Bobservations

Carlos has lots of little sayings that he learned as child that translate rather easily into English. When he says that something or someone is a “Storm in a glass of water,” he means “Tempest in a tea pot.”

But the other morning, watching the news, there was a rather attractive journalist, and Carlos muttered something under his breath in Spanish and when I asked what it was he said:

“He thinks he’s hotter than the shit coming out of a cow’s ass.”

I didn’t get the Spanish version, but in English it was spot on.

This is Tuxedo's new 'Get Out and Vote' ad campaign. It's a little graphic for some, but it gets the point across quite nicely. CAST A  GODDAMNED VOTE!!

MacKenzie Scott, the ex-Missus Jeff Bezos, is at it again … she donated $84.5 million to the Girl Scouts—the largest-ever single donation in the organization’s history—to go toward creating “more equitable membership opportunities” in underserved areas; expanding programs on career readiness, mental health and exploring STEM fields; bolstering research, staff and volunteer training; and upgrading Girl Scout facilities to be more accessible and resilient to climate change.

She has donated more than $3.8 billion to 465 non-profit organizations since her divorce from money-grubbing scum Bezos and still has $17 billion more to give to fulfill her pledge to give roughly half of her income to charity.

Good on her.

After Herschel Walker and many in the GOP and the rightwingnut news organizations claim Walker had a decisive victory over Senator Raphael Warnock , Herschel skipped their second debate forcing Warnock to debate an empty lectern … which is really just a repeat of the first debate.

I totally called this … Pete Buttigieg—whose only political experience before his 2020 presidential bid was serving as mayor of South Bend, Indiana—has become the most requested surrogate on the campaign trail for Democratic candidates in the midterms, even over Kamala Harris.

Both Buttigieg and Harris are expected to run to succeed Biden—whether in 2024 0r 2028—but for Democrats looking ahead, the party’s preference for Buttigieg on the trail may be an early indicator of the future direction of the party overall.

In the penalty trial of Nikolas Cruz, who murdered 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, the jury has sentenced hm  to life without parole.

Some people, like Florida’s Fascist Governor Ron DeathSantis, were outraged that Cruz wasn’t sentenced to death; I was not. I am not now, nor have I ever been a proponent of the death penalty. It is not a deterrent to crime, and the convict can spend years in appeals, wasting millions in taxpayer money, trying to overturn the verdict. I could explain why I feel this way, but I’m going to let Dennis Shepard, father of Matthew, explain why he preferred life without parole for Matthew’s murderer, Aaron McKinney:

“You won’t be a symbol. No years of publicity, no chance of commutation, no nothing—just a miserable future and a miserable end. It works for me….Mr. McKinney, I give you life in the memory of one who no longer lives. May you have a long life, and may you thank Matthew every day for it.”

Let Cruz go to sleep every night and wake up every day for the rest of his miserable life knowing exactly why he’s there and never getting out.

Texas’ Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar has certified that the 50 migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard by Ron DeSantis were victims of a crime taking a key step in qualifying them for a special visa they would not have otherwise been eligible for:

“Based upon the claims of migrants being transported from Bexar County under false pretenses, we are investigating this case as possible Unlawful Restraint.”

Publicity stunt backfired, eh Ron?

I look at this promotional signage and wonder how much they paid the ad agency to produce it, and how many people signed off on it at each and every stage and yet never noticed.

New Jersey lawmakers unveiled sweeping gun legislation to restrict when and where guns can be carried outside of the home. The bill would require people who carry guns in public purchase liability insurance—the first statewide mandate of its kind in the nation should the bill become law—and ban guns from being carried in 25 broad categories, including but not limited to government buildings, health care facilities, airports, casinos and private properties where the owners have not given express permission to have guns.

Maybe add schools and churches and Walmart’s and concerts and movie theaters and synagogues to the list?

For some reason Carlos thinks my new holiday hosting outfit is inappropriate … something about sequins? Too many? Not enough?

Philippe Bélanger is a model, a Cirque Du Soleil performer, a dancer, designer, owner of a clothing brand, and a content creator. But the question is: Would You Hit It?

My Two Cents: California Governor Suspends the Death Penalty

I am staunchly anti-death penalty in every single case.

Every.Single.Case.

If murder is wrong, why is state sanctioned murder okay? I mean we don’t punish rapists by raping them, that would be savage, so why murder murderers? I am against it. And not just for ethical reasons, though they alone make me an anti-death penalty proponent, but for financial reasons.

If you sentence a person to death they have years, decades, really, of appeal after appeal, all paid for by We the People. But, sentence them to life, and many times the convicted won’t, or can’t appeal. It’s actually cheaper to sentence someone to life, then death.

I am not just spouting this randomly today, but because last week Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom suspended the death penalty in his state, saying that it is ineffective and cruel, and that he "will not oversee the execution of any individual." He signed an executive granting reprieves to all 737 Californians awaiting executions—a quarter of the country's death row inmates:

"Our death penalty system has been—by any measure—a failure. The intentional killing of another person is wrong. And as governor, I will not oversee the execution of any individual."

And Newsom did that despite the fact that three years ago, California voters rejected an initiative to end the death penalty and instead voted to speed up executions.

Why, you ask, did he do that? Well, Newsom says, and rightly so, that the death penalty system has discriminated against mentally ill defendants and, especially, people of color, and yet hasn’t made California any safer, and is a waste of taxpayer dollars.

But those aren’t the only reasons, though judicial racism, stricter sentences, harsher punishments, for people of color should be reason alone, but what about the innocent who are jailed, or even put to death?

If even one person is put to death who is innocent, and proven innocent, that’s too many. We the People have murdered an innocent person. That is intolerable.

There are people who believe that the death penalty gives the victim’s families and loved one’s closure, but does it, really? Sticking a needle in the arm of a convicted murderer suddenly erases the pain for the survivors? I don’t think that’s true.

You may ask if, goddess forbid, someone murdered someone I love, Carlos perhaps, would my opinion change. The hard answer is No; putting to death a murderer would not bring Carlos back to me and killing someone would not give me pleasure or closure. I would still be living a life without someone I love and murder won’t ever change that.

And so, I know there are some who have no moral objection to the death penalty, and even some who believe it’s a deterrent, or somehow just, but refusing to care about its racist application, its use on people with mental illness, people with cognitive disabilities is neither just nor moral.

Killing innocent people isn't justice.  And my mind will never change on that.

I remember at the sentencing hearing for Aaron McKinney, who along with Russell Henderson, murdered Matthew Shepard. Henderson pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against McKinney to avoid the death penalty; he was given two consecutive life sentences. 

The jury, having found McKinney guilty of felony murder, began to deliberate on the death penalty, until Mathew Shepard's parents brokered a deal, resulting in McKinney receiving two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.

In court, after the deal was struck, Dennis Shepard told McKinney the sentence means:

“You won’t be a symbol. No years of publicity, no chance of commutation, no nothing—just a miserable future and a miserable end. It works for me …. Mr. McKinney, I give you life in the memory of one who no longer lives. May you have a long life, and may you thank Matthew every day for it.”

I think that’s punishment. If Aaron McKinney had been put to death he’d be seen by bigots and homophobes as having died because he believed being gay was wrong, that if a gay man somehow comes on to you, murder is acceptable. But lock Aaron McKinney up, for life, with no chance at all of ever being free, and he will wake up each morning, and go to bed each night, knowing that he’s there because of what he did to Matthew Shepard.

That, as Dennis Shepard said, works for me. And I thank Governor Newsom for standing up against this barbaric misuse of justice.

But that’s just me.

My Two Cents: Neil Gorsuch, Arkansas, The Death Penalty and Ledell Lee

I am against the Death Penalty in every single instance; sue me.

I used to attend protests at San Quentin whenever there was a murder scheduled. I have my reasons, and I have my arguments, but let me spell them out plainly:

If murder is illegal, than state-sanctioned murder should be illegal.

From a monetary standpoint, it’s actually cheaper—costing taxpayers, you and me less money—to sentence a murderer to life without parole, than to sentence someone to death, which give them years of appeals that are costly to the state.

What if we put someone to death but then find out later they were innocent? We murdered an innocent person; I don’t want that blood on my hands, do you?

If you argue that, what if someone murdered someone I love, wouldn’t I want that person dead? No; I mean, unless it could bring my dead loved one back, but it wouldn’t and so I won’t sink to the level of advocating death.

That’s me; sue me. But this isn’t about me; last Thursday night Arkansas executed Ledell Lee—the state’s first execution in 12 years.

Lee was one of eight men Arkansas had planned to kill—like some kind of celebration of executions—over 11 days before one of the drugs used in the 3-drug lethal injection cocktail expired.

Oh, so it was cost effective to have a Lethal Injection Spree!

Four of the men received stays of execution, but Ledell Lee’s final plea to the Supreme Court was rejected by a 5–4 vote with _____’s appointee, Justice Neil Gorsuch casting the deciding vote to put Ledell Lee to death.

Lee had insisted upon his innocence from the day of his arrest through the night of his execution, and, before you say it, I know most murderers do. But Ledell Lee also begged the state to let him take a simple DNA test and compare it to results collected at the scene of the murder he allegedly committed; Arkansas refused.

Seriously? A chance for definitive proof that you are right about the man you are sentencing to death and you’re like, “Nah, why bother”?

Ledell Lee also presented evidence that the judge in his case was not impartial because the judge was having an affair with the assistant prosecutor at the time, but Arkansas, and Neil Gorsuch, didn’t care.

Lee claimed his trial attorney provided ineffective assistance of counsel because the man actually appeared in court drunk and slurring his words, but, hey, why stop the trial for that; why start over and make sure Lee had every option available to him?

When Lee’s requests for a new trial, requests for a DNA test, were denied, he then claimed that Arkansas’ use of the drug midazolam to render him unconscious before stopping his heart was cruel and unusual—in violation of the Eighth Amendment—because the drug might not actually induce unconsciousness and, in fact, because it hadn’t, had already caused other executions to go awry.

But, again, the Supreme Court split 4-4 and Gorsuch opted for death in his first decision. He ordered a man murdered who may have been innocent; he ordered a man murdered after a trial where the judge had a severe conflict; he ordered a man murdered who’d been represented by a drunk.

But, you know, Arkansas wanted to save some coins and use their lethal injection drugs before they were deemed ineffective, so let’s have a Lethal Injection Party supported by the Supreme Court ... who voted the way they did because of _____ appointee Neil Gorsuch.

First vote; first blood.

Ledell Lee was declared dead shortly before midnight last Thursday and there’s a chance, slim or otherwise, that he might have been innocent; and there’s a chance, slim or otherwise, that he unduly suffered because the drug administered to render him unconscious didn’t work.

It was a great day in America.

And it makes me sick.

Slate

In Maryland, Martin O'Malley Signs Death Penalty Repeal

First off, I think he’s kinda hot. There, I said it. I’m shallow like that. But, secondly, he signed into law Maryland’s same-sex marriage law, so he’s hot and an LGBT ally. But now, Maryland Governor, Martin O’Malley has abolished the death penalty in his state, making Maryland the second state south of the Mason-Dixon Line to abolish the death penalty in nearly 50 years, alongside West Virginia. Maryland is now the 18th state to abolish the death penalty; Delaware also made a push to repeal it this year, but the bill has stalled.

"I don't know exactly what the timing is, but over the longer arc of history I think you'll see more and more states repeal the death penalty. It's wasteful. It's ineffective. It doesn't work to reduce violent crime."—Governor O’Malley

Here’s the deal, well, my deal on the death penalty. What good does it serve? Does it stop murderers and violent criminals? Does it miraculously bring the victims of violent crime back to life? Does it provide closure?

That last one, I’m not so sure about, but I do know that if murder is illegal—and it is—then how is state sanctioned murder acceptable? Murder is murder. And let’s not even raise the issue of anyone being put to death, only to discover, years later, that they were innocent of the crime. Think that doesn’t happen? Well, Kirk Bloodsworth, a Maryland man was the first person in the U.S. freed because of DNA evidence after a conviction in a death penalty case proved his innocence. He is alive and attended the O’Malley news conference.

For me, the death penalty is barbaric. It serves no purpose, it is not a deterrent, and it costs more money than convicting violent criminals and sentencing them to life without parole. There aren’t years and years of appeals, which cost the taxpayers’ money. The criminal is put away, for good. For good.

For me, putting a man, or woman, to death isn’t punishment; they’re dead, they don’t know anything, or feel anything. But, if you take that criminal and lock them up until the day they die, and they sit in prison day after day, year after year, thinking, and reliving, the reasons why they’re behind bars, that’s punishment. Oh, and before you say that these violent criminals have no remorse, I say, So what? They’re still locked up; their lives, as they knew them, are over.

I can go on and on about why I think this way, but the one person who said it better than me is the best person to quote now.

We all remember that Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson murdered Matthew Shepard in Wyoming in 1998. But, what some may not know is that Matthew’s father, Dennis Shepard, spoke at Aaron McKinney’s sentencing hearing [Henderson, at the time, had already pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life without parole.] With the agreement of Judy and Dennis Shepard, Henderson and McKinney will spend the rest of their lives behind bars. In a statement read to the court, Dennis Shepard said that the sentence means:

“I would like nothing better than to see you die, Mr. McKinney.

However, this is the time to begin the healing process. To show mercy to someone who refused to show any mercy. To use this as the first step in my own closure about losing Matt.

Mr. McKinney, I am not doing this because of your family. I am definitely not doing this because of the crass and unwarranted pressures put on by the religious community. If anything, that hardens my resolve to see you die.

Mr. McKinney, I’m going to grant you life, as hard as that is for me to do, because of Matthew. Every time you celebrate Christmas, a birthday, or the Fourth of July, remember that Matt isn’t.

Every time that you wake up in that prison cell, remember that you had the opportunity and the ability to stop your actions that night. Every time that you see your cell mate, remember that you had a choice, and now you are living that choice.

You robbed me of something very precious, and I will never forgive you for that.

Mr. McKinney, I give you life in the memory of one who no longer lives. May you have a long life, and may you thank Matthew every day for it.”

That, to me, says it all. And so, today, I’d like to thank Governor O’Malley for his efforts to abolish the death penalty in one more state.

source

Virginia Is For Asshats

I am strongly anti-death penalty; strongly. Time after time, study after study, has shown that the death penalty does not deter crime, and is, in fact, more costly to the taxpayer than life in prison. With all the appeals and avenues open to a Death Row inmate, all of which are publicly funded for the most part, it should not be an option. Give the murder life in prison; no movies; no exercise yard; no library. Since they took the rights of one person, or more, away, strip them of all their rights, but don't murder them and call it justice.

And for the love of the goddess, don't murder them in my name.

That's kinda how Virginia Governor Tim Kaine sees it. Since 2006 he has vetoed fifteen bills that would expand that state's death penalty. Sadly, though, the next governor, Republican Bob McDonnell has a different take.

McDonnell, who takes office January 16, says he will sign into law the expansions that lawmakers have supported in recent years, particularly a provision that would make accomplices eligible for the death penalty. McDonnell's commitment to expanding executions won't lead to many new death sentences actually, but it's sad to see a new governor bucking a trend and expanding the death penalty.

Aside from this news, there have been signs that even Virginia, usually a death penalty diehard, would see a slowdown of executions. Although four people were executed in Virginia in 2009--second only to Texas, which executed 18 people--Virginian juries handed down just one new death sentence this year. That's a promising start.

And the good news is that the momentum on capital punishment is clearly going in the opposite direction of McDonnell. New Jersey and New Mexico repealed their death penalty laws in the last two years and Kansas may follow suit this year. New Hampshire hasn't executed anyone since 1939 but handed down its first death sentence in decades this year, and their House of Representatives passed a repeal bill in 2009, though they eventually settled for the creation of a commission to study capital punishment in the state. But it seems as though New Hampshire will do away with the death penalty in 2011.

Then we have Montana, which passed a bill repealing the death penalty via a Republican-controlled [you read that right] state senate in 2009, but the House failed to pass a counterpart. There is hope for passage in the next year.

In Connecticut a bill was passed in 2009 repealing the death penalty, only to see it vetoed by Governor Jodi Rell. Since she won't be seeking re-election , repeal advocates could bring a new bill before the next governor in early 2011.

Illinois has had a moratorium on executions since Governor George Ryan cleared death row in 2003, but the state has continued to fill death row cells with new prosecutions. A bill to repeal the death penalty passed a House committee this year and then floundered.

Maryland narrowed its death penalty to only allow executions with DNA or video evidence, but Governor Martin O'Malley wants a full repeal.

So, even though this new Virginia governor is headed one way, it seems as though a good many states understand the the death penalty does not work. Criminals do not think of the consequences in the moments before they commit any heinous act, and it has been proven that it is not sot-effective to continue lethal injections or gas chambers or, yes, they are still around, electric chairs.

The Worsening Economy Has At Least One Upside, In My Mind

Well, for me at least, there is one good thing coming from this depression-recession-economic crisis, and that's the news that more states are abandoning their use of the death penalty to save money.

The argument is no longer right or wrong, just or unjust, it's dollars and cents.

As I've been telling people forever, it costs less to keep someone in jail for life than it does to execute them. According to recent surveys, it's tens of millions of dollars cheaper.

I have always been staunchly anti-death penalty, coming from an early basic idea that if it's a crime to murder someone, then putting them to death for that same crime is no difference. I have been to anti-death penalty protests in California; they were few and far between thankfully, but there were enough to make me mad, and make me want to add my voice to the argument.

And now an increasing number of states are considering abolishing capital punishment in favor of life imprisonment, not on principle but out of financial necessity. Donald McCartin, a former California jurist known as "The Hanging Judge of Orange County" for sending nine men to death row, says, "It's 10 times more expensive to kill them than to keep them alive," though most Americans believe the opposite. Why has "The Hanging Judge," of all people, changed his mind? It's a 'waste of time and money.'

In California, for example, the appeals process can take, on average, twenty years. Of the nine men that McCartin sent to death row, only one has died; and not by execution, but from a heart attack while in custody.

Way back in '07, time and money were the reasons New Jersey became the first state to ban executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Governor Corzine commuted the executions of 10 men to life imprisonment without parole. Legal costs were too high and produced no result; an estimated $4.2 million was spent on each death sentence, and yet the state has executed no one since 1963.

On a side note: not putting someone to death also eliminates the possibility of putting an innocent person to death. The justice system tries hard, but it does make mistakes, and we've all heard and read about innocent men and women being incarcerated for years before it's discovered they are innocent.

Even one person executed, and later found innocent, is too much.

Also, eliminating capital punishment eliminated the risk of executing an innocent person. There are still 36 states with a death penalty, but at least eight are considering legislation to end it.
While dollars are the reason behind the new change in anti-death penalty legislation there is also the fact that many men, and women, in prisons, have recently been cleared because of DNA evidence that was unavailable, or never introduced, at trial.

Some of the worst cases occurred in Illinois. In 2000, then-Governor Ryan placed a moratorium on executions after 13 people had been exonerated from death row for reasons including genetic testing and recanted testimony. Ryan declared the system "so fraught with error that it has come close to the ultimate nightmare, the state's taking of innocent life."

Taking of innocent life? That's called murder. Ryan subsequently commuted the sentences of all 167 death row convicts, most to life imprisonment without parole, and his moratorium is still in effect. Now, onto the money side of things, because all decisions, it seems, are based on money.
Death penalty trials are more expensive than any other trial. They require extra lawyers; there are strict experience requirements for attorneys, leading to lengthy appellate waits while capable counsel is sought for the accused; security costs are higher, as well as costs for processing evidence—DNA testing, for example, is far more expensive than simple blood analyses.

And then after a guilty verdict, costs continue to soar. It costs more money to house death row inmates because they are held in segregated sections, in individual cells, with guards delivering everything from daily meals to toilet paper. In California, for example, which has the nations largest death row population, it costs an extra $90,000 per inmate to imprison someone sentenced to death—it totals to more than $63.3 million annually for a state on the verge of financial collapse. Many Californians are asking Governor Schwarzenegger to stop the executions, especially now, as service cuts and tax increases are pegged to fill a $42 billion budget hole.

Sadly, Schwarzenegger doesn't seem ready to abandon capital punishment anytime soon.

But nationwide the number of death sentences has declined over the last ten years, from 284 in 1999 to 111 in 2008. Of course, as with every hot-button issue, the reasons behind the decline differ greatly.

Pro-death penalty activists say it's because crime rates have declined and execution is a strong deterrent.

Anti-death penalty activists say it's because jurors and judges are reluctant to risk taking a life when future scientific tests could prove the accused not guilty.

And executions are dropping, from 98 in 1999 to 37 in 2008.

I like the idea that the death penalty is, or may be, fading out of favor. I don';t like the idea that my name is used to kill someone; think about, 'the people of the State of fill in the blank sentence you to death."

Well, no one asked me, because I would have not put my name on that list.

Now, before we all get up in arms, and fight about the rightness or the wrongness of the death penalty, let's just think of it in terms of saving money. States can use that money to create new jobs, and stimulate their economy; to pay tax refunds they cannot, right now, afford.

And before anyone comes at me with the argument about someone killing my family and wouldn't I want then put to death, the answer is no. Putting someone to death would not bring my family back; it would not give me closure; it would not make me happy.

Putting someone in a tiny room,with no rights and no privileges until the day they die, would be closure for me; because they'd spend every single day of the rest of their life knowing that they have no life because they took a life.

Sounds fair to me.

Go Jerry.....Go Jerry

Jerry Brown wins praise, criticism for stance on Proposition 8
By Peter Hecht
Published: Monday, Jan. 05, 2009 Page 1AA generation ago, then-Gov. Jerry Brown's conscientious stand against the death penalty prompted a revolt in the Legislature and eventually spurred voters to throw out his appointee as chief justice of the California Supreme Court.
Now the 70-year-old attorney general and would-be 2010 gubernatorial candidate is stirring a new storm by his legal challenge to voters' approval of a measure banning gay marriage in California.
It's a move that could pay political dividends in a June 2010 Democratic primary against another likely gubernatorial candidate, San Francisco mayor and gay marriage champion Gavin Newsom.
After initially indicating his office would defend the "will of the people" in the Nov. 4 election, Brown filed a 91-page legal brief Dec. 19 arguing that Proposition 8 violated an "inalienable right of liberty."
His intervention is hailed in heroic terms by Proposition 8 opponents – even though Brown also rejected the opponents' core legal argument challenging the initiative.
"I think Jerry Brown becomes an historic figure in this," said Rick Jacobs, chair of the Courage Campaign, which supports gay marriage. "He has shown that the attorney general can and will stand up for the rights of the minority in this state. I think he is Madisonian. He opposes the tyranny of the majority."
Yet gay marriage opponents say Brown is abandoning his statutory role as attorney general by refusing to represent the majority of voters who approved Proposition 8 as an amendment to the state constitution.
"It is wrong for politicians to elevate their own views of what the law should be over what the constitution says the law actually is," wrote Frank Schubert, director of the Yes on 8 campaign. "Doing so is not only illegal. It undermines the legitimacy of government itself."
Brown's legal brief argues that the attorney general's obligation to "uphold the whole of the Constitution" supersedes his role in defending a voter-passed initiative.
Brown likens his actions to that of state Attorney General Thomas Lynch, who in 1964 challenged voters' passage of Proposition 14, a measure that overturned a state law against housing discrimination. Proposition 14 – also an amendment to the state constitution – was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Brown's increased profile in the battle comes as the California Supreme Court in March is to hear three lawsuits challenging Proposition 8. The court also will consider whether to invalidate 18,000 existing same-sex marriages.
Brown said he and his attorneys argue in a "well-thought-through" brief that the right to gay marriage is protected by guarantees of basic liberties under Article One of the California Constitution.
"Those basic guarantees of liberty mean something special," Brown said in an interview. "That certainly requires that they not be stripped away like any other state rule or statute."
He also argues that Proposition 8 should be struck down based on the May 2008 state Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage "as a basic civil right" in overturning Proposition 22 – a measure passed by voters in 2000.
Yet Brown's brief also rejects a key legal argument by No on 8 advocates who said the initiative was a constitutional revision that required a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to get on the ballot.
Brown's gay marriage brief is far from his first controversial stand on his convictions.
In 1977, the state Legislature overturned Brown's veto of a state death penalty law. And his appointment of liberal, anti-death penalty jurist Rose Bird as chief justice of the state Supreme Court led to a voter backlash and Bird's ouster from the court in 1986.
"Challenging Proposition 8 on broad, fundamental grounds is very much consistent with Jerry Brown's reputation," said Darry Sragow, a public policy lawyer and veteran Democratic political strategist. "This is a man who likes to think big thoughts. This is a challenge that is consistent with that."
_______________________

I remember living in California when Jerry Brown was governor. Ronald Reagan, well, actually it was Nancy, hated the old Governor's Mansion in downtown Sacramento, so the Reagan's decided to build a huge, monstrous house outside of the city to be the new Governor's Mansion. Of course, as in all things political, it took forever to finish the house and the Reagan's never lived there.
When Brown was elected governor, he refused to live in the house because it was too far from his office. And since the old Governor's Mansion had become a museum/tourist site, Brown chose to rent a one-bedroom apartment near the Capitol, so he could walk to work.
Jerry Brown has always done his own thing, whether it flies in the face of conventional political wisdom or not. I think he does what he thinks is right.
Anti-death penalty. Pro-gay. Against useless government expenditures.
Rare to find that in a politician.