Democratic Candidate for President 2020 - 1

Dear Friends,

The number of people seeking the Democratic nomination for President in 2020 is huge, and we need to start winnowing it down.  I have yet to determine exactly what criteria I should use to decide for myself who to support.  There are, however, some criteria that are quite foundational for me.

The person must be able to motivate a broad electorate to participate in the process and to vote.  Democrats win elections when more people vote and especially people who do not traditionally vote. In order to have this appeal, the person must not be too old.

The person should not carry the baggage of being a member of the Democratic Party establishment.  Those people who have received the Democratic nomination who were from the Democratic Party establishment have lost time and time again.  Since Lyndon Johnson, the only Democrats to win the Presidency have been Jimmy Carter (a little known Georgia governor), Bill Clinton (a little known Arkansas governor) and Barack Obama (a one term Senator from Illinois); and the losers have all been candidates of the Democratic establishment-Al Gore, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton.

The ticket must be diverse.  I am sympathetic to, but not yet persuaded by, the argument that the candidate should be a person of color.  I am, however, certain that the ticket must not consist solely of white men.

With these foundational criteria in mind, I am prepared to rule out the following potential candidates in alphabetical order:

Joe Biden
I like Joe Biden.  He is a very nice person and has for the most part served our country well.  However, he will be 78 in November 2020.  He is the epitome of the Democratic Party establishment and carries with him all of his and the Democratic Party's prior sins (think Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill, credit card companies, Iraq war, etc.).

Michael Bloomberg
Bloomberg will also be 78 in November 2020.  While he has not always been a Democrat, he is certainly establishment and if anything represents the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party establishment.  The last person we need as the nominee is a person who will self fund from his Wall Street gains and have the enthusiastic support of the 1%.

Andrew Cuomo
While Cuomo will only be 63 by the end of 2020, he has been around forever as a member of the Democratic Party establishment.  I cannot think of any good reason for him to the nominee.

Terry McAuliffe
Unless Hillary Clinton were to run again, there is no candidate more tied to the Clinton centrist wing of the Democratic Party establishment than McAuliffe.  He is at best a centrist and more like a center right candidate with all the baggage of the past and nothing for the future.

Bernie Sanders
As those of you who read this blog in the lead up to the 2016 Presidential election know, I was a big supporter of Bernie Sanders.  If it were not for the unfair intervention of the Democratic Party establishment, he would have been the Democratic nominee and would now be our President.  Nevertheless Bernie will be 79 by November 2020.  I still love his policies, but he is no longer the right candidate.  We need a person who supports the same policies but is younger and can avoid the issues that impacted Bernie's campaign last time.

Beto O'Rouke
Obviously, Beto is not too old.  I have two concerns about his candidacy.  First, his voting record is not at all progressive.  Second, he has never even won a statewide election and has little experience.  Even though he has demonstrated that he can motivate a broad electorate, I do not believe that he is yet capable of being on the national stage.  In his race for the Senate people saw in him what they wanted to see, not what his record actually shows.  That worked for Obama, but I doubt that he can do that on the national stage, and I certainly do not want a candidate that we don't really know.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Villefranche-sur-Mer 2019-1 Even in France

Dear Friends,

I can tell you now with absolute certainty that the world is about to come to an end, but you will have to wait until later in the post for the evidence.

We are back in Villefranche-sur-Mer once again.  We arrived just before New Years and were delighted to be back.  Just to remind you why we might prefer Villefranche to Minneapolis in the winter.  Here are a few photos that I took from the balcony of our apartment.

This photo is directly across the bay towards Cap Ferat.

You can see Nellcôte former onetime home of the 

Rolling Stones just on the left edge of the photo.

This photo is the lighthouse on Cap Ferat.

A few fishermen returning to port.  If you look very

closely you can see a single sea gull crossing the bow.

A sailor returning to his boat.

As you can see the weather is just like Minneapolis in January and the pace of life is rather hectic.  

We have been engaged in all of the regular activities that we pursue while we are here - eating good food, drinking French wines, walking, taking French lessons, catching up with old friends, playing pétanque and going from shop to shop to provision for dinner.

We have walked to Beaulieu twice to try to have lunch at the Gran Caffe one of our favorites.  While we were unsuccessful both times, we were able to get chocolat chaud at the Gran Caffe once which you may recall is the best in the world.  Anyway, the second time we failed, we went instead to have lunch at Le Fabuleux Destin. The name of the restaurant is taken from the movie which in the US is called just Amélie but in France was called le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (the fabulous/legendary destiny/fate of Amélie Poulain).  

It is a very nice restaurant located in the big and very fancy marina in Beaulieu-sur-Mer.  

Beaulieu is located just east of Villefranche and just west of Monaco.  It is about a 2 mile walk from our apartment when you meander as we do.  The restaurant is just a couple of doors down from the African Queen which was the subject of a post about a year ago.  It is very expensive and very pretentious.  I say all of this so that you know that Le Fabuleux Destin is considered a very nice French restaurant.  

Well, here is where both the title of this post and the evidence that the end of the world is very near come in.  While enjoying our lunch on a beautiful day in a wonderful setting and just as Jane was commenting on having a headache, we noticed in plain view the following:

Yes, that is right.  They were serving red, white and rosé wine out of boxes.  They didn't even bother to hide the boxes, and they couldn't even bother to put l'accent aigu on the "e" in rosé.  I am sure that many times when we have ordered just a pichet or carafe of house wine, it has come out of a box, but the boxes have always been hidden.  This experience was even worse than the time in Paris when we noticed a plastic pail (like a gallon sized plastic ice cream container) that contained the béarnaise sauce.  So there you have it proof positive that the world will come to an end when even in France at a very nice French restaurant you can be served wine from a box that is in plain sight.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

Brett Kavanaugh is a liar!

Dear Friends,

It has been a long time since I last posted, and I was not sure if I would post again.  The recent events surrounding the nomination of and confirmation hearings for Kavanaugh to become the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court have caused me to write.  Before I start, I want to make a couple of preliminary points.

First the definition of lie - Mirriam-Webster online dictionary defines the verb "lie" (here)
1.  To make an untrue statement with intent to deceive
2.  To create a false or misleading impression

Second a disclaimer - While I believe Dr. Ford when she claims that Kavanaugh assaulted her and therefore believe that Kavanaugh is lying when he denies her account of what happened, I am not going to use that example as one of the reasons why it is clear that Kavanaugh is a liar.  There are plenty of other examples to rely on.

There are many reasons why I do not think that Kavanaugh should be on the Supreme Court or any court for that matter.  First, I disagree with his judicial philosophy and many of the opinions that he has written.  With respect to this objection, people can differ.

Second, Kavanaugh lacks the appropriate judicial temperament as demonstrated by his self-righteous rant that was his opening statement at the hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 27.  In his statement he alleged a vast left wing conspiracy fueled in part by Trump's 2016 election victory and by a desire to get revenge for the Clintons.  There is, of course, no evidence to support his claim.  In fact his claim is easily refuted by the timing of Dr. Ford's disclosure of her claim to her therapists, husband, friends and ultimately to The Washington Post.  You can watch it here.  I do not think that any reasonable person can say that Kavanaugh has the temperament necessary to be an impartial federal judge much less a Supreme Court Justice.

Third and the reason for this post is that Kavanaugh is a liar on things both big and little.  Certainly a serial, unrepentant liar should not be on the Supreme Court and should be removed from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.  Much of the information and citations for this post are from an editorial in The Boston Globe, entitled "The lies that Senators must tell themselves to support Brett Kavanaugh" (here).

As enumerated in The Boston Globe editorial, in Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings, he has consistently lied under oath about his involvement in certain controversial judicial nominations, specifically those of William Pryor, Charles Pickering and William Haynes.  While only a fraction of the documents related to Kavanaugh's time in the George W. Bush White House have been released, some of those that have been released include emails that demonstrate that Kavanaugh lied under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee about his involvement in these nominations.  Also as pointed out in The Boston Globe editorial, Kavanaugh lied under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee about his knowledge of the memos and other materials stolen from the Democratic staff of the Senate concerning its approach to various judicial nominations.  

These lies are big deals both because they involve significant issues and because they were made to enable Kavanaugh to become a judge on the DC Circuit Court.  A person who lies to ascend to the federal bench should not be allowed to ascend to the Supreme Court or to stay on any court.

Kavanaugh also lied multiple times during the Senate Judiciary hearing on September 27 both in his opening statement referred to above and in his answers (or often non-answers) to questions.  A number of these lies are set forth in The Boston Globe editorial.  In addition there is a very lengthy discussion of them in Current Affairs by Nathan Robinson entitled "How We Know Brett Kavanaugh is Lying" (here).  There are also many shorter summaries like one at Slate.com by William Saletan entitled "Kavanaugh Lied to the Judiciary Committee - Repeatedly" (here).  The following is a list of some of the ones that are particularly obvious lies.

Kavanaugh said that any gathering like that described by Dr. Ford must have been on a weekend because he did not go to parties and drink during the week because they all had jobs and football practice, etc.  In fact his calendars show that he did drink on weekdays as well as on weekends.  Especially telling is a gathering on July 1, a Thursday, where he went to a gathering to drink beer with the some of the same boys that Dr. Ford claims where at the gathering at which she was assaulted.

Kavanaugh tired to mislead by saying that it was legal for seniors to drink beer.  Unfortunately it was not legal for seniors to drink at that time nor was Kavanaugh a senior.

Kavanaugh on multiple occasion claimed that all of the people who were specifically named by Dr. Ford as being present at the gathering where she was assaulted have said that they were not there and that no such gathering took place.  In fact, Kavanaugh is the only person to make that claim.  The others have all said variations of "I do not recall".  Certainly a Yale Law School graduate who is as smart as Kavanaugh claims to be knows that there is a significant difference between not recalling and affirmatively denying.

Kavanaugh claims that the 13 references in his yearbook about "Renate" were an affectionate reference that she was one of the boys.  The various boys claiming they were "Renate Alumnius" clearly did not intended that as an affectionate reference.  It is clearly a sexual conquest boast (most assuredly untrue).  This explanation is bolstered by a little ditty about her in the yearbook implying that if you needed a date just call Renate.  His stated position is not the least bit credible and is refuted by a classmate.

In response to questions, Kavanaugh made up definitions for two phrases that were used in his yearbook.  He claimed that boofing is farting.  Boofing has never been farting.  It is in fact a reference to some combination of anal sex and absorbing drugs or alcohol through the anus.  The same is true when he claimed that devil's triangle was a drinking game when it really refers to sex with two men and a woman.  These were bold faced lies.

Kavanaugh's explanations about his drinking were both evasive and completely untrue.  They have been refuted both by classmates, his own words in his yearbook, a taped speech and common sense.  

I could go on and on but if you need more proof, read the articles I have cited and/or google something like "lies of brett kavanaugh".  

There is a common thread running through most all of Kavanaugh's lies.  They are intended to cover up any evidence that he is not and has not been the "choir boy" he claims to be.  The reality is that he is a classic example of a man raised in a world of white male privilege who believes that he is entitled to anything that he wants, even a seat on the Supreme Court.  His testimony, his lies and his demeanor all reek of privilege and self-righteous anger that somebody might keep him from that to which he believes he is entitled.

No person who cares about justice, the credibility of the federal judiciary (particularly the Supreme Court), the credibility of the Senate, or our country could possibly vote to put a serial and unrepentant liar on the Supreme Court.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal