She teaches at Fordham Law and was recently on a panel there; first time I actually heard her speak. And speak she did (here is a news story: that is John Carr sitting next to her!). She is a born politician...clear, distinct voice with volume, conveys complex ideas clearly, smiles, and is very tall. Her Wiki bio.
But today, I'm posting about her op-ed in the NYTimes, "I'm Not Convinced Franken Should Quit,"
Here are some highlights that take up issues we have discussed below.
I suppose this may pit her against our junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, who has been leading the troops on this. But more power to her!"I also believe in zero tolerance. And yet, a lot of women I know — myself included — were left with a sense that something went wrong last week with the effective ouster of Al Franken from the United States Senate. He resigned after a groundswell of his own Democratic colleagues called for him to step down."Zero tolerance should go hand in hand with two other things: due process and proportionality. As citizens, we need a way to make sense of accusations that does not depend only on what we read or see in the news or on social media."
Bonus link: A Gillibrand-Trump face-off.
Teachout represents pretty much how I feel.
ReplyDeleteZepher Teachout is a familiar name from the Sanders campaign. I think they both supported each other.
ReplyDeleteShe's chic in an Elizabeth Warren t shirt :-)
Deletehttps://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiMyLap74XYAhVnyoMKHX52AKUQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.themillbrookindependent.com%2Fcontent%2Fzephyr-teachout-runs&psig=AOvVaw3z20UYlUvINFccEsXy7UWh&ust=1513216076319803
Tres chic!
DeleteWonder if Gillebrand is thinking about running in 2020.
ReplyDeleteAll the self-appointed and hired mentioners have been mentioning her. When a New Yorker gets herself appointed to the Armed Services Committee -- where all the southern senators congregate to preserve their military bases -- you have to suspect she has more than the water quality of Lake George on her mind.
DeleteThink of Fort Drum in the northern reaches of New York State (from whence Gillibrand came). It is probably prime property for closing. Don't know this, but I would bet one of her major duties is keeping the home of the arctic military open even if they're all going to Somalia.
DeleteI fear the first name is misspelled - I believe it's "Zephyr"? I hope the former editor won't mind me calling that out!
ReplyDeleteYou are correct! Editors should always be ready for correction, especially from proof readers.
DeleteThis question of whether Franken's misdeeds warrant his leaving the Senate has had me thinking for a few days now.
ReplyDeleteI hope we all agree that there are some things that are so egregious that the officeholder must be made to relinquish his office. I've thought for the last year that, for Donald Trump, it's not a question of "if" but rather "what" and "when". I read a George Will column with my dinner this evening that poses the question, "Should this president be entrusted with nuclear launch authority?" We live in perilous times.
At any rate, he acceded to the demands that he leave. It seems that, whatever Zephyr Teachout's views, Franken was convinced he should quit.
But convinced by what?
DeleteI hope in the years to come we will hear Franken's side of things. He didn't seem too contrite in his resignation speech to the Senate, enumerating his support for women's issues and pointing out the president's transgressions as worse than his own. He seemed to indicate that the people of Minnesota needed a representative who would not be tied up in a lengthy ethics battle. Standard excuse, and not convincing.
DeleteHowever, as Al Franken leaves, votes for wage parity, votes against ageism (which affects women more than men in many sectors), and votes for women and children's programs leave with him. He will likely be replaced by another Democrat, but possibly one with less experience in navigating the political waters or with the ability to nail Trump's minions with such skill.
Not condoning groping, but Gillibrand seems to be ushering in some new purity test for male legislators. She said Bill Clinton should have resigned ... never mind that Ms. Lewinsky was an enthusiastic and willing participantin their brief affair. It was adulterous, improper, but between two consenting adults.
It's one thing to call for women who have been the victims of sexual misconduct to be heard. It is quite different for her to start equating Clinton's misdeeds with outright sexual assault of a minor that Roy Moore has been accused of.
Just watching...Alabama returns right now. TIED! 10:19.
ReplyDeleteSorry to interrupt...but Jones the winner in Alabama! Wow!
DeleteThere's a day-brightener, no?!
DeleteRaber heard it just now on the BBC World Service, which called the state "Ah-lah-bah-mer."
Go, Tide.
DeleteIt makes me feel a bit less quixotic that I donated to a Democratic candidate that actually won. And the donation was not motivated by Moore's cradle raiding.
DeleteBeen so used to bad news and catastrophes for over a year that I feel a little giddy.
DeleteNow if the GOP can be stalled on that tax plan until Jones is seated in January ...
Anybody catch Moore's non-concession remarks... recount in God's hands.
DeleteYes, recount demands, we'll be back. Frankly, I was still stunned by Mrs. Moore's comments about"their" Jewish lawyer (on the eve of Hanukkah, no less).
DeleteAkin to, "We aren't racists because we hire black people to now our lawn."
From Religion Dispatches:
Deletehttp://religiondispatches.org/the-17th-century-roots-of-roy-moores-refusal-to-concede-the-election/
Doug Jones ... yay! :)
ReplyDeletePolitical Junkie Time: Nate Silver on what could be coming in 2018 after Doug Jones's victory:
ReplyDeletehttps://fivethirtyeight.com/features/republicans-shouldnt-assume-roy-moore-was-an-outlier/
That is an excellent article by Silver.
DeleteThat 10 point differential between parties for Congressional elections would seem to indicate a wave election of tsunami proportions is shaping up to Democrats' benefit for 2018. And that is really amazing, because a couple of years ago, the electoral map indicated that 2018 would be the year the Republicans widened their lead in Senate seats.
The GOP has made a deal with the devil. Old Scratch always gets paid back, with interest.
Yes as usual, a good article by Nate Silver.
DeleteOf course he has all those models and past data in his head, and was able to do a theoretical analysis of the components of the win without actually having much current data.
Although statistical data almost always does better than expert opinion, it is helpful when the expert opinion has been formulated by a lot of past data.
Silver's bits in his email newsletter are always interesting ... but he turned out to be dead wrong about Trump's chances of winning. Trying to quantify American politics is risky business.
DeleteIn looking at his uber stats, Silver misses the numbers that threw Jones over the top in this particular election: black women, who showed up in unexpectedly high numbers.
Time for Roy to ride off into the sunset on his pinto pony and get right with the Lord.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/13/politics/black-women-alabama-election/index.html
OK, not since Howell Heflin, a name I love to roll off my tongue. OK, Nate Silver is one very smart fella. BUT:
DeleteDoug Jones beat a guy the Republicans don't like and who doesn't like Republicans. Addison Mitchell McConnell tried to keep him out of office and succeeded,later than he hoped, but still... President* Trump blew cold, warm, cool, tepid and hot for the guy Jones beat. When the trumpet gives an uncertain tweet... And then there were the probable attempts on teenagers which the guy could defend only by calling all the women in Alabama liars.
If they get the same combination for their opponents in other races, the still brain-dead Democrats could rack up some more victories.
Tom, in other words:
DeleteIf the Republican just happen to be totally disorganized and demoralized, it just might be possible that in some places the Democrats will get organized sufficiently to win.
Oh, I think Doug Jones just proved that if the Rs happen to be TOTALLY disorganized and demoralized the Ds can win. Of course that's always provided election officials don't find some of those 3 million illegal voters who kept Trump from getting more votes than there are voters.
DeleteAnother point from past discussions here - Jones did win in a Republican state while still being staunchly pro-choice, which he made clear on Meet the Press before the election.
ReplyDeleteI suspect the pro-life people think they have won the day, and therefore being pro-choice no longer matters. That false assumption may help a few Democrats in coming elections.
ReplyDeleteHow will that help Democrats? Not following the logic here exactly. Give me a scenario?
DeleteNot presuming to speak for Jack, but this article makes a case that the labels "pro-life" and "pro-choice" are no longer useful in any meaningful sense of the words. Not sure I agree 100% but it is something to think about.
DeleteRemember when there was that thing in the news about whether pro-life candidates could run for the Democratic party and there was the idea that if Democrats wanted to win seats in congress they would have to run pro-life candidates?
DeleteJust saying, as I did back then, that Democrats can stick to pro-choice and still win, even in the South.
Essentially the choice between Trump and Clinton was also a choice for the Supreme Court Justice, so pro-life and pro-choice were relevant.
DeleteNow that the Supreme Court, Congress, and Presidency are all in the hands of the Republicans the pro-life stance of any particular politician is less relevant. So one could vote for a Bernie Sanders for economic reasons while ignoring his pro-choice position. (He has a 60% approval rating).
There are a number of theories floating around regarding how Jones pulled this off. The enthusiasm gap makes a lot of sense: one account reported that Democratic turnout was about the same as for the presidential election; that's pretty much unheard-of in a special election Republican Sen. Richard Shelby's ringing un-endorsement of Moore on the eve of the election, and write-in candidates for Republicans who wanted nothing to do with either candidate, may also have contributed.
ReplyDeleteI think it bears thinking about how close this race was. This was no landslide for Jones, and he basically had to mobilize Democrats to turn out. His victory is not some kumbaya moment in which conservative fundamentalists decided to embrace a Democrat because Moore was so repellent. A conservative fundamentalist on NPR yesterday said he would vote for Moore because a man who abused a few teenagers was reprehensible, but a man who believes in the wholesale murder of fetal life is a monster.
ReplyDeleteDemocrats felt more strongly that Moore needed to be stopped than Republicans felt they needed Moore in that Senate seat.
The most depressing part is how many voters stayed home and just don't care.
Tuesday: The GOP loses a seat in the Senate, seeing its margin cut to 51-49
ReplyDeleteWednesday: House and Senate Republicans agree on a tax cut bill.
One may be forgiven for suspecting a cause-and-effect relationship.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/republicans-reach-compromise-tax-plan-expanding-tax-cuts-for-the-wealthy/2017/12/13/4f9ca66c-e028-11e7-bbd0-9dfb2e37492a_story.html?utm_term=.05e9f0fe9c74&wpisrc=al_news__alert-politics--alert-national&wpmk=1
President Obama and Eric Holder have been working to improve the opportunity for people to vote. If all the people who support the Democratic party, including poor people and racial minorities and those who are too pure to vote for anyone but Bernie, were to register and actually vote, the Democrats could crush the Republicans.
ReplyDeleteI think the Democratic Party has yet to convey what it wants to accomplish in the next election cycle if it can manage to flip the Senate.
ReplyDeleteThe reason Bernie captured imaginations was because he had ideas and convictions.
I want to hear Democrats talking less about Trump and more about what they might try to push if they got some leverage.
The Democratic victory may be less than it appears.
ReplyDelete"Because the number of write-in votes [22,800] appears to exceed the margin of victory, an Alabama law that requires that the names of write-in candidates be officially tallied is likely to be triggered...."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/13/us/alabama-senate-jones-moore-writeins.html
I think we can assume Jones will be a temporary fixture. The GOP will run some squeaky clean upright Baptist in a navy blue suit who makes noises about bringing folks together, and goodbye Jones.
DeleteThe Democratic party would do what they have been doing, as under Obama and as Hillary would have done ... support health care for all, protect the environment, support public education and work to make state college more affordable/free, protect the rights of LGBT people, women, racial and religious minorities, encourage more jobs in high tech industries and green industries, etc.
ReplyDeleteYup, and not a word about labor, wage disparity, and the growing class resentments, which I think are more critical than any of those other things.
DeleteI paid a lot of college tuition under President Obama's watch. Unfortunately for me, it was neither affordable nor free. To be sure, tuition charges for public universities typically are determined at the state rather than federal level. President Obama did federalize/nationalize student loans; that action is thought by some economists to have contributed to tuition inflation.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2017/02/22/how-unlimited-student-loans-drive-up-tuition/#17f4e30652b6
Valerie Strauss's assessment of President Obama's education legacy may lead an unsuspecting reader to assume that Betsy DeVos was his Secretary of Education. Strauss's headline: "Obama's real education legacy: Common Core, testing, charter schools"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/10/21/obamas-real-education-legacy-common-core-testing-charter-schools/?utm_term=.8762754a0222
I daresay that these are aspects of the rule of President Obama (for whom my appreciation waxes, each day that President Trump remains in office) that led to the rise of Bernie Sanders.
I don't think you can blame Obama for the expense of all college education. He has worked to make community college free of charge nationally ... https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/09/obama-unveils-new-push-national-free-community-college
ReplyDeleteWhat would Bernie have done ... he would not be able to force private colleges to become free. He would probably not be able to make state colleges free either. His idea of forgiving the loans of middle class and upper middle class students .... I would rather see that money spent on helping the poor, children, the elderly.
Even after accounting for inflation, today's college students pay four to five times what I did (circa 1966-1970) to pay for their college education, incurring thralldom to huge debts. Doing SOMETHING to help them is only being intergenerationally fair. I may be a member of the baby boomer generation but I would prefer not to be a member of the "me" generation. After the good luck I had in growing up, I can't see ignoring the plight of young people. Yeah, it might even mean my paying more taxes to make my country a better place to live. So be it. As far as helping the poor is concerned, isn't making it possible for them to get a college education a good way to help? I'm tired of one group being played against another. That's the strategy of the oppressor. The only real problem group is the 1%.
DeleteStanley, I had an idea about this. I would like to see retired Boomers start a fund to help defray college debt. We had it easier than these kids, and even $10 a month would help out if we all chipped in. My students are mostly first generation in college. They are working 30 hours a week, trying to carry the required 15 credit hours per term to get max college grants and scholarships, and they are still going deeply into hock. The &#@! tax plan will seriously affect graduate students' income and ability to avoid crippling debt.
DeleteJean, yes, something should be done. If it won't yet be done through taxes, then something like what you suggest could be done. I may just start looking around to see who I could help directly.
DeleteTo a degree the rising costs of college education are due to factors outside the control of government, no matter who is in charge. Though there are things the government could do, such as student debt forgiveness for a period of service in a needed area.
ReplyDeleteThe main decisions about education are made by the states. The feds sometimes help and sometimes screw up what the states are trying to do. Sometimes, of course, someone should screw up what the states are trying to do.
DeleteFor instance the current fad of (mostly) Republican "education governors" turn their colleges into trade schools under cover of stressing STEM and firing humanities and social science faculties. (Jean knows all about that.) Humanities and social sciences have a liberal bias, but we do need fracking engineers. All the people of wealth and quality, from the Gateses to the DeVoses can get behind STEMing the kids. This state fad succeeded the accountability drive that turned high schools into happy hunting grounds for companies that sell and grade (when they get around to it) tests.
Since LBJ "education presidents" have probably done more harm than good. Maybe Johnson helped because he had been a classroom teacher. Most of his successors were legacy students. Makes a difference.
Corporate support for colleges and universities is becoming a concern (for me). They offer big gifts to specific departments that will then conduct their research projects. They also drive curriculum decisions, telling schools what skills they want in employees. This happens even in the arts. Captain of industry Eli Broad built a monstrosity of a modern art museum at MSU ... and now you only get to look at what Eli Broad wants you to. Thank God the Detroit Institute of Art was able to weather the city's financial debacle without selling everything off.
DeleteOh, sorry, I should have read Jack's comments immediately below. Ditto. Hear, hear. Bravo.
DeleteTom and Jean - I do agree that education that only prepares one for a job or career is an impoverished view of human development and the potential of genuine education. At the same time, the skills gap between Americans in the job market and the available jobs is real. I don't think it's wrong for industries and educational institutions to partner to try to address the skills gap. And professional/vocational development is a legitimate area of human development.
DeleteBut I think we may need to help people make a sharper distinction between education and vocational/professional preparation. People in today's world need both pieces - professional development, and an education.
Jim, I don't disagree with what you say. I simply resent market forces having so much clout in higher education. They have tremendous influence in some cases over curriculum decisions as well as in dictating the value (and pay)/of professors. If a college or university exists to keep knowledge alive--even if no one wants to "buy" it right now--corporate influence works against that at times.
DeleteEducation is a human right, i.e. the right to develop our talents and skills, to develop social networks, and to develop shared culture, that benefits humanity not just an individual. Therefore it should be paid out of the common good, not out of the financial resources of individuals or their parents.
ReplyDeleteTo conceive of education as a ticket to a job is to live in slavery. It is not worthy of a free person let alone of a free society.
Jack - food and shelter are human rights, which arguably precede the human right to education, and yet we expect people to pay for those. We do subsidize (pretty ineffectively) some people who can't afford food and shelter on their own. But the common-good approach to food and shelter is not a common pooling of resources and distribution, but rather the fostering of an economy that allows its citizen members to earn a living wage. A living wage, by definition, is one that pays its earners and beneficiaries enough to be able to afford the things to which they have a human right.
DeleteAnd as it happens, education is mostly free in the US, for primary schools (let's set aside the fact that nothing is free; education either is paid for directly via tuition, or indirectly via taxes, or subsidized privately via the generosity of others). There was a time in American society in which the primary school certificate of attainment, the high school diploma, was sufficient to give the recipient a real shot at earning a living wage. Maybe we need to redefine what constitutes a primary education?
Jim,
DeleteYour thinking is based on the economic model which assumes that each person is independent of each other. That model is false. We all live in dependency upon one another.
Everything from the thoughts in our brains, our bodies, our social structures, our beliefs and values are all determined by everything else.
The billionaire class are not our benefactors, they are not the job creators of the world. They are exploiting us; the economic system they have imposed on us is unfair not only to the bottom 20% or 50% but actually to almost everyone not in the upper 1%.
ReplyDeleteThe fundamental problem is a tax problem. We are not only unwilling to tax the rich, we keep letting them more and more money. WE are feeding the black hole of the billionaires which continues to make life worse for the rest of the world. It is not a huge complex problem, it is a real simple problem to be solved by two things: a progressive income tax on wealth accumulation and a capital tax on the wealthiest people that systematically takes back their accumulated wealth.
Jack, the black hole analogy is highly appropriate. If too much mass is accumulated in a small volume, it becomes a singularity, drawing more and more mass into itself, becoming a hazard to its neighbors. So it is with wealth.
DeleteAnd let's not forget about the church. Why does a Catholic education have to cost and arm and a leg? It costs more than $50,000 a year to go to Boston College or Georgetown. It costs less to go to Oxford University as an American than it does to go to a Catholic college as a US citizen. Why?
ReplyDeleteIt's my understanding that Oxford is at least in part a public institution in that it receives tax support. Of course Catholic colleges are private, and their cost is comparable to other private colleges. And these costs vary depending on the individual school. For instance Creighton University is similar to Georgetown in cost. However the College of St. Mary, a Catholic women's college, is about 10K a year less. And in 2016 they lowered their tuition in order to make it more affordable. So it pays to shop around.
DeleteYes Oxford id a state school, but still, it is cheaper to go there as an American ... without the benefit of a cheaper state tuition for citizens ... than it is to go to most Catholic colleges here even if you are a citizen of the state where the college is. Sure, they are private, but it's a church - aren't they supposed to be helping those less fortunate?
ReplyDeleteAgain, it depends on the mission of the school. Creighton, and I suppose, Georgetown, are heavily weighted toward the professions; medicine, law, and dentistry. That makes them more expensive. Smaller schools such as the College of St. Mary, are more niche oriented, they don't have programs in everything. Incidentally, C of StM has a program for single mothers with reduced tuition and on campus housing and day care. A lot of Catholic colleges have similar innovative efforts. Which is why they can't all be categorized together.
DeleteCrystal - I would say that college pricing in the US is pretty complex. Two of my kids attended Catholic colleges. In each case, they paid less than list price because they were given academic scholarships. Neither is Rhodes Scholar material, although they're both reasonably bright and they're both good students who work hard at it. Our family wouldn't be considered as low-income according to whatever formulas make those determinations. But the colleges still found a way to help us. Perhaps lesser-achieving students wouldn't get as much help; I'm not sure. But that has to be balanced against student admission policies, too: should colleges be admitting students who are at a higher risk of not succeeding academically? How does a college balance that consideration against the desire to make a college education available to as wide a segment of the population as possible?
DeleteI know there are scholarships but that can't take the place of actually having a tuition that is affordable. How can people here blame the Democrats for not making college cheaper yet let the church off the hook?
ReplyDeleteI actually don't blame either party for not magicking affordable college for all. The money has to come from somewhere. Same goes for the church. Not to mention that higher education isn't the only or most important miszion of the church. It can come from taxes (in the instance of public colleges), alumni donations and fund raising efforts. The rest comes from tuition and fees paid by students and families. Bottom line, the staff needs to be paid a just wage, the physical campus has to be maintained, electricity and heating and all that. I wish there was a way to "just make it cheaper" but so far I don't know of one.
Delete"The money has to come from somewhere."
ReplyDeleteKatherine, actually not. Deficit hawks, including Bob Corker and Republicans who wouldn't vote for spending to get out of recession because of "deficits," will pass next week a new law that spends more than $1 trillion, with a t, that comes from nowhere. On top of that, the president* wants them to (and they will) break the limit on defense spending so they can spend a lot more money on that, and the money for the new defense spending is also from nowhere.