Hillary Clinton and Foreign Policy

Dear Friends,

I have long been concerned about the hawkish, interventionist foreign policy of Secretary Clinton.  In an essay in The New York Times this morning entitled "The Real Threat to Hillary Clinton" Jacob Heilbrunn (here) posits that the real threat to Secretary Clinton's bid for the Presidency is not Senator Warren but former Senator Jim Webb from Virginia.  I know very little about Senator Webb, but I intend to find out more.  Mr. Heilbrunn describes him

as a Vietnam War hero, former secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration, novelist and opponent of endless wars in the Middle East.

He was an outspoken critic of President George W. Bush's wars, asked the question, "Do we really want to occupy Iraq for the next 30 years?" and voted against the Iraq war.  Secretary Clinton, on the other hand voted for the Iraq war.  Senator Webb's foreign policy views have been very consistent with his first hand knowledge of the horrors of war, while Secretary Clinton continues to try to move her views around to suit her perceived needs.  Secretary Clinton's record is clear that she is a hawk and an interventionist.

Senator Webb's views are certainly not perfect as he was a strong proponent of the coal industry while in the United States Senate, but if Senator Webb fully jumps into the race for the Democratic nomination, perhaps we can have a real debate about foreign policy and perhaps he will prove to be a viable alternative to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Justice and the Powerful

Dear Friends,

Justice and fairness are sorely lacking in the world today.  Perhaps they always have been, but now it is just so evident.  You have to be intentionally ignorant not to see this lack of justice.  The manner in which our criminal justice system deals with the powerful and the weak is a perfect example

This dichotomy was starkly present in the opinion section of The New York Times yesterday.  One of the lead editorials was entitled "Prosecute the Torturers and their Bosses" (here).  While the editorial calls for the prosecution of the people in power who approved/ordered torture, it admits

as hard as it is to imagine Mr. Obama having the political courage to order a new investigation, it is harder to imagine a criminal probe of the actions of a former president.

I completely support the call to prosecute those who planned, ordered, condoned and carryout torture.  Unfortunately, the lack of justice in the United States makes it impossible for me to believe that there will ever be any prosecution of these powerful criminals.

Charles Blow's column "Pursuing Justice for All" (here) discusses the complete lack of justice for those who lack power and particularly those persons of color.  The column relates the case of a 14 year old black boy convicted of killing two white girls in South Carolina in 1944.  He was tried, convicted and executed within three months of the killings.  The story is grotesque.  He was 95 pounds, received a completely inadequate defense, was found guilty by an all white, all male jury, and electrocuted.  He was so small he had to sit on a book to fit in the electric chair.  The story says either a telephone book or the Bible.  Recently a South Carolina judge threw out the conviction.

This was a victory of sorts: a 70-years-too-late admission that the justice system failed that black child, and that the failure culminated — in short order — in the taking of his life. Yet something about it feels hollow and discomforting, like the thunder that rolls long after the lightning has cracked the sky and split the tree.
It boldly announces itself in all its noisy nothingness. It was the white flash that did the damage and produced the splinters.
That is all too often what “righting” racial injustice looks like in this country: a hollow pronouncement that follows the damage but doesn’t prevent its recurrence. 

The last sentence of the above quote says it all about justice in my country.  The lack of prosecution of the powerful for torture and the racially biased prosecution of black Americans, no matter how we might talk about them at the time or later, clearly instructs future generations that the powerful can commit crimes without fear of accountability, but the weak must fear prosecution whether they have done anything wrong or not.  No nation that lacks equal justice under the law can call itself civilized.  The United States tortures people and executes often innocent people.  What is civilized about that?

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Torture and Hypocrisy

Dear Friends,

The torture conducted by the United States, in our names, was not only illegal and morally despicable, it has demonstrated the incredible hypocrisy of the United States.  Two items in The New York Times this morning clearly demonstrate this hypocrisy.

The first was an article entitled "Obama Favors Sanctions for Abuse of Venezuela Protestors" by William Neuman (here).  

President Obama plans to sign into law a bill that would impose sanctions on Venezuelan government officials responsible for human rights violations or violence against protesters who took part in antigovernment demonstrations here this year, a White House spokesman said in Washington on Thursday.

How hypocritical is it for President Obama to refuse to prosecute important and powerful people who tortured while sanctioning other countries for their human rights violations?

The second is a letter to the editor.

To the Editor:Is it not incumbent upon President Obama, now that the torture report has at last been released, to pardon the heroic C.I.A. officer who refused to participate in torture and instead revealed its use?
The officer, John C. Kiriakou, was sentenced last year to 30 months for leaking information to the news media. He remains in prison and was stripped of all that he had earned in a distinguished career at the C.I.A., while those who dishonored the agency and the nation continue to be seen on the Sunday talk shows defending the indefensible — torture.
BEATRICE WILLIAMS-RUDE
New York, Dec. 10, 2014

President Obama is willing to jail people who bring to light torture but not the people who condoned, ordered and carried out torture.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Torture

Dear Friends,

International and domestic law contain absolute bans on torture.  Any civilized and moral society must ban all torture - no exceptions.

United States law defines torture as follows:

(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality;

There can be no doubt under this definition that waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques used by the United States are torture.

Under International law, it is clear that the "just following orders" defense is invalid.  That rule was clearly established in the Nuremberg trials.

Vice President Cheney has admitted that he either ordered or condoned waterboarding and is therefore guilty of violating United States and International law and should be prosecuted along with all the others that condoned torture, ordered torture and carried out torture.

Failure to prosecute and hold torturers accountable for their action will reduce the moral authority of the United States, put us in the category of regimes that torture and be a clear signal to future Presidents and CIA Directors that torture is ok and will not be punished.

CIA Director John Brennan in his speech yesterday defending the CIA when questioned about the future indicated that the future use of torture is left to policy makers.  He was very clear that the CIA will carry out torture if directed to do so by the policy makers.  President Obama should immediately remove him from his position, clearly repudiate torture and prosecute all who ordered, condoned and engaged in torture.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Bravo President Obama!!!

Dear Friends,

President Obama made an incredible appearance on The Colbert Report on December 8th.  He did "The Word" segment in true Colbert style while making a great case for Obamacare.  It was the kind of appearance that he needs to make to be sure that people understand the accomplishments of his Presidency and what the incredible differences are between the Republican and Democratic parties.  Now that he is taking actions without concerns about his own reelection or any midterm elections, he seems to be doing better.

I tried to upload the videos but I was unsuccessful so here is a link The Colbert Report's website where you can watch the videos.  You have not seen it, watch it.  You will enjoy it.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Hillary Clinton and the XL Pipeline

Dear Friends,

It is well established that Hillary Clinton refuses to say what her position is on the Keystone XL Pipeline.  I find her reluctance to disclose her position a really bad sign and support for my position that she is a opportunist and not someone with strongly held views that she will support.  A little research turns up some interesting stories.  Here are some in chronological order.

There was an article in The Daily Beast just about two years ago entitled "Clinton's Environmental Failure" (here).  I found this paragraph from that article particularly interesting:

But the rumor is that Clinton’s State Department is nonetheless about to recommend approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which the top climate scientists in the nation have unanimously called a terrible idea. As far as I know, though, Clinton’s subordinates haven’t reached out to ask them why. For more than a year now, it’s been one of Washington’s worst-kept secrets that Clinton wants the pipeline approved. And why not? Its builder, TransCanada, hired her old deputy campaign manager as its chief lobbyist and gave lobbying contracts to several of her big bundlers. Leaked emails show embassy officials rooting on the project; it’s classic D.C. insiderism. (And, weirdly, her rumored successor is just as involved—Susan Rice has millions in stock in TransCanada and other Canadian energy companies.)

The next is an article in Politifact.com from March 5, 2014 entitled "Do Bill Clinton and George Bush Support the Keystone XL Pipeline" (here).  Apparently the American Petroleum Institute ran an ad in several states indicating that while there is gridlock in Washington, the Keystone XL Pipeline was an issue that had bipartisan support and specifically indicated that Bill Clinton and George Bush both supported it.  The article traces Bill Clinton's support to a speech he gave that appears to support the pipeline and indicates that Bill Clinton has never indicated that he does not support the pipeline.  Since I approach both Bill and Hillary Clinton with a rather cynical attitude that they are both opportunists and do not want to take positions, the language used in the speech is ambiguous.  I suspect Bill Clinton is trying to sit on the fence and be able to say he supported it or he did not depending on how the wind blows in the future.

There are two very recent articles about a speech that Secretary Clinton gave to the League of Conservation Voters, a group that is strongly opposed to the Keystone XL Pipeline.  The CBS news article (here) focused on Secretary Clinton's refusal to comment on the pipeline and the fact that just before that dinner she had attended a fundraiser for Senator Landrieu who is a very vocal proponent of the Keystone XL Pipeline.  In fact her entire strategy for winning re-election (which did not work) was to show how supportive she was of the pipeline.  The Think Progress article (here) in addition to talking about Secretary Clinton's refusal to take a position of the Keystone XL Pipeline focused on her references to fracking.  She did not use the work fracking and her words were at best platitudes about the potential problems with extraction of shale gas.  There was no outright condemnation of fracking.

I am forced to conclude that on two issues that I feel are critical to the future of the world, Secretary Clinton is failing to take a strong pro-environment stance and failing to be the leader that we need.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Hillary Clinton

Dear Friends,

The front page of the Minneapolis Star Tribune this morning had an article on Senator Amy Klobuchar and her political ambitions entitled "Sen. Amy Klobuchar quietly climbs Washington ranks" (here).  Senator Klobuchar is one of my two Senators, and I have always supported her.  She is, however, not a liberal.  She is a centrist who champions issues that are important but not often controversial.  She is in my view way to establishment and cautious.  I suspect it is for these reasons that she has risen within the Democratic establishment.

I then turned to The New York Times and read an op-ed piece by Frank Bruni entitled "Hillary 2.0 Would Be Hillary XX" (here).  The thesis of the piece is that Hillary is running in 2016 as a woman unlike 2008 when she could not decide whether to push the fact that she was a woman and how groundbreaking it would be to have a woman President.  These two articles made it clear to me that no matter how much I wanted to avoid thinking about the 2016 Presidential election, I was going to be forced to think about it.

I had been thinking of writing about the 2016 Presidential race with a particular focus on Hillary Clinton.  I would love to be able to enthusiastically support Hillary, but at the moment I cannot.  I have a clear bias about her.  I view her as an opportunist, at best a centrist, a hawk and a sellout to the establishment.  However, I feel that I need to actually do the research to see if my view is justified.  As a result over the next few months, I will be looking at what Secretary Clinton's views actually are and what positions she actually has and is taking.  I will try to be open to having my mind changed.

Please give me your feedback and propose issues that I should research.

Thank you for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Rage and Social Change

Dear Friends,

Recently I have been thinking about the question of whether there can be significant social change without rage.  This question is raised by the failure to even indict the police officers that killed Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

Before getting to my question, I am appalled at the lack of statistics on police brutality particularly when compared to the detailed statistics easily available on law enforcement officers deaths in the line of duty.  It was quick and easy for me to get information on every death of a law enforcement officer.  For example in 2013 there were a total of 107 officers that died in the line of duty.  Of that number less than 40 appeared to be the result of hostile action (1 - bomb, 30 - non accidental gun fire, 2 - stabbed and 5 - vehicular assault).  On the other hand there are no reliable statistics on the number of people killed by the police.  The reporting is voluntary and justified and non-justified are based on the view of the reporting police department.  FiveThirtyEight has done some work on the issue (here) and indicates that there could be as many as 1,000 cases of police killing civilians in the line of duty a year.  Of course many of those may be justifiable but as we have seen many are not.

The rage that has been generated by the failure to indict the police officers that killed Michael Brown and Eric Garner is completely understandable particularly in light of a history of police brutality in general and against people of color in particular.  Will this rage result in any real progress toward changing what is certainly a long standing problem with our policing and justice system?  Or to look at it another way, has there ever been any significant social change without rage?

The union movement in the United States was filled with rage caused by incredibly bad, dangerous working conditions and terrible wages.  The civil rights movement of the 1960s was fueled by rage at the continued institutionalized discrimination backed by government actions.  The women's suffrage movement was born out of rage against the legal and social inequality between men and women.  The anti-apartheid movement grew out of the rage of the black South Africans who had been suppressed and brutalized by the white government.  The anti-Vietnam war movement arose from the rage of the young people being forced into military service for an unjust war.  The movement for equal rights for the GLBT community was similarly fueled by the rage of that community and their supporters at the unfair treatment they received in all aspects of their lives.

I cannot think of any major social change that has occurred that was not fueled by rage.  When people say that something is unfair or unjust but are not enraged, it seems to be impossible to sustain a movement for change.  Consequently, the failure to address the problem with needed changes in the end either causes people to become enraged in many cases leading to the necessary change, or if the rage never happens the change never happens.

The next question is whether or not violent rage is necessary to cause change.  Police violence has been a part of all of the changes I mentioned above, even in cases where violence was not part of the rage.  The most striking example of that situation is the women's suffrage movement.  I do not believe that the suffragettes engaged in violence in their protests, but the police certainly did.  Accounts of police brutality toward the women arrested in nonviolent protests are now well document and better known.  Most of the police violence seems to have been done out of the view of the public.  Perhaps that is the reason that there was no corresponding violence by the protestors.

The early stages of gay rights protests were marred by violence, but the fight for marriage equality was remarkably free of violence by either the police or the protestors.  This dichotomy leads me to my thesis that the violence is primarily caused by the reaction of the police to the protests.  There are of course many cases of people looting and burning private property around protests but I think that much of that is being done not by the true protestors but by people taking advantage of the chaos.

The protests in Ferguson did not start out in a violent manner but certainly turned more violent when the police used military force to impose unnecessary restrictions on the protestors' rights to protest.  Where the police react calmly, the protests remain nonviolent.  Where the police react with force, violence ensues.

The police too often turn a situation from a nonviolent one into a violent one.  If you watch the video of the killing of Eric Garner, you are struck by the fact that Eric Garner was not being violent in any way, that the police outnumbered him and that there clearly was a nonviolent solution to the arrest.  Unfortunately, the police chose a violent one.

When the economic and political power of the establishment is challenged even by peaceful protestors, the establishment reacts with force.  Blue collar workers struggle for decent wages and working conditions was a challenge to the economic power of the establishment.  Blacks demanding an end to racial discrimination is a direct challenge to the power of a white establishment.  Women voting was a direct challenge to the male establishment's political control.  The Vietnam war protestors were directly challenging the military industrial complex.  The list goes on and on.  Even a peaceful challenge to established power results in a violent reaction by the establishment.

Nonviolence is the best approach.  How sad it is that the police (the agents of the establishment) seem unwilling or unable to choose nonviolence.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Senate Intelligence Committee Torture Report

Dear Friends,

Since it has not been in the news much lately, you may have forgotten the report done by the Senate Intelligence Committee about the Bush era torture.  The Senate Intelligence Committee voted long ago to release the report, but the Obama Administration is demanding so many redactions that the report loses its impact.  Needless to say, the report shows that the United States engaged in torture. Denis McDonough, the President's chief of staff, has been negotiating the issue with Senate Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee.  He is siding with the CIA in the fight over redactions.  You can read about the most recent negotiations here.  So this issue is not just what some lower level person is doing.  The Chief of Staff to the President of the United States is doing the negotiating.  You cannot get any closer to the President taking the action than having his chief of staff do it.

President Obama has not held any senior person responsible for torturing in our name, a clear violation of both United States and international law.  Why is it that he is so intent on prosecuting Edward Snowden for disclosing the illegal activity of the United States government and not the people who tortured and authorized torture?  Now President Obama is fighting to keep the American public and the world from knowing the full extent of the torture.

There is significant urgency in getting this report released in a form that gives the public a true view of what happened, since once the Republicans take control of the Senate, you can rest assured that there will be no push from the Senate to get the report released.  So I have heard a couple of times lately about how to get the report to the public.  I had forgotten that then Senator Mike Gravel from Alaska called a late night meeting of a subcommittee and read the Pentagon Papers into the record before the Supreme Court refused to block The New York Times from publishing them.  For those of you who were not around or old enough to remember the Pentagon Papers, they were a group of classified documents that demonstrated the our government had lied and covered up incidents in the Vietnam war.

The Constitution gives absolute first amendment free speech rights to sitting members of Congress for things they say on the floor, in committee meetings, etc.  The Supreme Court affirmed that right to protect Senator Gravel who knowingly read classified documents into the public record.  While a Senator or Representative is protected from prosecution outside Congress, he/she can be censured, expelled from Congress, etc.  Of course there is also a lot of peer pressure not to take such an action.

For those of us that want full disclosure of the torturing that our government did, we are hoping that Senator Mark Udall will follow in Senator Mike Gravel's footsteps and read the Senate Intelligence Committee report on torture into the public record.  Senator Udall has been a very vocal proponent of full disclosure of the report and was defeated for reelection a couple of weeks ago.  Hence he has the freedom to follow through on his strongly held belief that the report should be disclosed to the public by finding a way to read it into the record.

There is a great article on The Intercept by Dan Froomkin (here) that lays out what Senator Gravel did and what Senator Udall should do.  The article also indicates support for this approach from legal experts including the following quote:

Josh Chafetz, a Cornell Law School [sic], wrote in the Harvard Law Review recently:

[G]iven the extent to which executive branch secrecy determinations are made to advance executive branch interests, there is no reason for Congress to offer automatic deference to those determinations.

And in the current circumstances, he wrote:

[I]f Senators Wyden and Udall have not attempted to invoke the disclosure procedures, then an explanation should be demanded of them. They obviously believe that disturbing information is being withheld, and they obviously are frustrated — a frustration that appears to be shared by members of both parties and both houses — by what they see as a pattern of lies from the executive branch. Where is the Gravelian spirit?

Please join me in telling President Obama (here) to stop blocking meaningful disclosure of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on torture and also in encouraging Senator Udall (here) to do what Senator Gravel did.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Thank you President Obama

Dear Friends,

I want to thank President Obama for his executive action on immigration.  It certainly does not solve the problem and many families can still be ripped apart by deportation, but it is a great step in the right direction.  This action will certainly be a part of the legacy of President Obama's time in office and in my view a very positive part of his legacy.  Unfortunately, another part of his legacy will be that he was the deporter in chief, having deported more people than any other President.

Nicholas Kristof had an insightful and well balanced op-ed in The New York Times this morning (here) entitled "Immigration Enriches You and Me".  It is certainly worth the time to read and consider it.

Another interesting op-ed piece in The New York Times was by Peter Schuck, a law professor entitled "Why Congress Can Impeach Obama" (here).  He is not arguing that Congress should impeach President Obama.  He argues that impeachment is more a political action than a legal action.  He is also doubtful of the correctness of President Obama's legal position that his executive order on immigration is within his authority.  It is a very interesting article written by someone who supports immigration reform and voted for President Obama twice.  In the end he believes that while impeachment is a political action it should only be used in extreme cases and that President Obama's executive order even if it does exceed his legal authority is not one of those cases.

I have wondered why President Obama does not put forth a detailed legal and political justification for his executive order including a clear analysis of the executive actions of his predecessors (particularly President H.W. Bush and President Reagan).  While it would not make any difference to the Republicans who deep down do not think that he should be President, it is possible that some real news outlets would actually discuss the issue of the extent of the President's authority.  It would be a good debate for this country to have particularly in light of the fact that Congress lets the President wage war and spy on us without authority.

At the risk of offending some of the few readers I have, I want to highlight another article in The New York Times this morning by Juliet Lapidos entitled "Hillary Clinton Takes Sides on Immigration" (here).  I am upset that Secretary Clinton has not taken a position on the XL pipeline.  However, at least on immigration she has taken a position supporting President Obama's action.  The article ends with a sentence that resonates with me as a person who finds it hard to support Secretary Clinton as the next Democratic nominee for President.

But she could have ducked responding to this specific action. The fact that she didn’t suggests that she thinks Republican complaints of “Caesarism” will matter less in two years than immigration advocates’ gratefulness to the Democratic Party.

It is hard for me to get excited about supporting somebody whose positions seem to be determined more by how they will be viewed by the electorate than by what she really believes.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Jobs, Gasoline Prices and the XL Pipeline

Dear Friends,

Yesterday the House of Representatives voted to approve the XL Pipeline.  It was a clean vote - no debate and no amendments.  Three members of the House of Representatives from Minnesota who are Democrats voted with the Republicans.  One of them is Colin Peterson who is more Republican than Democrat anyway and whom I have never supported.  Another is Rick Nolan from the Iron Range whom I have supported.

Rick Nolan, during his recent campaign for re-election said that he could support the XL Pipeline if it were built with US steel.  As you can imagine, the issue of using US steel is a big deal on the Iron Range whose economy depends on steel because they produce taconite.  Needless to say the bill that passed the House yesterday said nothing about requiring the use of US steel.  Representative Nolan sought to explain his vote by saying that his constituents wanted him to be bipartisan.  I am not sure what his vote has to do with bipartisanship.  A vote with no debate and no amendments is hardly a way to achieve bipartisanship.  One of his constituents does not seem to agree and voices the real reason for Representative Nolan's vote as quoted in the Minneapolis Star Tribune (here):

Why would you run a pipeline from Canada with the dirtiest oil running through it made with cheap foreign steel in the breadbasket of America … all in the name of profits for an oil company?” said John Malek, president of the 1,300-worker union local at Minntac mine near Virginia. “The only benefit I really see out of this is getting some good American steel in it and putting some construction workers back to work.

The third Democrat from Minnesota to vote for the bill in the House was Tim Walz.  I have supported Tim in every one of his runs for the House and have been proud to do so because he has done a lot of great things.  I do not know why he voted for this bill, but I doubt that I will agree with him and will certainly have trouble supporting him in the future.

The article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune quoted above also indicated that Senator Franken whom I have also supported from his start in politics implied that he might support the XL Pipeline if it passes the environmental study being done and it includes a provision to use US steel.  The clear implication is that the XL Pipeline should get support if it provides jobs.

So how many jobs would the XL Pipeline produce?  Once construction is completed it is estimated that there will be 35 permanent jobs created by this pipeline, according to estimates by the State Department.  TransCanada, the pipeline company, estimates that 20,000 jobs will be created during the one to two years of construction.  That is really an overestimate because TransCanada is using job years.  So a single job that last for two years is counted as two jobs.  Also of the 20,000 jobs, 13,000 are directly for the pipeline construction and 7,000 are for related manufacturing jobs.  TransCanada's estimates are not substantiated and according to a study from Cornell University, there will be less than 5,000 direct jobs during the construction of the XL Pipeline (here).

If Congress wants to pass a law that will encourage jobs and lots of good jobs, they should pass a law to bring our infrastructure into the 21st century.  The American Society of Civil Engineers has estimated that we need to spend $3.6 trillion by 2020 to update our infrastructure.  That would produce jobs.  Consider that today with only minor spending, there are 14.2 million jobs in infrastructure construction or about 11% of our total employment.  True bipartisanship would be to pass a real infrastructure building law that would also be a great jobs bill.  We could also require that US steel be used in government funded projects (if we do not enter into the Trans-Pacific Partnership).  If you want a quick summary of the infrastructure problem here is a CBS News article.

Another argument that you hear about the need to have the XL Pipeline is that it will lower the cost of gasoline.  A Bloomberg article (here) addresses this issue.

Keystone opposition has been shocking to many Americans, too. The world’s biggest oil consumer relies on some of the world’s cheapest gas prices to power its economy. How could the U.S. possibly turn down a new artery to deliver the stuff, even if it does come with new environmental risks?

The answer is that Keystone isn’t meant for U.S. consumption.

In Keystone’s weirdonomics, the pipeline would actually increase prices of gasoline for much of the country, according to at least three studies that have looked into it. Keystone would divert crude from Midwest refineries to Gulf Coast refineries, where it would then be shipped to more expensive markets. Bypassing heartland refineries could drive up prices at home.

For people living in the Midwest, Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, it could add 20 cents a gallon to the price at the pump. 

I try to stay away from sources that people could claim are biased when writing these blogs but sometimes the article is so compelling and summarizes the issues so well that I cannot help myself.  Friends of the Earth has a  great summary of the problems with the XL Pipeline (here) covered in seven paragraphs titled:
dirty tar sands oil
water waste and pollution
forest destruction
indigenous population
pipeline spills
refining tar sands
stopping the pipeline

So why is anybody supporting the XL Pipeline except for TransCanada and the oil companies that stand to make lots of money while potentially destroying our environment in many ways.  You can contact President Obama here and for those of you that live in Minnesota, you can reach Senator Klobuchar here and Senator Franken here.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Department of Energy Loan Program

Dear Friends,

You may remember the todo during the 2012 Presidential election about Solyndra, a start up solar company, that defaulted on a loan from the Department of Energy loan program.  The DOE loan program was designed to provide funds to encourage new energy technology that could not otherwise attract capital.  The program was started under President George W. Bush in 2005 but was substantially funded under President Obama's stimulus program in 2009.

Well you will be happy to know that the loan program is now showing a profit, even though when it was started it was not intended to do so.  The program has been a great success providing capital to fund new green technology that could not get private capital until their business models could be proven.  Under this program many business models have been proven and now private capital is replacing public capital to make new green technologies realities.  Here is a link to an NPR report.

Despite Republican claims, the government can, should and does great things.  This government loan program helped entrepreneurs prove their ideas (or have them disproved), developed new green technology, created lots of private sector jobs, moved us toward energy independence, reduced our carbon emissions and improved the quality of our air.  Keep in mind that it did this because the private sector would not take the risk and keep in mind that the government made a profit doing so.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Climate Change Reality

Dear Friends,

As you all know, China and the United States have reached an agreement to reduce carbon emissions which as environmental activist Josh Fox said on "All in with Chris Hayes" on November 12th, "The United States and China are entering reality together."  The two largest carbon emitters in the world, responsible for 40% of the world's carbon emissions are finally publicly saying they will lead the world in reducing carbon emissions.  What a powerful statement!  The European Union has already entered reality so now the focus can turn to India, Brazil, Russia and other major carbon emitters to also enter climate change reality.

In terms of a wonderful legacy for President Obama, this agreement is a perfect example of great diplomacy serving the best interests of the United States and the world.  Secretary Kerry initiated the idea with his Chinese counterpart and after nine months of negotiations it fell to President Obama to President Xi of China to spend five hours together reaching final agreement.  Doing this is exactly what great leaders do.

The Republicans are reacting as you might expect with outrage and illogical fear mongering.  Senator Inhoff, who will be the Chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in the next Congress and who is a climate change denier, said that the agreement is "a non-binding charade."  Senator McConnell said,

I was particularly distressed by the deal he’s reached with the Chinese on his current trip, which, as I read the agreement, it requires the Chinese to do nothing at all for 16 years, while these carbon emission regulations are creating havoc in my state and other states across the country.

Presumably the carbon emission regulations he is referring to are those requiring coal fired electrical plants to dramatically reduce their emissions.  Those regulations are critical to fighting climate change and are long overdue.  They are also necessary for us to stop killing people.  Here is a brief summary of a report by the American Lung Association (here):

The Lung Association’s report reveals the real public health threat from coal-fired power plants.

• Coal-fired power plants that sell electricity to the grid produce more hazardous air pollution in the U.S. than any other industrial pollution  sources.
• More than 400 coal-fired power plants located in 46 states across the country release more that 386,000 tons of hazardous air pollutants into the atmosphere each year.
• Particle pollution from power plants is estimated to kill approximately 13,000 people a year.

“Power plant pollution kills people,” said Charles D. Connor, President and CEO of the American Lung Association. “It threatens the brains and nervous system of children. It can cause cancer, heart attacks and strokes.

So Senator McConnell and his fellow Republicans who are so concerned about protecting life are happy to have us continue to kill people so that we can have a few very dangerous jobs mining coal.

The other part of Senator McConnell's statement that the Chinese do not have to do anything for 16 years is absolutely false.  Either Senator McConnell does not understand reality or he is simply lying to appeal to his base and continue his fear based politics.  Or maybe it is both.  In any case for the person who is to be the next Majority Leader in the Senate to say these things demonstrates what a sorry state our country is in.

The reality of the Chinese agreement is that they will peak in their carbon emissions by 2030 and at that point will generate 20% of their electricity from renewable, non-carbon sources.  This agreement is the first time that the Chinese have acknowledged publicly that they will cap their emissions.  In addition, in order to achieve the goal of producing 20% of their electricity from renewable, non-carbon sources they will need to build renewable, non-carbon electrical plants equal to all of their current coal fired plants and also equal to the entire United States electrical generating capacity and do that in 16 years.  They can and likely will accomplish that goal for several reasons.  First, they are under significant domestic pressure to reduce air pollution.  Second, these goals in China have the effect of law.  Third, investing heavily in renewable, non-carbon energy sources will make them the undisputed leader in that technology unless the United States is smart enough to compete for that title.

If the Chinese can build renewable, non-carbon electrical generating facilities large enough to provide enough electricity to meet the needs of the United States, why can't we do that?  We could be the first country in the world to generate its energy needs from renewable, non-carbon sources.  Can you imagine what that would do for our economy and our national security?  Historically the United States has thrived on taking on big, long-term challenges and that is what made us a super power.  We can do that again, but we must have leaders with vision and guts and backbones.  If we let the current energy companies drive our policies, we will be relegated not only to a world completely degraded by the impact of climate change, but we will be left behind economically and morally.

I have from time to time accused President Obama of making great speeches but failing to follow through with actions.  In order to avoid that criticism and to really secure as part of his legacy fighting climate change, President Obama needs to take immediate actions to be clear that the United States will work hard to meet its goals under the agreement, carbon emissions that are 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025.  The first thing that he should do is deny the permit for the XL Pipeline.  Why would anybody take us seriously as a leader in fighting climate change if we facilitate the production and burning of the dirtiest carbon on the earth?

Please join me in congratulating President Obama on this historic agreement with China and urging him to cancel the XL Pipeline (here).

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Net Neutrality

Dear Friends,

 A couple of days ago President Obama made a very strong statement in favor of net neutrality.  You can read the entire statement here.  The crux of the issue is how broadband services should be regulated.  President Obama has made it clear that they should be treated like telephone services.

So the time has come for the FCC to recognize that broadband service is of the same importance and must carry the same obligations as so many of the other vital services do. To do that, I believe the FCC should reclassify consumer broadband service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act — while at the same time forbearing from rate regulation and other provisions less relevant to broadband services. This is a basic acknowledgment of the services ISPs provide to American homes and businesses, and the straightforward obligations necessary to ensure the network works for everyone — not just one or two companies.

I am delighted that President Obama has chosen to speak out on this critical issue to the future of the internet.  A free and open internet is essential to maintaining it as a critical element in our lives and in the development and communication of ideas.  Big corporations that essentially have a monopoly should not be able to decide which ideas and speech goes in a fast lane and which ideas and speech are either blocked or relegated to a slow lane.

Strong rules on net neutrality could be a wonderful legacy of President Obama's presidency.  We need to thank him for taking such a strong stand on this issue and for speaking out publicly.  Unfortunately, one statement no matter how strong or well constructed will carry the day.  There are very strong forces that would like to let the ISPs govern.  Ted Cruz has compared net neutrality to Obamacare, saying that the internet should not go at the speed of government.  Ted Cruz is an extremist and is really just against net neutrality because he is against anything that President Obama is for.  However, in addition to Senator Cruz, the ISPs (think Comcast, ATT, Time Warner) are opposed to true net neutrality because they stand to make a lot of money selling faster service to Netflix, etc. and controlling whose ideas and content get to the public.  As a result, we also need to encourage President Obama to continue to speak out for net neutrality.

Please join me in thanking President Obama and asking him to keep speaking out on this issue (here) and also in writing to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler (who is not really a supporter of net neutrality) to voice your support of net neutrality (here) because if you don't you may have real difficulty in doing so once Comcast and ATT are making up the rules.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Trans-Pacific Partnership

Dear Friends,

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a massive "trade agreement" currently being negotiated by the United States and 11 other countries - Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Canada, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and Japan.  It is already huge and is being written in a way that other countries can join.  The negotiations have been going on for a decade, but they are secret.  The public only knows some details because drafts have been leaked.  The agreement contains 29 chapters and covers everything.  It is impossible to comprehend the vastness of the agreement. The Washington Post published a short and hence not very comprehensive article in December last year entitled "Everything you need to know about the Trans-Pacific Partnership" by Lydia DePillis (here).

One way to evaluate whether the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a good thing or not is to look at who is for it and who is against it.  There are over 500 official advisors to the United States negotiators.  They are from major corporations.  Senator McConnell has been widely quoted as saying that he and President Obama have talked about and agree on giving President Obama fast track authority to get this agreement done.  In fact it appears that the establishment Republicans and Democrats, all of whom tend to do the bidding of corporate America, are in favor of this agreement but liberals and conservative Republicans are very skeptical.

If you read the official website of the Office of the United States Trade Representative (here), you will get the sense that TPP is the greatest thing since sliced bread and will make all Americans rich.  I have not read anything that refutes the contention that  TPP will be good for American businesses and the economic elite.  However, it appears that there will be a negative impact on American jobs and American startup companies.  The Center for Economic and Policy Research released a study a year ago indicating that TPP would have a negative impact on most American workers (here).

TPP is being challenged by a wide variety of groups.  One very vociferous group is Public Citizen.  The first part of its website (here) about TPP reads:

Have you heard? The TPP is a massive, controversial "free trade" agreement currently being pushed by big corporations and negotiated behind closed doors by officials from the United States and 11 other countries – Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. In one fell swoop, this secretive deal could:

offshore millions of American jobs, roll back Wall Street reforms, sneak in SOPA-like threats to Internet freedom, ban Buy American policies needed to create green jobs,

jack up the cost of medicines, expose the U.S. to unsafe food and products, and empower corporations to attack our environmental and health safeguards.





Although it is called a "free trade" agreement, the TPP is not mainly about trade. Of TPP's 29 draft chapters, only five deal with traditional trade issues. One chapter would provide incentives to offshore jobs to low-wage countries. Many would impose limits on government policies that we rely on in our daily lives for safe food, a clean environment, and more. Our domestic federal, state and local policies would be required to comply with TPP rules.
The TPP would even elevate individual foreign firms to equal status with sovereign nations, empowering them to privately enforce new rights and privileges, provided by the pact, by dragging governments to foreign tribunals to challenge public interest policies that they claim frustrate their expectations. The tribunals would be authorized to order taxpayer compensation to the foreign corporations for the "expected future profits" they surmise would be inhibited by the challenged policies.
We only know about the TPP's threats thanks to leaks – the public is not allowed to see the draft TPP text. Even members of Congress, after being denied the text for years, are now only provided limited access. Meanwhile, more than 500 official corporate "trade advisors" have special access. The TPP has been under negotiation for six years, and the Obama administration wants to sign the deal this year. Opposition to the TPP is growing at home and in many of the other countries involved. 

The Electronic Frontier Foundation does not like TPP either.  The first page of its website about TPP (here) reads:

 The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a secretive, multi-national trade agreement that threatens to extend restrictive intellectual property (IP) laws across the globe and rewrite international rules on its enforcement. The main problems are two-fold:

(1) IP chapter: Leaked draft texts of the agreement show that the IP chapter would have extensive negative ramifications for users’ freedom of speech, right to privacy and due process, and hinder peoples' abilities to innovate.
(2) Lack of transparency: The entire process has shut out multi-stakeholder participation and is shrouded in secrecy. 

Joseph Stiglitz wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times critical of TPP last spring (here) entitled "On the Wrong Side of Globalization".  I have reprinted a few of his conclusions below:

There is a real risk that it will benefit the wealthiest sliver of the American and global elite at the expense of everyone else. The fact that such a plan is under consideration at all is testament to how deeply inequality reverberates through our economic policies.

One of the worst is that it allows corporations to seek restitution in an international tribunal, not only for unjust expropriation, but also for alleged diminution of their potential profits as a result of regulation. This is not a theoretical problem. Philip Morris has already tried this tactic against Uruguay, claiming that its antismoking regulations, which have won accolades from the World Health Organization, unfairly hurt profits, violating a bilateral trade treaty between Switzerland and Uruguay.

But the TPP would make the introduction of generic drugs more difficult, and thus raise the price of medicines. 

Critics of the TPP are so numerous because both the process and the theory that undergird it are bankrupt. Opposition has blossomed not just in the United States, but also in Asia, where the talks have stalled.

If you have time to listen to a podcast from Amy Goodman's Democracy Now, I highly recommend one interviewing Lori Wallach of Public Citizen here.

However, the most important thing to do is to tell President Obama (here), your Senators and your Representative to get rid of the veil of secrecy surrounding TPP, make TPP work for working Americans and have a full debate of TPP (no fast track authority).

Thank you for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

New Day at the Department of Justice Needed Now

Dear Friends,

In the last couple of days I have read several articles about the Justice Department, Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch (President Obama's nominee to succeed Eric Holder).  We need a clean start at the Justice Department. While Eric Holder has done many good things, he has also been misleading and an advocate for covering up the wrongdoings of the banks and blocking true accountability for causing the great recession through a combination of greed and illegal activities.

Matt Taibbi published a new article in Rolling Stone a couple of days ago entitled "The Nine Billion Dollar Witness; Meet JP Morgan Chase's Worst Nightmare" (here).  It is an incredible indictment of Eric Holder and the political wing of the Department of Justice.  It also lays out in clear and logical detail the crimes of JP Morgan Chase and the coverup that they have been engineering with the help of Eric Holder.  You really should take the time to read the full article or you could listen to the detailed interview on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now show (here) with Matt Taibbi and Alayne Fleischmann (the witness).

Ms. Fleischmann was an attorney at Chase who blew the whistle on the inappropriate and illegal activities at Chase with respect to securitizing bad mortgages.  She first went through appropriate internal channels and then was a key witness for the DOJ.  The career attorneys at the DOJ were very interested in truly pursuing the banks and holding them accountable, but they were blocked by Eric Holder and the political appointees.  Ms. Fleischmann is the kind of person that we should hold up as a hero.  She is risking everything by speaking out against the big banks and the political elite.

The settlement with Chase (and similar ones with other banks) are simply the banks paying lots of money to keep their illegal activities secret.  The amounts that they are paying are large but have no negative impact on the banks.  Most of the Chase settlement is tax deductible.  That means that we are paying part of the settlement.  By the way do not try to deduct that fine you got for speeding or you will go to jail.  Another big chunk is debtor relief which is really nothing when you read the small print.  To prove that the settlement did not hurt Chase, the stock price rose by far more than the settlement (although a bunch of lower paid workers were laid off) and Jamie Dimon (Chase CEO) got a 74% increase in pay.  How can it be that the CEO of a company that has recorded about $20 billion in fines in the last few years rewards the CEO that oversaw all that with a 74% raise?  The truth is the illegal activities make far more money for Chase than the cost to Chase of those illegal activities.

Not one person has been charged with illegal activity in connection with the Chase mortgage settlement.  How can that be?  Eric Holder holds some interesting beliefs that make it impossible for him to seek true justice and accountability in these cases.  In a speech this fall, Eric Holder said,

Responsibility remains so diffuse, and top executives so insulated, that any misconduct could again be considered more a symptom of the institution's culture than a result of the willful actions of any single individual.

As Matt Taibbi writes, "In other words, people don't commit crimes, corporate culture commits crimes!"

In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the spring of 2013, Eric Holder said,

I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy. And I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large.

Mr. Holder recently walked that statement back,

There is no such thing as too big to jail. No individual or company, no matter how large or how profitable, is above the law.

This statement made in connection with some current negotiations leaves open the hope that there may be some admission of criminal activity.  For more information I suggest an article by Josh Gerstein at Politico (here).

Fortunately, there is hope that Chase, the other big banks and the individuals responsible will still be held criminally accountable.  The criticism of Eric Holder's handling of the past settlements seems to be having an impact on him, hence his change on too big to jail.  Also the settlements do not block further criminal actions in connection with the same activities, even though there apparently is a tacit understanding that such actions will not be brought.  There is pressure from well regarded editorial pages such as The New York Times. The last sentence of one of the editorials today (here) reads,

In short, there is, as yet, no indication that the real goals of law enforcement — reform and justice — will be met.

And last but not least, President Obama's nominee to succeed Eric Holder at first glance looks much more like a very competent career prosecutor who wants to see justice done than a political appointee close to President Obama.  For more about Loretta Lynch, I recommend an article in Time by Charlotte Alter entitled "Who is Loretta Lynch?" (here).

If Eric Holder fails to hold the banks and their leaders accountable for their crimes, we can only hope that Ms. Lynch will.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Keystone XL Pipeline

Dear Friends,

Speaker Boehner has indicated that one of the first items on his agenda is to pass a bill authorizing the Keystone XL pipeline.  Several media outlets, such as Politico (here) are indicating that it is possible that with the new Congress, there will be a veto proof majority to overturn a veto of such legislation by President Obama.  President Obama has said that he would only permit the Keystone pipeline if it "does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution".

If you need some background on the science of the pollution to be caused by the Keystone pipeline, I would suggest an article in the Scientific American entitled "How Much Will Tar Sands Oil Add to Global Warming" (here) and an article in The Guardian entitled "What tar sands and the Keystone XL pipeline mean for climate change" (here).  A quick summary of the scientific facts is that the Keystone pipeline by encouraging and increasing the development of the tar sands will significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.  Consequently, President Obama should immediately prevent the Keystone pipeline from being approved.

One of the arguments in favor of the Keystone pipeline is an increase in jobs.  Of course, as  the rate of global warming increases the need to rebuild destroyed infrastructure and to overcome the negative impact of global warming will produce lots of jobs but none of them will be permanent.  The other argument is that this oil will be produced, processed and sold whether there is a pipeline or not so why stop it.  That argument is only true if we continue to use fossil fuels when there are viable alternative energy sources that would be much less expensive for the society to develop and utilize.  The last argument is that China and other developing nations are continuing to pollute at an astounding rate so we should just give up and doom our children, grandchildren and the world to a terrible future.

There is no valid economic or moral argument to support the Keystone pipeline, please join me in telling President Obama (here) and your Senators to stop the Keystone pipeline.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Immigration

Dear Friends,

One thing that President Obama could do that would greatly improve his legacy is to take fast, bold executive action on immigration.  He put off taking executive action until after the elections which was a great disappointment to many of us.  Now the elections are over.  The only impediment to Congressional action on immigration reform is Speaker Boehner and the House Republicans.  The Senate passed a bipartisan immigration bill, but Speaker Boehner has refused to bring it to a vote in the House.  He has the votes to pass it, and it would quickly become law and then President Obama would not have to take executive action.  Unfortunately, immigration is not on the immediate agenda set forth by Speaker Boehner.  Indeed all that Speaker Boehner has to say about immigration reform is that President Obama will "poison the well" and burn himself if he takes action.  Not even a brief mention that immigration reform is anywhere on his agenda.

As the editorial board of The New York Times said in an editorial published yesterday about immigration reform (here), "Now the election is over, and the only thing to say to the president is: Do it. Take executive action. Make it big."  The editorial gives three major reasons for its position:  It honors the law, it helps the country and it cuts to the heart of the debate.

Those are all very good reasons but in my view the most important reason for stopping the unnecessary deportations is that it is the morally right thing to do.  Most of the people being deported are people who work hard and contribute to the society.  Deporting them and breaking up their families is immoral.  

Please join me in writing to President Obama (here) and urging him to act quickly and boldly.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

It is a new day!!

Dear Friends,

Since I cannot make any sense out of the actions of President Obama, all the Democrats that ran from him or the American electorate, I have decided to start with a clean slate for everybody and just discuss their actions as we move forward with the Republicans clearly in charge of the country through their control of most of the states as well as the Congress.  It is now time to see if the Republicans will make their policies clear to the people and if the Democrats will honor their progressive liberal roots.

All the "leaders" are talking about finding common ground, but what they seem to mean is to get their way.  Speaker Boehner says that it will "poison the well" and that President Obama will "burn himself" if he acts on immigration.  Apparently Speaker Boehner forgets that he has refused to bring up for a vote in the House a bipartisan immigration bill passed by the Senate in 2013.  Speaker Boehner could foreclose any action by President Obama if he would just get the House to pass the Senate immigration bill.  He has the votes.  He just refuses to let the House vote.  The rest of Speaker Boehner's agenda is authorizing the Keystone pipeline, addressing the broken tax code and repealing Obamacare.  There is nothing in that agenda that sounds like working together to me.

So the next several posts will be directed to President Obama to outline how he can leave the Presidency with his head held high.  In addition to getting credit for all the good things he has done, he can use the next two years to make those of us that worked so hard to get him elected proud of his overall record.

One last look backward to be fair to President Obama.  Here is a list of some of the many great things that President Obama accomplished that must be remembered when judging his Presidency.

Obamacare, economic stimulus to avoid another recession, Dodd-Frank, ending Iraq war, saving US auto industry, repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, ending most of Bush's torture policies, removing banks from student loans, increasing auto efficiency standards, Lilly Ledbetter equal pay act, appointing two great Supreme Court justices, encouraging renewable energy, expanding CHIP and killing the F-22.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Privilege and Complicity

Dear Friends,

As we watch with horror what has happened in Ferguson and what continues to happen there, I was struck by a Facebook post of an article entitled "12 things white people can do now because Ferguson" (here).  I shared it on Facebook with the comment, "We must not be complicit. We must act."  A good friend then commented, "We must act ... But we are definitely complicit, whether we want to be or not, because we willingly benefit from racial and class privilege. Hard to acknowledge, but that's the way it is."  It took me awhile to figure out how I felt about that comment.  Here is a summary of my thoughts about it now.

I was born with privilege.  I was born (1) white and (2) male, and into (3) an upper-middle class family with parents who (4) understood the importance of education and (5) provided incredible educational opportunities for me and (6) encouraged my siblings and me to take full advantage of the opportunities afforded us and (7) created a loving and supportive home for us.  How could I have been born with more privilege?  But I did not ask for, demand or deserve this privilege, nor could I bestow it on somebody else.  There is no way that I could donate my privilege to a black female born into a poor family.  It was my privilege whether I wanted it or not.  What I did not think about was that I could use my privilege to destroy it.

All my life, I have tried to take advantage of this privilege and the opportunities it afforded me and have been pretty successful at doing so.  If we could create a world where everybody had equal opportunity, we could then say that those that took advantage of those opportunities deserve what they have achieved.  Of course, we do not have a world with equal opportunity, so none of us can claim that we deserve what we have achieved.

Another person identical to me with all of the attributes of privilege that I listed above except say he was black or a woman or born into a family that did not value education, could not have achieved what I have been able to achieve.  So I benefited mightily from my privilege and "from the racial and class privilege" that exists in this country.

But my complicity does not stem from taking advantage of the privileges and opportunities afforded me.  My complicity comes from my failure and others like me to use our privilege to eliminate our privilege for future generations.  Some of us have worked for social, racial and economic justice, but we could certainly have done more.  Collectively, my generation has not only failed to make progress towards equal opportunity, but we have enabled the greatest inequality in my lifetime.

So what can I and others who were born into privilege do to eliminate our privilege and truly provide equal opportunity for all?  I do not have the answer, but I am quite certain that the first step is for us to realize and admit that our privilege helped us to be successful both by providing us with opportunities and by denying similar opportunities to others.  Just that step alone might bring us all into community with everybody else which would be a wonderful start to eliminating our privilege and injustice.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Listen to Maureen Dowd

Dear Friends,

President Obama should take the advice of Maureen Dowd in her recent op-ed column in The New York Times entitled "A Modest Proposal" (here).  You should read the whole column but here is the proposal:

He gives a passionate address to the nation, channeling 2004 Obama, and asks, as the son of a foreigner who came to America to go to school, how our mosaic of immigrants soured into such a cruel place toward displaced children.
He defies the Republicans and shoots the moon on an executive order, giving backdoor amnesty to millions of undocumented Hispanic immigrants as well as all those suffering kids on the border who are afraid to live in their own violent countries.

How proud I would be of President Obama!!!

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

President Obama's Mixed Messages

Dear Friends,

There have been a couple of items in the news that have made clear the mixed messages and double standards applied by President Obama (and I am afraid most Americans).

First, I and many others are awaiting the release of the long overdue Senate report on torture, rendition, etc. by the United States.  While President Obama has said on numerous occasions that torture is wrong and the United States was wrong when it did it and while on his second day in office he banned torture (who would have thought that we needed an executive order to ban torture), President Obama seems willing to permit the CIA to redact the Senate report so as to make a mockery of transparency.  For a great report on this issue, please read Mark Mazzetti's article in The New York Times (here).  The last paragraph of that article reads:

On Monday, Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said that “it is important that a declassification process be carried out that protects sources and methods and other information that is critical to our national security.”

The White House misses the point, there needs to be a balance between transparency and national security and the CIA has proven over and over again that it is not the agency that should be doing the balancing.

But the real problem is that President Obama refuses to hold the ones who ordered the torture accountable for their illegal and immoral actions.  There is a great op-ed piece in The New York Times by retired Major General Taguba, the Army general who did the report on Abu Ghraib and was eventually forced to retire because he told the truth and believed in accountability (here).  In a true understatement he writes, "accountability for the architects of torture has proved elusive".

The message being sent by President Obama is very clear to future leaders, political, military and CIA, that even if you do things that are clearly illegal and immoral you do not have to worry about being held accountable either by open disclosure of what you did or prosecution for the war and other crimes that you committed.

Second, President Obama continues to deport and try to deport unaccompanied minors and parents with children who are fleeing violence, poverty and death in Central America.  These people are refugees many of whom are entitled to asylum under our laws and certainly our values.  Yet despite his statements about due process, President Obama continues to fast track deportation without giving these refugees appropriate legal representation or due process.

Just as I was embarrassed to be an American when President George W. Bush was torturing and rendering people, I am embarrassed that today in my name, President Obama is sending child refugees back to Central America to face violence and in many cases death.  I commend to you an article in The New York Times by Julia Preston (here).  It is a heartbreaking account that saddens me to think that our country and this President could be so heartless.

The White House has said over and over again that its heartless behavior is necessary to send a message to other children and parents in Central America that they should not make the treacherous journey to the United States to save their lives because they will be sent right back.

So the two messages that President Obama is sending are contradictory and despicable.  If you are a powerful United States President or other leader, feel free to break the law with impunity, but if you are a child refugee fleeing Central America to save your life, stay home and die because there is no room for you in the United States.

What has happened to the country I love?

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Three Threats to Our Democracy

Dear Friends,

Our democracy is facing three significant threats, which I believe are interconnected.  They are control by a small economic elite, voter disenfranchisement and declining education.  These three threats create a vicious circle of declining opportunity, centralized control among a few, increasing economic disparity and voter suppression.

A recent study by Martin Gilens of Princeton and Benjamin Page of Northwestern (here) entitled "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens" raises the spectrum that America is more like an oligarchy than a democracy.  I have to admit that I did not read the entire report and perhaps did not fully understand all that I read.  Nevertheless, I did understand this paragraph from the abstract.

The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence. Our results provide substantial support for theories of Economic Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism. 

I also did read completely an article in The New Yorker by John Cassidy entitled "Is America an Oligarchy?" (here).  That article ends with the following paragraph:

Me, too. There can be no doubt that economic élites have a disproportionate influence in Washington, or that their views and interests distort policy in ways that don’t necessarily benefit the majority: the politicians all know this, and we know it, too. The only debate is about how far this process has gone, and whether we should refer to it as oligarchy or as something else.

Of course our democracy has faced this threat many times in the past.  Doris Kearns Goodwin's book entitled The Bully Pulpit contains a wonderful history of the immense economic and political control of a few people in the heyday of the trusts before Teddy Roosevelt began to break them up.  After a period of time where anti-trust laws were obeyed and enforced, we are once again in an era where political and economic power are concentrated in the hands of a very few.

Voter suppression is also on the rise in the United States.  We have of course faced voter suppression in the past and been able to overcome it.  But clearly it is on the rise again today.  Norm Ornstein wrote an article in The Atlantic entitled "The U.S. Needs a Constitutional Right to Vote" (here).

In his article, Mr. Ornstein points out that the Constitution does not explicitly guarantee the right to vote.  I will simply quote a couple of paragraphs from his article.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which eviscerated the Voting Rights Act, is leading to a new era of voter suppression that parallels the pre-1960s era—this time affecting not just African-Americans but also Hispanic-Americans, women, and students, among others.

 Voter suppression is nothing new in America, as the pre-civil-rights era underscores. But it is profoundly un-American. The Texas law, promoted aggressively by state Attorney General Greg Abbott, the GOP choice for governor in next year's election, establishes the kinds of obstacles and impediments to voting that are more akin to Vladimir Putin's Russia than to the United States.

The effort should be accelerated. We need a modernized voter-registration system, weekend elections, and a host of other practices to make voting easier. But we also need to focus on an even more audacious and broader effort—a constitutional amendment protecting the right to vote.
Many, if not most, Americans are unaware that the Constitution contains no explicit right to vote. To be sure, such a right is implicit in the Fifteenth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-Sixth amendments that deal with voting discrimination based on race, gender, and age. But the lack of an explicit right opens the door to the courts' ratifying the sweeping kinds of voter-restrictions and voter-suppression tactics that are becoming depressingly common. 

I could not have said it better.  I am proud to point out that my Representative in Congress, Keith Ellison, and another Representative have introduced a Constitutional amendment.  Of course, it will go nowhere with the Republicans in charge of the House.

The third threat is the decline of education in the United States.  Thomas Jefferson was very clear that we needed an educated electorate for our democracy to thrive.  Here are just a couple of his quotations on the subject.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

If you do not believe that education is rapidly declining in the United States just Google "decline of education in the United States".  You will find no shortage of studies and articles documenting the decline.  Clearly, Jefferson was right that you need an educated populace.  If we are to provide anything that approaches equality of opportunity, we need to provide a great education to people.

The problem is that even if we can take back the power from the economic elite (or oligarchs if you want to be more direct) and even if we can assure the right to vote, without an involved and educated electorate our democracy will fail.  Just as we have overcome threats from the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of a few and voter suppression.  We can overcome the threat of the decline in education too.

We need to elect politicians that have the courage and the conviction to fight for all the people, and that will require getting people to vote.  So do whatever you can to get out the vote.  You will be helping to save our democracy.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal