick with her limited number and timing of debates by Democratic candidates for President as well as her exclusivity rule which prohibits any candidate from debating in an unauthorized debate.  Simon Rosenberg starts his piece entitled, "The Democratic debate schedule is a mess.  Here's how to fix it." on MSNBC (here) with the following paragraph.

The critics are right: If the point of presidential primary debates is to give candidates a forum to make their case to the tens of millions of people who will pick their party’s nominee, the current Democratic debate calendar is wholly insufficient to the task at hand. There are too few debates, too many are on weekends or holidays when viewership is much lower, and there aren’t enough close to when the most consequential voting will take place.

He then discusses the Democratic primary schedule and concludes (as others have as well)

The result is that the Democratic nominee will be effectively locked in by mid-March, only six weeks after primary voting begins. It is potentially a very compressed calendar.

By that time the Democrats will have had only four of the six debates that are authorized.  Clearly that is not enough.  It is clearly not enough when you consider the incredibly stupid times that the debates are scheduled.  While Simon Rosenberg's analysis of the dates is very good, Laura Clauson at the Daily Kos (here) has a much more colorful analysis of the dates.

And check out some of these dates: Saturday, November 14. Saturday, really? Who exactly is the DNC expecting to watch a Saturday night debate? But it gets better! Saturday, December 19. Yes, the Saturday six days before Christmas. Hmm ... I could attend a holiday party with my friends and loved ones, do some last-minute shopping, or watch a presidential debate. Why not just schedule it on Christmas Eve, FFS? But let's keep going through this debate schedule: January 17. That's the Sunday night of Martin Luther King Day weekend. This is absurd.

Simon Rosenberg cites the debate schedule from the 2008 Presidential election in an extremely convincing argument to follow the same schedule.

The last time Democrats had an open presidential race, the DNC held 19 debates, starting in April of 2007. The end result of that wide open process was a 53% victory in the general election by Obama and unprecedented levels of citizen engagement in our politics. That wide open and early system helped produce the best election result for the Democratic Party in 44 years, and should only have been significantly altered if there was a powerful rationale and argument from the party leadership. This is particularly true given the enormous policy commitment Democrats are making today to reforming our political and electoral systems to give more Americans a more meaningful voice in their democracy.

Corey Canter on the New Democratic Network has a blog that gives lots of articles on the subject (here) if you want to read more.

Please contact Debbie Wasserman Schultz and complain. I did it through the Democratic National Committee website which was a real pain so I would suggest contacting her campaign office (here).

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Rachel Maddow to moderate Democratic candidate forum

Dear Friends,

Rachel Maddow has been selected to moderate a Democratic Candidate Forum in South Carolina on November 6th.  While the forum is not a debate since the candidates will not appear on stage together but will be appear one at a time, forums like this one are at least better than nothing.  The Democratic establishment is tilting the playing field in favor of Hillary Clinton by limiting the number of actual debates to six.  But that is a topic for another day.

Here is a link to the segment from Rachel's show where she announced that she would moderate the forum.  I would have embedded it but for some reason I am incapable of doing that.

I am a huge supporter of Rachel, but she made a couple of troubling comments and I think she is missing the point about why Bernie Sanders should be the Democratic candidate for President.  First, she said that there are no substantive policy differences between Hillary and Bernie.  There are important differences particularly with respect to Wall Street regulation, too big to fail, use of the military, a truly level playing field for all, etc.  Rachel said there were no differences in their college plans or health care policies.  There are big differences.  Hillary's plans utilize the status quo as a base.  Bernie's plans focus on what the right thing to do is.  Both healthcare and education should be rights in this country.  He treats them as such providing by free public college education and single payer universal healthcare.

But perhaps more important than the policy differences, and in large part because of them, Bernie will generate the enthusiasm needed to get people to vote that would otherwise, and except for a few times have, stayed home.  She thought that the campaigns would turn to who had the position first and personal issues.  Those are the wrong topics.  I hope that she will focus the forum on how Democrats can regain the House and the Senate.  Hillary gives us little or no chance to achieve that result, but Bernie gives us a real chance.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Trans-Pacific Partnership

Dear Friends,

Apparently, Hillary Clinton read my blog right after I posted it and decided to withdraw her support for TPP.  The headlines, in my view exaggerate her lack of support compared to what she really said.

As of today, I am not in favor of what I have learned about it...I don’t believe it’s going to meet the high bar I have set.

She also acknowledged that she had not read it.  She has left herself a lot of wiggle room to change her mind when she is not under any pressure from the left.  It was a particularly good political move in terms of putting Vice President Biden in a bad position.  He is a supporter of TPP (and in his current position must be).  If he enters the race now, he will be the only Democratic candidate supporting TPP which will cause him problems with labor unions and liberals.

Bernie Sanders and I are both delighted that she has apparently changed her position.  Of course, as he said, it would have been more useful if she had come out against TPP when we only needed to stop granting fast track authority by preventing a 60 vote majority in the Senate.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Trans-Pacific Partnership

Dear Friends,

As you know, the negotiators have reached agreement on the terms of the Trans Pacific Partnership.  Congress granted fast track authority, with the provision that the President must give 90 days notice of his intent to sign the agreement and release the agreement to the public within 30 days thereafter.  Since he obviously intends to sign this agreement, why hasn't he given the notice and started the clock running?  Right now the President can say whatever he wants to about the TPP without fear of being contradicted because so few people have access to the entire agreement.  Once TPP is made public, a real debate can be had.  I suspect the President would like to have the 60 days of public scrutiny during a time when he thinks that the public will be distracted by other things.  We will see what he does.

Bernie Sanders along with Elizabeth Warren are leading the fight to defeat TPP for all the reasons I have written about here, here, here, here, here and here.  Hillary Clinton, while no longer saying that she is in favor of TPP, has not said what her position on TPP is.  She has also distanced herself from any part of the negotiations even though the State Department has been involved including while she was Secretary of State.  I certainly hope that she will break with the Obama Administration on TPP as she has on Shell drilling in the Arctic and the Keystone XL Pipeline.  It would be great if she would do so now.  This issue is not new; we are entitled to know where she stands on it. Maybe we will find out at the debate on October 13th.

In doing some reading today, I came across an article in The Atlantic (here) by Alan Morrison entitled "Is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Unconstitutional?", originally published in June of this year.  While I was aware of provisions that would force international arbitration that would have no judicial review that could overturn individual government laws, this article was an eye opener as to how the provision would work.

The article starts with a hypothetical of the city of San Francisco passing a $16 per hour minimum wage requirement which a Vietnamese company that owns several San Fransisco restaurants challenges because it violates the investor protection provision of TPP.  The action is brought by the Vietnamese company against the United States for damages caused by the San Francisco minimum wage law.  San Francisco can only participate with the consent of the United States.  The case is heard by three independent international arbitrators who decide the case without any judicial review.  If damages are awarded, they are paid by the United States, undoubtedly prompting Congress to overrule the San Francisco minimum wage act to prevent further damages from being awarded.  The article does not contend that the Vietnamese company would be successful but points out how the TPP arbitrators, unaccountable to anybody, could effect a change in United States law.

Since there are other treaties with similar provisions in them, the world has some experience to look at.  The article states

Indeed, in a similar situation Canada reversed a toxics ban and published a worldwide advertisement that the chemical was safe in order to avoid the possibility of having to pay substantial damages.

The article goes on to explain that the Constitutionality of such a provision has not been addressed by the Supreme Court but argues that prior rulings on other cases could lead to a finding of TPP being unconstitutional.

It is worth reading the whole article.  President Obama, his Republican allies and big business will want you to just listen to the sound bites and assurances.  This issue is to important not to force a real debate with access to the facts.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Syria, Russia and other Bullies

Dear Friends,

In a post on September 11, 2015 (here), I argued in favor of a no-fly zone to protect the Syrian people from their own government.

A no-fly zone will stop the Syrian government from using barrel bombs to kill civilians, it should enable the establishment of safe zones where aid agencies can provide water, food and shelter. I realize that Russia will probably continue to oppose any such actions, but we cannot sit by and continue to watch the genocide in Syria and force people to flee their homeland in violent and perilous conditions. The world needs to stand up to bullies whether Bashar al-Assad, Putin, ISIL or any others. 

The issue of a no-fly zone or zones in Syria has been talked about again in the last couple of days.  Secretary Clinton broke with the Obama Administration and called for a no-fly zone for humanitarian reasons.  Senator Sanders continues to oppose a no-fly zone as leading to more involvement in a conflict that we are ill-equipped to take on.  Also since my post on September 11th, the Russians have started flying missions in support of the Assad government against ISIS and rebel targets.  Apparently Russia has created its own no-fly zone and told American planes to stay out.

My statement "that Russia will probably continue to oppose any such actions" was certainly an understatement.  According to a Financial Times article this afternoon (here),

Just weeks ago, after months of diplomacy, officials were close to an agreement on enforcing aerial safe-zones to end the Assad regime’s bombing of civilians in northern and southern Syria, according to diplomats and military officials in the US-led coalition. The agreement was based on Jordanian and Turkish plans presented earlier this year.

Many officials believe an imminent move to ramp up coalition activity in Syria precipitated the Kremlin’s sudden intervention late last month.

Apparently Putin is using his activities in Syria to be in charge of what happens to the Assad government.

If we attempt to impose a no-fly zone now, we will be in direct conflict with the Russians and would greatly escalate the already large risk of a major confrontation.  President Obama said that running for President is different from being President about Hillary Clinton's call for a no-fly zone.  He could have added that writing blogs is a lot easier than actually having to make decisions in very complicated circumstances.  It looks to me that the coalition tried to find a way to use no-fly zones to provide humanitarian aid, but Putin has now blocked that avenue.  I am glad that President Obama tried.  I do not have the answer.  If Secretary Clinton or any of the Republican candidates that are calling for no-fly zones in Syria have a plan, they should lay out the entire plan in detail because the issues are far more complex than can be dealt with in sound bites.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal