Planned Parenthood Action

Dear Friends,

Planned Parenthood Action has for the first time ever endorsed a candidate for President during the primaries (here).  The statement endorsing Hillary Clinton reads in part:

Our Nation’s Best Presidential Candidate for Reproductive Rights, Hands Down
There’s no question: Hillary Clinton holds the strongest record on reproductive rights of all presidential contenders in not just this election, but in American history. She doesn’t just support women’s health — she has been a proactive leader on expanding access to women’s health care. In fact, no other 2016 candidate has shown such strong, lifelong commitment to the issues Planned Parenthood Action Fund cares about.
We live in an era where access to birth control, abortion, and services at Planned Parenthood are under unprecedented attack. With so much at stake, we can’t afford to have a president who continues these attacks — or who won’t stand strong and fight against them, no matter what.

That statement is patently false, extremely misleading and unnecessarily divisive.  I will not question Hillary Clinton's commitment to women's rights, but I will certainly not concede that she "holds the strongest record on reproductive rights of all presidential contenders".  Bernie Sanders has been a long time and steadfast advocate not only for women's reproductive rights but also for all women's rights and for policies that will help all people and disproportionately women.  Planned Parenthood Action is intentionally overstating its case and inappropriately limiting its concern to reproductive rights.

Here is a comparison on just a few of the issues:

Clinton says that she will defend Planned Parenthood funding; Sanders says he will fight to increase Planned Parenthood funding.
Clinton is for a $12 minimum wage; Sanders is for a $15 minimum wage (25% more than Clinton).  Women would be disproportionately impacted by an increase in the minimum wage.
Clinton is for paid family leave but is vague on specifics; Sanders is for paid family leave and has published the specifics including a minimum of 12 weeks of paid leave.
Clinton is for debt free college education; Sanders is for free public college education.  There is nothing more pro-women than a great education.
Clinton is for incremental change to Obamacare; Sanders is for single payer health care.  Sanders' position would disproportionately help women.

I commend to you a couple of great articles.  One is a blog post on the Huffington Post (here) by Heather Gautney entitled "Why Bernie Sanders is Best on Women's Issues".  That post ends as follows:

In the end, it looks like the Senator from Vermont is outdoing the woman candidate on pro-woman policy. That shouldn't come as a surprise. A recent survey by the Ms. Foundation for Women found that "Women do not lead single-issue lives... birth control and abortion is impacted by income level, racial and cultural bias, gender discrimination and immigrant status."
Bernie has long-understood that women's struggles can't be compartmentalized into issue-silos. That's why he's long-eschewed counterfeit gestures of "gender diversity" -- in favor of genuine social equality.

A second post that I commend to you is by Adam Barnett on Left Foot Forward, entitled "Bernie Sanders, not Hillary Clinton, is the real feminist candidate for US president" (here).

Not only was Planned Parenthood Action's statement endorsing Hillary Clinton false and misleading, it made matter worse when it  published a chart labeled "How Do Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders Compare on Women's Health? (here).

Hillary Clinton	Bernie Sanders
REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
Clinton introduced eight pieces of legislation with the clear purpose of expanding and protecting women’s access to reproductive health care.	Sanders has consistently co-sponsored and voted for pro-women’s health legislation.
Clinton consistently co-sponsored and voted for pro-women’s health legislation.
GENDER PAY GAP
Clinton introduced the Paycheck Fairness Act in 2005, 2007, and 2009 to address the gender pay gap.	Sanders has co-sponsored and consistently voted for legislation aimed at addressing the gender pay gap.
Clinton consistently co-sponsored and voted for legislation aimed at addressing the gender pay gap.
BIRTH CONTROL
Clinton waged a multiyear effort​ — and even blocked the nomination of an FDA head with Sen. Patty Murray — to pass a breakthrough in birth control access: the law that made emergency contraception available over the counter.	Sanders has consistently co-sponsored and voted for legislation that expands access to birth control, family planning, and sex education.
Clinton helped launch the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, which supports access to birth control, family planning, and sex education.
Clinton helped beat back a proposal to define birth control (including IUDs) as abortion, saving federal funds for certain medical providers.
Clinton has consistently co-sponsored and voted for legislation that expands access to birth control, family planning, and sex education.
PLANNED PARENTHOOD
Clinton boldly spoke out in support of Planned Parenthood — without prompting — at each of the first three Democratic debates, as well as dozens of times on the campaign trail.	Sanders did not mention Planned Parenthood during the first three Democratic debates, but has made supportive statements several times on the campaign trail.
INTERNATIONAL REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH ACCESS
As senator, Clinton introduced the legislation to restore funding to the UN Population Fund. President Bush suspended funding for it, but as secretary of state Clinton helped lead the U.S. in overturning the Bush administration's policy.	Sanders voted for the legislation to restore funding to the UN Population Fund, which helps provide family planning, HIV, and maternal health care to millions of low-income people in developing countries around the world.
In an unprecedented move as secretary of state, Clinton launched the federal Office of Global Women's Issues, which aims to integrate women as central partners in decisions about foreign policy.
Clinton started myriad global programs that help women and girls survive extreme hardship in rural areas, as well as enter fields such as business and public service.

The chart is extremely misleading.  As you can see Planned Parenthood Action listed specific things that Hillary Clinton had done and simply said that Bernie Sanders had supported good things.  Let's look at the chart a little closer.  

Under the heading reproductive rights, the chart indicates that both have cosponsored and voted for legislation supported by Planned Parenthood but indicates that Hillary had introduced eight unspecified pieces of legislation.  The chart makes no attempt to include specific legislation introduced by Bernie Sanders that would expand and protect "woman's access to reproductive health care".  Apparently Planned Parenthood does not count bills introduced by Bernie Sanders including Senate bill 915 in 2011 which provided for health care for all including specifically family planning services, mammograms and Pap smears as well as additional preventative care and screening.

Under the title of Gender Pay Gap, the chart indicates that Hillary Clinton sponsored the Paycheck Fairness Act in 2005, 2007 and 2009.  The chart neglects to indicate that Bernie Sanders co-sponsored those acts in 2007 and 2009.  Of course he could not have co-sponsored her bill in the Senate in 2005 because he was not in the Senate at that time.

The Birth Control section is also very misleading.  It refers to a hold placed on President Bush's nominee to head the FDA in 2005 when Bernie Sanders was not in the Senate.  It also refers to working for a law to make emergency contraception available over the counter.  The chart neglects to point out that Bernie Sanders, after he joined the Senate, supported a bill introduced by Hillary Clinton before he joined the Senate to provide emergency contraception.  He also was the co-sponsor of Senate bill 2904 in the 111th Congress to provide emergency contraception to all servicewomen.  Bernie Sanders has also consistently co-sponsored bills to eliminate current federal restrictions on a woman's right to abortion.

The title Planned Parenthood is just plain silly, as Bernie Sanders has been a strong and very vocal supporter of Planned Parenthood for years and is campaigning on increasing funding for Planned Parenthood while Hillary Clinton simply campaigns on defending it current funding.

International Reproductive Health Access section of the chart details some specific things that Hillary Clinton has done.  Bernie Sanders has always supported the United States and the United Nations international efforts.  In addition the chart appears to reference some of the good things done by the Clinton Foundation, it neglects to record that the Clinton Foundation takes significant funding from countries with terrible records with respect to women's rights.  Here is just one paragraph from The New York Times (here).

But the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation has accepted tens of millions of dollars in donations from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Algeria and Brunei — all of which the State Department has faulted over their records on sex discrimination and other human-rights issues.

I have been a longtime supporter of both Planned Parenthood and Planned Parenthood Action, but their endorsement of Hillary Clinton during the primary and their incredibly untruthful and unfair statements about Bernie Sanders have put me in a difficult position.  Clearly I will no longer provide financial support to Planned Parenthood Action, and I am not sure what to do about Planned Parenthood.

I am afraid that Planned Parenthood has become just another organization more concerned about protecting the establishment than they are about their mission.  I will discuss this issue in another blog post.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Hillary, the friend of Wall Street

Dear Friends,

Bernie Sanders went to Wall Street on Tuesday to give a speech making his policies very clear.  He will break up the big banks, he will prosecute individuals not just fine the companies, he will reinstate Glass-Steagall, and he will raise taxes on Wall Street.  You can read the text of his speech here.  Hillary Clinton tries to sound tough on Wall Street, but she isn't and really can't be because she takes so much money from them for her campaign, for the Clinton Foundation and for speaking engagements for Bill and her.

ThinkProgress had a great piece on the differences between Senator Sanders and Secretary Clinton with respect to Wall Street (here).  The piece points out three differences.

First, Senator Sanders would reinstate Glass-Stegall and breakup the big banks that are already too big to fail.  Hillary Clinton refuses to work to reinstate Glass-Steagall or commit to breaking up the banks.  In fact she argues that Glass-Steagall would not have prevented the Great Recession.  The ThinkProgress piece summarized the arguments as follows:

Clinton has questioned the value of Glass-Steagall and said the law repealed while her husband was in the White House could not have helped prevent the 2008 housing collapse. Sanders disagrees, saying the so-called “shadow banks” whose failure triggered the recession, such as AIG and Lehman Brothers, got their money from federally-insured bank deposits of big commercial banks, which would be illegal under such a rule. Regardless of whether the law could have prevented the Great Recession, Sanders argues it could curtail risky behavior in the future.

Second, Secretary Clinton says that she will increase the taxes on Wall Street's risky trading but her proposed taxes are small compared to Senator Sanders' proposal.  Here from the ThinkProgress piece:

“Hillary’s is kind of a half-plan, which doesn’t raise as much revenue,” Mike Konczal with the Roosevelt Institute told ThinkProgress. “The more people have looked at it, the weaker it seems. It’s not sufficient to tackle the problem, because it exempts a huge amount of trades.”

Third, the piece acknowledges that the changes proposed by Senator Sanders would require significant participation by Congress.  It also indicates that the people that are appointed to important financial positions in the government can make a huge difference.  As I indicated in an early blog post, Senator Clinton's chief financial advisor is a Wall Street insider (here).  Here is how the ThinkProgress article ends:

Though Clinton has similarly not revealed who she would appoint to lead the Federal Reserve and other agencies, Konczal says the two candidates would likely show stark differences in their nominations.

“Hillary would appoint people who think Dodd-Frank is mostly successful and just needs a little more work,” he said. “Bernie would appoint people who think our financial system is a massive problem and needs a major overhaul.”

Clearly Secretary Clinton leans in the right direction.  Unfortunately, she does not understand or is not willing to push for the "major overhaul" that is needed both with respect to financial matters and in many other respects.  Senator Sanders will fight for the massive changes that we need.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Villefranche-sur-mer v.5

Dear Friends,

Our life in Villefranche has begun to settle into a normal routine.  Aude, our wonderful French tutor, comes to our apartment from 9:00 to noon each weekday except for Wednesdays.  She is a great teacher - she is friendly, smart, gentle with us, yet is firm with us when we use the wrong conjugation or forget a vocabulary word.  Everyday we notice how much we don't know, but we also can appreciate that we know more than we did before.

Last night we decided that we would go out to dinner.  Since we do not see Aude on Wednesdays, we can go out on Tuesday nights and still get our homework done by Thursday.  We were all set to go to a restaurant that we had walked by a million times but had never visited.  On our walk there, we went passed La Belle Étoile, a great but rather expensive restaurant that we really like.  It was open, and we were tempted, but we walked on to La Grignotière, our original destination.  We are very happy that we did.

We were the first in the restaurant since it was only about 7:30, but soon other guests arrived, all of whom were speaking French.  The two women who run the restaurant were very nice and spoke to us only in French which made us feel very good.  The ambiance was beautiful and the food was great.

We split the warm goat cheese salad.  There was a dollop of pesto on top of each round of warm almost melted goat cheese and the toast was soft.

We each had one of the specials.

For those of you whose French is not so great, the first special was a kebab of leg of lamb.  Jane got this special.

I got the médaillons de lotte fraiche - sauce amorcicaine.  We are not sure if they meant American, but we will never know.  Lotte is a local monkfish so it was very fresh and really good as was the sauce which I think was made of cream, tomato and herbes de Provence.

The side dishes were ratatouille, a mash of root vegetables and a potato.  In Jane's case, it was a baked potato; in mine it was a boiled potato, but it might have been boiled in butter.

For dessert we split a special dessert that has no particular name but is made with a coconut meringue, vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce and whipped cream with sliced almonds.

It was necessary to finish the meal with a small glass of limoncello, an after dinner drink that is omnipresent in Villefranche.

It was a great evening in all respects, and we had a wonderful walk home through the quiet streets of Villefranche.

Notwithstanding our wild evening on the town, we arose by 7:30 this morning and went for a walk along the beach when we reached the other side of the harbor we could look back at the rising sun shining on our wonderful Villefranche.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

Villefranche-sur-mer v.4

Dear Friends,

One of the things that we love about traveling is that we seem more open to unusual adventures.  Yesterday, we had a really fun one.

We arose at a much more normal time and had our regular breakfast.  Since it was a beautiful day, we decided that we would walk to the port of Saint Jean on Cap Ferrat.  The harbor of Villefranche is made from a peninsula that extends out from Beaulieu on the east and the point that separates Villefranche from Nice on the west.

Saint Jean Cap Ferrat has some of the most expensive real estate in the world and is an incredibly beautiful peninsula.  We have walked there often to visit the port and the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild which is now a wonderful villa and garden open to the public.  There is a great walking path around the point which we have never taken but will some day.

It is about a 5 km walk from our apartment to the port if you walk to the east side of the beginning of the peninsula and then walk out the peninsula along a wonderful walking path past David Niven's old house which is the only house on the water side of the path.  Anyway we love this path.  The port was still decorated for Christmas.

Yes, that is a barge in the marina with a nativity scene on it.

At the port there are quite a few choices for lunch.  We chose a nice looking Italian one and ate outside.

While Jane was having the spaghetti napolitana I had the ravioli with fresh tomatoes.

After they finished their meal, paid their bill and were about to leave, the couple next to us struck up a conversation in French.  They were from Luxembourg but had a villa in the hills above Villefranche and Beaulieu where they spent a lot of time.  At first we spoke about easy topics, the weather, Villefranche, Beaulieu, the French language, etc. but then we switched to politics.  At first I was worried, but it then became clear that they thought that Hillary Clinton was great.  They did not seem too put off when we said that we supported Bernie Sanders.  

Sometime during our conversation, all the other people in restaurant and outside left.  When we realized that the couple offered to take us on a tour of Cap Ferrat in their car.  It seemed like a fun idea particularly since we had gotten lost the last time we tried to walk home over the hill and along the west side of the peninsula.  They took us past numerous incredibly large and beautiful villas, including those of the king of Belgium and Bill Gates.  Then they took us to the farthest point on the road to the Chapelle de Saint-Hospice.  It had been used as a hospital particularly for soldiers who had been gassed during one of the First World War so there was also a cemetery.  There was also a huge statue of the Madonna and Child.

The nice looking couple in the photo above are our hosts for this tour of Saint Jean Cap Ferrat.  They then drove us back to the end of the beach of Villefranche so we could walk home.  We introduced ourselves, but they never gave us their names.  That was rather strange, but since you cannot recreate adventures like this one, we will likely never see them again.

It was almost dark by the time we arrived back at our apartment where our laundry was trying hard to dry but it was a very humid day.

We had a wonderful adventure and spoke a lot of French which got us ready for this morning when we had our first tutoring session of this visit to Villefranche.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal