JULY 8 THROUGH 11, 2018


NEWS AND VIEWS


July 11, 2018


THE BOYS ARE OUT! THIS IS A MIRACLE! IT TOOK LESS TIME TO GET THROUGH THAN THE DIVERS FEARED, AND THE CAVE DIDN’T FLOOD AGAIN UNTIL JUST AFTER THEY GOT OUT. THANK HEAVEN!!! “MILLIONS BREATHE A GLOBAL SIGH OF RELIEF AS BOYS EMERGE SAFELY FROM THAI CAVE.”

IT’S NO WONDER THAT AT LEAST ONE MOVIE PRODUCER IS OVER THERE SCOUTING ALREADY, ONE NEWS VIDEO SAID, FOR ACTORS FOR THE INEVITABLE FILM, WHICH WILL BE A RUNAWAY HIT IN THE THEATERS. THIS IS LIKE THE LANDING OF A PASSENGER JET PERFECTLY ON THE HUDSON RIVER, WITH THE PASSENGERS ALL LINED UP ON THE WINGS WAITING FOR THE HARBOR PATROL BOATS TO COME FOR THEM. THESE ARE BOTH HEROIC TO THE POINT OF BEING BREATHTAKING. TO READ ABOUT SULLY SULLENBERGER, GO TO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesley_Sullenberger.

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-news/thai-cave-rescue-soccer-team-all-out-of-cave-in-thailand-2018-07-10-live-updates/
CBS/AP July 10, 2018, 9:46 AM
Thai cave rescue: Soccer team all out of cave -- live updates

A daring rescue mission in the treacherous confines of a flooded Thai cave saved all 12 boys and their soccer coach who were trapped deep within the labyrinth -- ending a grueling, 18-day ordeal that claimed the life of an experienced volunteer diver and riveted people around the world.

Thailand's Navy SEALs, who were central to the rescue effort, said on their Facebook page that the remaining four boys and their 25-year-old coach were all brought out safely Tuesday. Eight of the boys were rescued by a team of Thai and international divers on Sunday and Monday.

"We are not sure if this is a miracle, a science, or what. All the thirteen Wild Boars are now out of the cave," the SEALs said, referring to the name of the boys' soccer team. "Everyone is safe."

Watch: Long-term effects for trapped kids
Read: Thai Navy SEAL team posts touching photo
Read: Illinois restaurant owner joins Thai cave rescue effort
Follow the latest updates below:

Medic, 3 SEALs emerge from cave
The leader of the Thailand cave rescue says a medic and three SEALs who stayed with the boys in their dark refuge are now out of the cave.

Earlier, cheers erupted at a local government office where dozens of volunteers and journalists were awaiting news of whether the intricate and high-risk rescue mission had succeeded.

People on the street cheered and clapped when ambulances ferrying the boys arrived at the hospital in Chiang Rai city.

Thailand Cave Rescue For Trapped Soccer Team

Onlookers watch and cheer as ambulances transport some of the rescued schoolboys from a helipad to Chiangrai Prachanukroh Hospital on July 10, 2018 in Chiang Rai, Thailand. GETTY IMAGES

Payap Maiming, 40, who helped provide food and necessities to rescue workers and journalists, said a "miracle" had happened.

"I'm happy for Thais all over the country, for the people of Mae Sai, and actually just everyone in the world because every news channel has presented this story and this is what we have been waiting for," she said.

Thai P.M. says rescued boys were given anti-anxiety drug for journey out of cave

Thai Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha said Tuesday that the members of the soccer team rescued from a cave in Thailand had been given anti-anxiety medication before they were brought out.

There had been speculation that the boys could be tranquilized during their treacherous journeys out of the cave. As none one of them had any diving experience and most couldn't swim, officials feared they could panic.

Speaking after a weekly Cabinet meeting in Bangkok, the prime minister denied that the young soccer players were tranquilized before being rescued, but he did say that they were given an anxiolytic to relieve anxiety.

"Who would chloroform them? If they're chloroformed, how could they come out? It's called anxiolytic something to make them not excited, not stressed," the prime minister said.

Trump congratulates Thailand cave rescuers
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday congratulated rescuers who saved a Thai soccer team that had been trapped in a cave amid rising floodwaters.

"On behalf of the United States, congratulations to the Thai Navy SEALs and all on the successful rescue of the 12 boys and their coach from the treacherous cave in Thailand," Mr. Trump tweeted.

"Such a beautiful moment - all freed, great job!"


Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
On behalf of the United States, congratulations to the Thai Navy SEALs and all on the successful rescue of the 12 boys and their coach from the treacherous cave in Thailand. Such a beautiful moment - all freed, great job!

8:39 AM - Jul 10, 2018
91.8K
29.7K people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy

Parents visit hospitalized Thai soccer players

The parents of some of the soccer players rescued from a cave in Thailand have been able to visit their children in the hospital, Thai media reported Tuesday.

Four of the kids were allowed to have their parents enter their rooms, though they were required to wear face masks and stand 6 feet away from the boys, Thai media said. The parents of the other boys were able to see their children through a glass window. All the boys were quarantined because of the risk of infection.

Thai public health officials said that the first four boys who were rescued were able to stand up and walk around their beds on Tuesday. At least two of them may have lung infections, but none has a fever, officials said.

Soccer team all safe

The last young members of the Wild Boars soccer team have been rescued from the sprawling cave complex in northern Thailand where they were trapped for more than a week, Thai navy SEALS confirmed Tuesday.

The 12th member of the team was brought out of the cave complex on a stretcher only about eight hours after officials announced Tuesday's 3rd phase of the rescue operation. The 25-year-old assistant coach was the last out.

The conditions of the boys pulled out of the cave on Tuesday, and their coach, remain unclear, but officials have said the eight previously rescued are in relatively good health and at a hospital in Chiang Rai.

Only a doctor and three Thai navy SEALS who helped with the rescue effort will still need to get out safely before the operation is wrapped up.

59 PHOTOS -- Cave rescue of boys soccer team in Thailand


LAST MINUTE PROBLEMS

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/thailand-cave-rescue-final-group-rescued-just-before-water-pump-malfunction/
CBS NEWS July 11, 2018, 6:45 AM
Final group was pulled from Thai cave just before water pump malfunction

A Thai health official said the 12 boys and their soccer coach rescued from a flooded cave in northern Thailand are in good condition and recovering at a hospital Wednesday morning following the 18-day ordeal. CBS News has learned the final four boys and the coach were rescued just in time. Hours after the last boy was pulled out, the main water pump in the caves malfunctioned, sending water rushing in.

Maj. Charles Hodges, the U.S. mission commander for the 353rd Special Operations unit for the Air Force, was a part of the rescue operation in Thailand. Hodges described the tense moments leading up to that final rescue to "CBS This Morning" on Wednesday.

ctm-pretape-charles-hodges-071118-frame-11157.jpg
Maj. Charles Hodges CBS NEWS

"Well, three of the SEALs, there's four of them back there, three of them made their way into chamber three and about the same time we got the word that the pumps that had been running nonstop shut off for an unknown reason and the water levels back in chamber three started rising which would have cut off our access back to chambers two, one and then out of the cave. And that's an abort criteria for our guys and so when that water level started rising everybody started grabbing their kid and they were ready to get out. Thankfully that last SEAL popped up at the last moment and everyone was able to get out of chamber three safely and make their way out and mission complete," Hodges said.

Asked if there were other trying times during the operation that seemed like it might make the rescue impossible, Hodges said, "absolutely."

"We had that thought the whole entire time. We also understood though we didn't have the option to not attempt this," he said. "Even though the odds seemed impossible what I've always been taught is to take risk and be bold when the situation calls for it and this situation absolutely did."

Millions breathe a global sigh of relief as boys emerge safely from Thai cave

According to Thai health officials, when most of the boys were admitted, they were given antibiotics because of high white blood cell counts, reports CBS News' Anna Werner. Some of the boys have lung infections and they each lost an average of about four pounds while in the cave, but overall, health officials said they are doing well, considering what they went through.

Rescue volunteers danced and sang when they learned the entire group was safely rescued Tuesday and at a school where some of the rescued boys attend, students gathered to celebrate.

The ordeal began more than two weeks ago, when the 12 boys and their soccer coach became trapped 2 and a half miles inside a complex cave system by fast-moving flood waters. As oxygen levels in the cave dropped and a new round of monsoon rains threatened to raise floodwaters, divers rushed in to rescue the boys. They were taken out in three groups, over 72 hours.

The last member of the rescue team to leave the cave was Australian doctor Richard Harris. His boss said he found out shortly afterward that his father had died. He had stayed in the cave to look after the boys' health.

According to officials, the boys are doing well, in part because they stayed hydrated by drinking water dripping from the cave ceiling. They are now all being monitored for disease and infections.

Health officials said the boys are also doing well mentally. Perhaps because they stayed together, the official said, adding that the coach who took care of them should be admired.

Officials said the boys were given anti-anxiety pills to help keep them calm during their rescue. All of the boys and their coach are expected to be kept at the hospital through the weekend.

It may come as no surprise that the story of their rescue may become a movie. Film producers have been on the ground in Thailand scouting.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.



HERE IS ANOTHER CASE IN MY VIEW OF HIGHLY DISHONORABLE BEHAVIOR – PRETENDING TO HAVE FOUND MANY, MOST OR ALL MAVNI FORCES SUDDENLY UNSATISFACTORY, AND DISCHARGING THEM WITHOUT NOTICE.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mavni-program-discharging-recruits-promised-path-to-us-citizenship/
CBS NEWS July 9, 2018, 7:45 AM
Army recruit promised pathway to citizenship faces uncertain future

Immigration lawyers say the Pentagon has begun discharging dozens of recruits who had been promised a path to U.S. citizenship. They were part of a program called "MAVNI" -- military accessions vital to the national interest. It had brought more than 10,000 non-citizens into the military. The program was abruptly suspended in 2016, leaving more than 1,000 recruits in limbo.

Private First Class Alina Kaliuzhna is a medic stationed at Camp Bullis, and she's in the country legally, just like everyone in that recruitment program. She told us she enlisted because she didn't just want to get her U.S. citizenship. She wanted to earn it, and do it honorably, reports CBS News correspondent David Begnaud.

Kaliuzhna doesn't know when she'll get her official discharge orders.

"The dedication and service that they do -- I thought it was extraordinary because it was a volunteer force. So I wanted to be a part of that," Kaliuzhna said.

For more than two years, the Ukrainian immigrant has been unable to clear new background checks. Her dreams of becoming a nurse and commissioned U.S. Army officer are dimming by the day.

"I kinda got screwed a little bit," Kaliuzhna said, choking up.

Kaliuzhna enlisted under a recruitment program called MAVNI, which offers non-citizens a path to citizenship if they have critical language and medical skills needed by the military. The Bush administration started the program to help fight the war on terror.

President Obama opened it up to DACA recipients, the so-called Dreamers, which brought tougher screenings for recruits in 2016.

"They ordered so many background checks that they destroyed the program," immigration attorney Margaret Stock said. A former Army lieutenant colonel who helped create MAVNI, she said not enough resources were provided for the additional investigations, resulting in a 10-year backlog.

"The background vetting that the Department of Defense has ordered on these people is much, much stricter than any vetting that is done… for a U.S. citizen getting a job at the White House," Stock said.

"We should limit the number of people we accept," said Maryland congressman and former Navy medical officer Andy Harris. He supports ending MAVNI, saying the military should be looking to recruit Americans first.

"I'm not opposed to the idea of looking for critical needs for the military," Harris said. "But again… I fully agree with the enhanced background checks… because…these are people who have not been vetted through the normal immigration and naturalization process."

A Pentagon spokeswoman told CBS News MAVNI was suspended in 2016 because it "was vulnerable to an unacceptable level of risk from insider threats such as espionage, terrorism, and other criminal activity."

Kaliuzhna's records indicate she was flagged because of discrepancies in her answers during her security review. Her screener believed her "ability to protect classified information has been compromised."

"You've committed your life to a bigger purpose and anybody who's willing to do that deserves respect and be treated as a human," Kaliuzhna said, getting emotional. "Not as a piece of paper."

Kaliuzhna said her screener suspected someone else in Ukraine was supporting her financially, making her a security risk. If she's deported, Kaliuzhna said Ukraine might not take her back. Having sworn loyalty to the U.S. military, she could be seen as a traitor there.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.



THIS PRESIDENT IS VERY, VERY ODD. “ENCOURAGE PUTIN TO CHANGE BEHAVIOR?” THAT FRIGHTENS ME DEEPLY.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nato-ambassador-kay-bailey-hutchison-on-face-the-nation-says-trump-to-encourage-putin-to-change-behavior/
By EMILY TILLETT CBS NEWS July 8, 2018, 12:37 PM
NATO Ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchison: Trump to "encourage" Putin to change behavior

NATO Ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchison says President Trump will "encourage" Russian President Vladimir Putin to change his country's "malign" behaviors during the two leaders' upcoming summit in Finland this month. Her comments come as Mr. Trump prepares for the annual NATO meeting in Brussels this week where he is expected to ramp up pressure on allied partners to spend more on defense budgets.

"I think the president will encourage Vladimir Putin to start changing their behavior to be -- we'd like for Russia to be an ally, a trading partner. But right now, we have sanctions against Russia because of their malign influence and the things they're doing that are very disruptive -- trying to divide our alliance," Hutchison told "Face the Nation" on Sunday.

Transcript: NATO Ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchison on "Face the Nation," July 8, 2018

Hutchison, a former senator, said Russia continues to "sow discontent and even false information" over social media in an attempt to divide allied nations. But she said NATO should continue to talk to Russia to "try to bring them in the tent instead of just constantly seeing them do these things that are attempting to disrupt us."

Hutchison said the U.S. would continue to "stand behind" the Ukrainian people when asked about Mr. Trump's recent comments about the Russian annexation of Crimea.

"I think that our alliance is very solid and including all of the efforts that the United States is making to shore up the sovereignty of the Ukraine. The Ukraine people -- they stood very tall in their really peaceful revolution, is what it was at Maidan. They have stood strong for their sovereignty and their right of self-governance. And we are standing behind them on that. And there is no -- there's no light between any of our allies on that very important issue," said Hutchison.

She added, "There are so many areas where they are working against the interests of freedom and democracies and peace in the world. And it's a big part of our deterrence effort to keep them from taking over sovereign nations as they did in the Ukraine when they took Crimea in 2014."

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.



AT LEAST SOME REPUBLICANS ARE STANDING AGAINST TRUMP’S STRANGE AND MISGUIDED ALLIANCE WITH PUTIN OF RUSSIA. IT IS SO ILLOGICAL GIVEN THE HISTORY OF OUR NATIONS SINCE THE 1930S.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sen-joni-ernst-on-face-the-nation-russia-will-never-be-a-true-friend-to-the-u-s/
By EMILY TILLETT CBS NEWS July 8, 2018, 12:07 PM
Sen. Joni Ernst: Russia will never "be a true friend" to the U.S.

VIDEO – FACE THE NATION 8:05

Ahead of President Trump's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland later this month, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, says that she doesn't see how Russia could "ever be a true friend or ally to the United States." She cautioned Mr. Trump against considering working with Russia to oust Iran from Syria in return for the U.S. reducing its troop presence in the country.

"I would be concerned, we need stability in that region and I would just caution the president as we move forward with any discussions with Russia. Obviously Russia is not our friend," said Ernst on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "I would be very cautious in those moves, but if there is a way we can partner and put a lid on Iran, I would support that. But again, being very cautious, because I don't see that Russia would ever be a true friend or ally to the United States of America."

Transcript: Sen. Joni Ernst on "Face the Nation," July 8, 2018

Highlighting ongoing talks with North Korea as an example of taking hostile leaders for their word, Ernst said engaging in productive discussions is "OK" but cautioned against working with world leaders who not "have the the same interests at the United States of America does."

"Just as it is with North Korea, discussions are good and if we can move towards a resolution where the world becomes a safer place, we should always strive for that," Ernst added. "But again, we just need to be very cautious with a number of these leaders."

Ernst said the U.S. should resume military exercises with South Korea should talks with the North fail. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with top North Korean officials for two days in Pyongyang this week in talks the North characterized as "regrettable."

"We should continue with military exercises. Obviously I believe they have a purpose in keeping the peninsula safe and making sure that should anything happen we are well rehearsed with our allies to engage," Ernst said Sunday. "So I would say soon if we don't see those talks continue."

She said that she continues to support engaging North Korea despite the regime's tough talk. North Korea accused Pompeo of making "gangster-like" demands following this week's talks.

"The ultimate goal is denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and if these talks lead to that, I am very supportive of those efforts. Of course we're going to hear hard talk coming from North Korea, this is not the path that they want to take but it is what the rest of the world wants to see," she added.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.



POLITICS ON THE FRONT BURNER – A MIXED STEW


PRESIDENT TRUMP REPEATEDLY SPOKE WITH SCORN AGAINST “CATCH AND RELEASE,” AND NOW HE HAS A SIMILAR ROUTINE, “UNITE AND DIVIDE,” AGAIN. NO HEART IN THERE. I WONDER IF HE WOULD RUST IF WE SPRAYED HIM WITH WATER. NOTE, HE STILL HASN’T RELEASED THE CHILDREN EXCEPT IN A FEW CASES. HIS BEHAVIOR CONCERNING THE CHILDREN REMINDS ME OF SADDAM HUSSEIN WHEN HE WAS HOLDING CHILDREN AS HOSTAGES. IT’S AN ANCIENT PRACTICE, ACTUALLY, BUT DESPICABLE.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/09/us/whats-next-after-family-reunification/index.html
Some immigrant families are being reunited -- but their troubles are far from over
By Harmeet Kaur, CNN
Updated 7:48 AM ET, Mon July 9, 2018

(CNN)After a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reunite the immigrant families it has separated, there's been a trickle of stories of parents being reunited with their kids.

Nearly 3,000 kids were separated from their parents as a result of the White House's zero tolerance immigration policy, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar estimated last week. The government has not said how many of them were reunited with their parents, and officials have asked for more time to meet one of the reunification deadlines.

For the parents and children who have been brought back together, the celebrations may be short-lived. After reunification, they face a series of other obstacles -- including long, complex legal proceedings, and possibly deportation. For children, the trauma of being separated from their parents will be long-lasting. Some families are only partially reunified; a child may be returned to his mother, for instance, while his father remains in detention.

Here's a look at some of the situations that families might face even after being reunited.

A LONG, ARDUOUS FIGHT TO STAY IN THE US

Once immigrant parents are released from detention and reunited with their children, the next step for many of them is fighting to stay in the United States. Most immigrants coming from Central America are seeking asylum, and the court proceedings involved can be long, arduous and resource-intensive.
At the same time, they will also be dealing with adjusting to life in a new country, said Zenén Jaimes Pérez, the communications director for the Texas Civil Rights Project.

"The first time you saw this country, you might have been apprehended, in detention facilities, courtrooms or jails since you arrived, and all of a sudden you're out," Pérez said. "You have to find your way to your family. You have to get on a bus, you might have to get on a plane, you have to find a place to live. You might have to find a way to financially support yourself. All of those things are still factors and processes that all of these families have to go through."

To claim asylum, a person has to prove they faced persecution at home because of their race, religion, national origin, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. That persecution can either be inflicted by the government or by individuals that the government can't or won't control.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has made it harder for people to qualify for asylum. The administration overturned asylum protections for domestic violence and gang violence victims, which could prevent the tens and thousands of people who apply for asylum each year from staying in the United States.

Opinion: Trump administration turns its back on the most vulnerable

One way migrants can claim asylum is by arguing they are in danger because they belong to a particular social group. In the past, some would argue that their family was being targeted, and that made them a member of a persecuted social group. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently questioned that reasoning in the footnotes of the same recent ruling.

And even if an applicant meets the requirements for asylum, Sessions argued that they should also have to prove why they deserve it.

Finally, the Justice Department is considering a regulation that would prevent people who are convicted of illegally entering the United States from claiming asylum.

REUNITED, THEN DEPORTED

For other immigrant families who were separated at the border, being reunited with their loved ones could be one of the final steps before they're deported -- in many cases, they're sent back to the same brutal conditions they sought to escape. Many came to the United States fleeing gang violence, political instability, lack of economic opportunity or extreme poverty.

Once a judge orders that a parent be deported, the parent can choose to either have their children leave with them or remain in the United States.

They have one-way tickets, paid for by Washington

Federal officials are also giving parents the option of signing a voluntary deportation order to speed up their cases, even if other legal options are available. If they do so, they are told they will be reunited with their children before being deported.

Advocacy groups are concerned that some parents don't understand what they're signing and aren't receiving adequate help to approach their legal situations. They also say there is no evidence to suggest that voluntary deportation is a faster way for parents to be reunited with their kids.

LASTING SCARS

Doctors have called family separation "government-sanctioned child abuse." And even if immigrant children are reunited with their parents, they're often left with lasting scars. That psychological and biological damage, professionals say, can't be erased.

Children experience toxic stress and trauma as a result of being separated from their parents, wrote Daniel P. Keating, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, in an opinion for CNN. He said separation alters the way that children's brains work and can wreak havoc on their development.

"The core impacts of trauma and toxic stress include the disruption of their stress system, leading to lifelong behavioral problems, cognitive difficulties, chronic inflammation, impaired health, and even early death," Keating wrote. "Their attachment system will also be damaged, leading to persistent difficulties in making and sustaining successful relationships."

Many children in detention facilities show signs of separation anxiety even if their parents are around, Luis Zayas, dean of the school of social work at the University of Texas at Austin, told CNN. And because parents don't have control over their circumstances while in detention, children can become insecure about their parents' ability to protect them.

She survived the Holocaust and says the trauma of being separated from your parents lasts forever

So far, parents who have been reunited with their kids say they have not received any warnings from the federal government on how to deal with the trauma that their children may now be experiencing, nor guidance on how to talk to their kids about what they endured.

Olivia Caceres, an immigrant from El Salvador, already sees the impact that separation has taken on her son. She, her partner and their two sons left El Salvador together, but had to split up when her younger child became ill. She and her older son continued on to the border, while her partner and her younger son arrived later. Caceres soon learned that her younger son was separated from his father at the border.

She said that her son has not been the same since they were reunited.

"I thought that, because he is so young he would not be traumatized by this experience, but he does not separate from me. He cries when he does not see me. That behavior is not normal," she said in court documents.

OTHER FAMILIES MIGHT STILL END UP BEING SEPARATED

In late June, President Trump signed an executive order halting his administration's practice of separating families at the border. Instead, going forward, the administration plans to detain children with their parents as the family's case is processed.

Trump's executive order seeks to detain families together indefinitely. But it could face legal challenges because of an existing court settlement that says children can't be kept in detention for more than 20 days.

The chill of detention: Migrants describe their experiences in US custody

So what would happen once those 20 days are up?
Families could be separated again.

"You reunite the family; a clock is ticking. If it goes beyond 20 days, you either release the entire family, which is similar to the Obama policy that the President wants to change," Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, said on CNN. "Or you once again separate the family and send the child into some type of custodial care."



THIS ARTICLE IS A LITTLE TOO LONG FOR MY TASTES, BUT IT IS DETAILED AND STRIKES MANY ANGLES IN VIEWING IMMIGRATION POLICY. I’VE ALWAYS BEEN LUKEWARM ON THE SUBJECT. I DON’T DISLIKE IMMIGRANTS, BUT I’M NOT ALWAYS EAGER TO CHAMPION ALL THEIR CAUSES EITHER. THIS EXTREME EMPHASIS ON DEPORTING LOTS OF PEOPLE THAT TRUMP AND THE RIGHTIST BLOC SUPPORTING HIM IS CLEARLY DAMAGING TO US AS A PEOPLE, HOWEVER; AND THE PURE CRUELTY OF THIS SPLITTING OF FAMILIES IS OBSCENE. IT JUST SHOWS WHAT SORT OF PERSON HAS BEEN ELECTED AS OUR PRESIDENT, AND THAT HE NEEDS TO BE IMPEACHED SOONER RATHER LATER. HE HAS ALREADY COMMITTED ENOUGH “HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS,” TO DESERVE BEING BOOTED OUT.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/7/9/17548062/abolish-ice-democrats-immigration-plan
“Abolish ICE” shows how far left Democrats have moved on immigration
The progressive rallying cry may challenge Democratic unity, but it’s no longer the party of “tough but fair” immigration centrism.
By Dara Linddara@vox.com Jul 9, 2018, 10:00am EDT

PHOTOGRAPH -- Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) (center, in black) isn’t the only Democrat who’s comfortable engaging in civil disobedience to call for immigration reform — and criticizing immigration enforcement in general. Eduardo Samaniego via Twitter

“Abolish ICE” has become a slogan of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

Many of the party’s established leaders appear to be caught off guard by the popularity of abolishing ICE (which stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement) — the agency tasked with enforcing immigration law in the country’s interior, including the arrest, detention, and deportation of unauthorized immigrants who may have lived in the US for years. Former Obama Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, for one, has called “abolish ICE” no more realistic than making Mexico pay for the wall.

But it seems more likely than not that the party is going to co-opt the slogan. The 2020 presidential hopefuls playing to the “abolish ICE” crowd aren’t just wild-eyed progressives — they’re operators like Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY).

It’s impossible to imagine anything like that happening 10 years ago, when immigration was still an issue that split both parties. Or seven years ago, when immigration activists called a Democratic president the “deporter-in-chief” while Democrats in Congress pushed for legalization of unauthorized immigrants to be paired with robust interior enforcement under “comprehensive immigration reform.” Or even three years ago, when Democrats defended a softened Obama immigration policy as focusing on “felons, not families.”

Part of what has happened is Trump. But part of it is that Democratic elected leaders started to defer to organized immigration activists — and elements of the party’s progressive base started adopting those activists’ concerns as their own.

What we’re seeing is the second phase of a two-part transformation of the party’s politics on immigration. In the first phase, a strategic pivot by labor unions (who embraced immigrants as a potential new base for the labor movement) erased mainstream Democratic opposition to legalization of unauthorized immigrants and tempered concerns about future immigrant flows — bringing the party into lockstep behind the idea of comprehensive immigration reform.

In the second, the party has moved substantially to the left on the issue of immigration enforcement outside of the context of “comprehensive reform” and mass legalization — tentatively under Obama’s Democratic administration, then enthusiastically under Trump’s Republican one.

For Democrats, it’s been a simple calculus. Democrats’ attempts at “tough love” centrism didn’t win them any credit across the aisle, while an increasingly empowered immigrant-rights movement started taking them to task for the adverse consequences of enforcement policies. Democrats have now learned to ignore the critics on the right they couldn’t please, and embrace the critics on the left whom they could.

But just as the Democratic establishment warmed up to its base on immigration enforcement, the “abolish ICE” movement has presented them with a new challenge. Going into the 2018 midterms, Democratic elected leaders are facing renewed tension between the desire to give progressive activists something to mobilize for — and deeply ingrained worries that every step to the left on immigration risks turning off the American people writ large.

The Democratic base moved left on immigration — and the way Democrats related to the base changed, too

It’s easy to forget in the Trump era, but immigration has only been a partisan issue for the past decade or so. Traditionally, it split both parties. Republicans were torn between the racialized populism they’ve leaned into under Trump and the business wing’s desire to increase the immigrant workforce; Democrats were split between progressive and racial-justice activists, and labor — which was worried about immigrants undercutting native workers, and therefore eager to see laws enforced against unauthorized immigrants.

But as American workers became increasingly deunionized in the late 20th century, major labor unions started paying attention to getting more workers unionized. From that perspective, immigrant workers — especially immigrants prone to exploitation because they were unauthorized — were a prime asset.

With labor unions flipping to support unauthorized immigrants, there were no longer institutional interests within the Democratic Party that were interested in taking a more hawkish immigration line. Democrats continued to worry about turning off working-class white voters (the voters who were no longer being represented by unions in the workplace, and who might be more culturally conservative as well) by going too far on immigration. But without any institution promising to turn them out if Democrats did cater to those views, that concern was increasingly abstract.

At the same time, with the election of Barack Obama in 2008, Democrats started realizing that there was a huge upside in turning out (reliably Democratic) black voters at high rates, and in winning big shares of the rapidly growing Latino and Asian-American votes.

On the most basic level, that meant that labor’s institutional pressure on Democrats to moderate on immigration dissipated — just as Latinos, the new demographic force encouraging them to embrace immigrant rights, became more powerful. But the Democrats’ efforts to brand themselves as the party of the demographic future also created a new opportunity for racial-justice advocates to pressure Democrats from the left — challenging them not just to be better than Republicans, but to affirmatively deserve the votes of communities that could just as easily not turn out.

The institutions that Democrats were used to working with to represent identity groups — the NAACP as a mediator for African-Americans, the National Council on La Raza (NCLR, now called UnidosUS) as a mediator for Latinos, the Human Rights Campaign as a mediator for the LGBT community — weren’t used to public confrontations with politicians “on their side.” But the activists were. And over the course of the Obama era, it began to be the activists who set the agenda for the party.

Democrats tried to own the “tough but fair” center on immigration. It didn’t work.
Democrats’ policy priority on immigration, since 2008, has been to allow the millions of unauthorized immigrants who’ve become integrated into American communities (often after a decade or more of living in the United States) to get legal status and ultimately citizenship.

That hasn’t changed. What’s changed has been their perspective on whether amping up immigration enforcement, both near the US border and deeper within the country, helps achieve that goal or hurts it.


“Comprehensive immigration reform” proposals have typically amped up both border and interior enforcement while legalizing most current unauthorized immigrants. To many Democrats — especially Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), a leading voice of this strategy — this wasn’t just an acceptable compromise, it was actually ideal. Democrats wanted to end unauthorized immigration; that meant both acknowledging that the population currently settled in the US wasn’t going to leave, and making it as hard as possible for future unauthorized immigrants to come to or work in the US.

When President Obama was elected in 2008, and Democrats had unified control of the federal government, the centrist logic of immigration reform morphed into a political strategy. With Democrats in charge for the first time since 9/11, the party (and the Obama administration) saw a chance to dispel the idea that Democrats were “soft” on security, including on unauthorized immigration. Once Democrats had proven they could be trusted to enforce immigration law, the thinking went, they’d assuage the fears that tended to thwart any “amnesty” pushes — among both the American public, and congressional Republicans.

So the Obama administration continued the expansion of immigration enforcement that began under George W. Bush. It set deportation records; turned a database pilot program into a near-nationwide system to flag unauthorized immigrants checked into jails for Immigration and Customs Enforcement pickup, and touted statistics showing that a majority of deportees were “criminal aliens”; and bragged routinely about how its efforts to deport and prosecute immigrants caught crossing the US/Mexico border were making the border “more secure than ever before.”

It did not work at all.

Immigration hawks pooh-poohed the deportation records. The fact that net unauthorized migration was flat or negative through the early years of the Obama presidency (and net unauthorized migration from Mexico was flat throughout his presidency) got ignored.

The disputes were rooted in a skepticism among immigration hawks that the Obama administration could possibly be “tough” on immigration enforcement. Because they saw that President Obama and his officials ultimately wanted to legalize unauthorized immigrants, that made it impossible to trust the promises that the administration was trying harder than ever to enforce the law now.

Democrats had hoped to build their reputation for responsible immigration enforcement on distinguishing between current unauthorized immigrants and future ones, between “felons” and “families.” But to immigration hawks, those distinctions didn’t naturally exist — and Democrats’ attempts to impose them just looked like so much spin.

Escalating immigration enforcement can’t be all that precisely targeted
The immigration hawks were partly right: On the ground, the distinction between felons and families looked a lot blurrier. What that meant, as often as not, was that the policies the Obama administration championed to keep out or go after “bad” immigrants ended up catching the “good” ones.

The Obama administration’s efforts to target “felons, not families” led it to expand its reliance on local law enforcement. People picked up by local police would be searched in immigration databases; anyone found to be unauthorized could be held for pickup by ICE. That created an incentive for local law-enforcement officers who wanted to go after unauthorized immigrants to focus on apprehending people who might turn out to be unauthorized.

This process cast a much broader net than just “felons.” For unauthorized immigrants, everything from working (with a made-up Social Security Number that turns out to belong to someone else) to driving (in states that don’t permit unauthorized immigrants to get licenses) can be a crime.


More fundamentally, the “criminal alien” label tarred immigrants who were arrested and deported for possessing small amounts of marijuana, or selling phone cards out of their homes, alongside murderers and rapists. Not all Democrats agreed on where the line between “good” and “bad” immigrant ought to be drawn, but it quickly became apparent that it wasn’t congruent with the line between “criminal” and “noncriminal” aliens.

At the same time, the continued buildup of Border Patrol personnel didn’t just affect immigrants trying to come into the US — it affected everyone living within the 100-mile zone under Border Patrol authority. Border communities in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas complained of the “militarization” of the border and the abuses of Border Patrol agents (even when those abuses were against Mexican citizens on the other side of the fence).

Democrats promised legalization soon, while backing enforcement now. Immigrants and local activists saw that the latter was eating away at the promise of the former. Every person deported was someone who might have been legalized if immigration reform had already passed. Every person picked up by ICE now might be forfeiting their chance to get included in a legalization bill later.

immigration protesters
On the ground, the very things that Democrats thought were cost-free political tradeoffs — marginalizing “criminals” because they knew most unauthorized immigrants weren’t public safety threats, increasing enforcement against future immigrants to create political space for current ones — had consequences for the people they were trying to help. And many of the activists were uninterested in cutting Democrats any slack.

Democrats’ immigration position has become dictated by activists in a way Democrats don’t usually go along with
With the Obama administration running the enforcement machine at full blast, establishment Latino and immigration groups tempered their criticism — they needed to save their political capital with the White House to get it to push for a comprehensive immigration reform bill. But that calculus didn’t apply to local and regional groups. And it didn’t apply to new groups that hadn’t been around long enough to be “establishment” — including the groups led by unauthorized immigrants themselves, most of whom were part of a generation of young adults who had been raised in the US without status: the DREAMers.


DREAMers became a prominent voice in the immigrant-rights movement in 2010, when they successfully pressured Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring a bill to legalize them up for a vote after negotiations over comprehensive reform had stalled.

But what distinguished them from the rest of the immigrant-rights movement wasn’t that they were pushing for a DREAM Act rather than comprehensive reform (something that had been done before and that many organizations were willing to try again). It’s that they were willing to use confrontational tactics against Democrats, including sit-ins in Senate offices, to bring attention to their cause.

The willingness to confront Democrats reflected a worldview that didn’t care as much about “reassuring” Republicans about the “rule of law.” Immigration activists chafed at centrist lines about “felons, not families” — not only because they were likely to know people who counted as both under the Obama administration’s enforcement regime, but because they didn’t see an upside to that kind of both-sides rhetoric.

The same pattern ultimately resulted in DACA— the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — in 2012: DREAMers led a public activist push that often embarrassed Democrats (in this case the White House), but ended up grinding them down. On the local level — often led not by DREAMers, but by immigrant groups like the National Day Laborers Organizing Network — it resulted in the birth of the “sanctuary cities” push to limit local cooperation with ICE, which picked up steam during Obama’s first term. And it resulted in the attempts to expand deferred action for immigrants in 2014 — in which DREAMers played a leading role even though (in many cases) they themselves were no longer at risk of deportation.

Within the immigration-reform debate, DREAMers aren’t an interest group fighting for their own small piece of a much bigger discussion. They’ve functioned as an activist vanguard.

DREAMer arrested
Mark Abramson/the Washington Post via Getty
The Democratic shift on immigration helped lead the way for a broader rapprochement with the progressive movement — but its roots were in a simple political truth. Democrats didn’t lose much with centrists or conservatives by abandoning a commitment to “tough but fair” immigration enforcement, because they didn’t get much credit from those groups to begin with. But when they acceded to the demands of critics on the left, they were greeted with enthusiastic Latino support.

Democrats don’t endorse open borders — but they didn’t offer an alternative vision, either
Trump made it easy for Democrats — at least for a while. Not only was the party no longer responsible for immigration enforcement, but they faced a president who’s defined himself by his hardline immigration stance. The Democratic base wanted to see resistance to a president they see as dangerous and possibly illegitimate, and when it came to immigration, Democrats were happy to comply.

But criticizing Trump pushed Democrats further to the left on immigration, period, than they’d previously gone, without explicitly saying as much.

Democrats, in general, now tend to criticize immigration enforcement itself and tend to side with those accused of violating immigration law as a broad matter of principle beyond opposing the particular actions of the administration.

This goes beyond simply representing members of their own communities (and potential electoral constituencies). The activist defense of immigrants caught crossing the border, especially the Central American children and families that now make up a large share of people entering the US without papers, has led Democrats to take a much firmer stance in defending them as humanitarian victims who deserve the chance to seek and receive asylum in the US.

More broadly, Democrats are no longer as willing to attack “illegal immigration” as a fundamental problem anymore.

To some critics on the right, all of this is substantively indistinguishable from a call for open borders — the idea is that it doesn’t matter whether there are theoretical limits on immigration if someone who has broken those laws can’t be deported simply for breaking them.

But even Democrats who affirmatively endorse abolishing ICE, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 28-year-old democratic socialist who won New York’s 14th District primary, don’t embrace the idea of open borders per se. They aren’t calling for the abolition of immigration laws, and the changes national Democrats want to make to future immigration aren’t radically different in scope from what many Republicans would favor (though the types of immigrants they’d want to let in are different).

But without a good answer to what they are for instead, Democrats are at risk of being in the same position as immigration doves that they once were as immigration hawks: being attacked from the right for policies they didn’t espouse without getting credit from the left because there were no policy proposals to get credit for.

“Abolish ICE” will either put a spotlight on Democrats’ inconsistencies, or resolve them

To some establishment Democrats like Jeh Johnson and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), the popularity of “abolish ICE” as a meme seems like a rude awakening — a realization that some of their party’s base remains much further left on immigration than they are willing to go.

Democrats who are still invested in the idea of being “a nation of immigrants but also a nation of laws” — who feel it’s important that, even in the minority, they demonstrate sober and responsible governance — continue to accept robust immigration enforcement as necessary. That instinct is going to make it hard for them to get on board with a talking point that sounds as radical as “abolish ICE” does.

But looked at another way, “abolish ICE” is an opportunity to minimize the divisions on immigration within the Democratic Party by focusing on where Democrats agree: in opposition to the enforcement regime practiced by Donald Trump.

Because ICE is distinct from border enforcement (which is handled by Customs and Border Protection, a separate agency) its abolition can be supported both by Democratic Socialists of America activists who genuinely do support open borders, and by mainstream Democrats who simply prefer a return to the pre-2003 status quo.

Because ICE is associated so closely with Trump’s most draconian immigration policies — arrests of domestic violence survivors at courthouses; home raids caught on cell-phone cameras; the detention of immigrant families and separated parents — a Democrat can defend the function of the agency while calling for its current structure to be melted down. Or she can aver that the US government should not be in the business of deporting unauthorized immigrants at all. Or she can simply stay silent on the issue until she’s in a position to vote on specific bills.

No Democrat can do all three of these. But individual Democrats can make different choices while the party stays united under the banner of “abolish ICE.”

This appears to be the calculus that some 2020 hopefuls like Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris are making — that they can reap the political benefit with their party’s base of endorsing “abolish ICE” now, and trust that in the process of working out the details they can come up with something that offers an olive branch (or at least a fig leaf) to the idea of sober, responsible immigration enforcement.

They might be wrong. But with the president accusing Democrats of supporting MS-13 whether they support the abolition of ICE or not, and with a young Democratic base enthusiastic about “abolish ICE” in a way they were never enthusiastic about comprehensive immigration reform, it’s not hard to understand why they’re trying.


NEXT UP IN POLITICS & POLICY
Trump’s SCOTUS choices are religious liberty advocates. Here’s what that means.
Why Trump may not be to blame for immigrants being booted from the military
What the polls say about Americans, abortion, and the Supreme Court
US-North Korea talks are faltering. Trump is blaming China.
Environmental racism is dangerous. Trump’s EPA doesn’t seem to care.
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club members reportedly got offered Air Force One tours
B N.



THE DEMOCRATIC DANCE STEPS – “FIRST TO YOUR LEFT, THEN TO YOUR RIGHT – SWING YOUR GIRL AND DO-SI-DO.” FOR ONE THING, THE DEMS ARE OVER-THINKING IT, TRYING LABORIOUSLY TO PLAN IN DETAIL, AND IN SO DOING ENGINEER THE VICTORY OF THEIR PRECHOSEN CANDIDATE. THAT’S HOW THESE “CORONATIONS” COME ABOUT, AND WE SAW IN 2016 HOW THAT TURNED OUT!

ALSO, I’M SURE THEY ARE AFRAID TO LEAVE THEIR CORPORATE PATRONS FOR FEAR PEOPLE WON’T LOVE THEM AS MUCH AS WE DO BERNIE. WHAT BERNIE DOES IS “SPEAK FROM THE HEART.” IN ONE OF THE PERRY MASON NOVELS BY EARL STANLEY GARDNER, HE SAYS IN DESCRIBING A CERTAIN KIND OF PERSON, “THEY’RE ALWAYS SHADOW BOXING” RATHER THAN LEADING WITH THEIR BEST ABILITIES. AS A RESULT, THEY’RE FROZEN IN PLACE, WHEN WHAT THEY NEED TO DO IS LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE.

DEMS, IT’S TIME TO DECIDE! I THINK THE PARTY SHOULD PUBLISH A POLL EVERY SIX MONTHS OR SO ON THE INTERNET, BY TELEPHONE OR VIA MAIL, INCLUDING NAMES OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE LEFT THE PARTY IN THE LAST SEVERAL YEARS. I PERSONALLY HAVE BEEN DISSATISFIED IN THE PARTY FOR AT LEAST THAT LONG, BUT DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. I FELT THAT I HAD NOWHERE TO TURN FOR A REAL ALTERNATIVE. THEN BERNIE SANDERS BEGAN PUBLISHING HIS SHORT, PITHY STATEMENTS OF DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST BELIEFS, HUMOR AND JUST GOOD COMMON SENSE. OUR OPINION POLLS SHOULD ASK OUR PREFERENCES ON A DOZEN OR TWO KEY ISSUES – HOW THE DNC CHOOSES ITS’ PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, FOR INSTANCE. NO MORE CORONATIONS. GET RID OF THE “SUPERDELEGATES” COMPLETELY, AND THEN WORK TO GET RID OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE, NEXT. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS JUST THE BRAKE PEDAL THAT THE FOUNDING FATHERS PUT IN FOR THE SPECIFIC PURPOSE OF TAMPING DOWN ON THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE. THEN WE CAN APPROACH WHAT “THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE” MIGHT ACTUALLY SOUND LIKE.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/democrats-ignore-left-their-peril-midwesterners-aren-t-scared-socialism-ncna889741
Carlos Ramirez-Rosa Democrats ignore the left at their peril. Midwesterners aren't scared of socialism — they're hungry for it.
Some members of the Democratic establishment argue that bold, left-wing platforms can't win elections. They're wrong.
Jul.09.2018 / 4:32 AM ET

PHOTOGRAPH -- Labor activist and Socialist Party member Eugene V. Debs, shown here giving a speech on Aug. 17, 1912, is one of Bernie Sanders' icons.AP file

In a recent interview on CNN, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Il.) claimed that candidates who push policies "too far to the left" won’t be able to win in Midwestern states. It’s an idea that many Democrats have returned to in the wake of surprises like democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s New York primary victory in June. The theory is that more bold, left-wing ideas might appeal to some voters on the coasts, but average folks in the heartland aren’t interested in scary ideas like socialism.

While this argument may comfort mainstream liberals, it’s not one that reflects the history — or the present — of socialism in the Midwest.

The theory is that more bold left-wing ideas might appeal to some voters on the coasts, but average folks in the heartland aren’t interested in scary ideas like socialism.

From the workers’ struggles in the 19th and 20th centuries that won the 8-hour workday to the growth of a fighting labor movement to my own election as a millennial socialist city council member in Chicago, Midwesterners have consistently backed socialist movements and socialist candidates that reject the political status quo and fight for the working-class values of solidarity and equality.

Indeed, despite what Duckworth or anyone else might think, socialists have a long history in this region. Eugene Debs, whose labor and political activism in the around the turn of the 20th century made him the most important socialist organizer in American history (and one of Bernie Sanders’ icons), is from Terre Haute, Indiana. “Sewer socialists” governed Milwaukee and other areas of Wisconsin for decades, including Victor L. Berger, who in 1910 was elected to the House of Representatives — the same position Ocasio-Cortez is on the verge of winning this November.

Midwestern cities and towns such as Dayton, Ohio, Minneapolis, Minnesota and Flint, Michigan all have proud socialist backgrounds. “Appeal to Reason,” the most widely read socialist publication in U.S. history, was published out on the plains of Girard, Kansas; Oklahoma was a national hotbed for Socialist Party organizing for much of the 20th century’s first half.

Ocasio-Cortez: Socialism is 'part of what I am, not all of what I am'
JUL.01.201802:04

The Midwest has also been home to militant worker organizing for over a century, from the Haymarket massacre in Chicago that sparked the modern American labor movement as we know it, to the Flint sit-down strikes of the 1936-1937 which upended the U.S. auto industry, to the founding of public-sector unionism out of Wisconsin in the 1950s, to more recent fights like the Chicago Teachers Union’s 2012 strike.

Far from being allergic to socialism and class struggle, as Duckworth suggests, the Midwest has always been a region steeped in it — even leading the way.

This isn’t all ancient history, either. In the most recent Democratic presidential primary, Sen. Bernie Sanders — for whom I was a proud delegate to the Democratic National Convention — ran an unapologetically left-wing campaign, proudly fighting for popular policies like Medicare for all, a $15 minimum wage and free public college, all while proclaiming himself a “democratic socialist.”

Were Midwesterners scared off by his clear embrace of socialist ideas? Far from it. Sanders won primaries throughout the Midwest, in states like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan and Indiana and barely lost in Iowa, Missouri and Illinois.

Image: Former Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., waves to delegates before speaking during the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on July 25, 2016.J. Scott Applewhite / AP file

And look at my own election. I’m a 29-year-old member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) who was elected to the Chicago City Council in 2015. I ran on an unabashed platform of fighting for this city’s working class: fully funding public schools, opposing privatization, ending corporate welfare, preserving and expanding affordable housing and reopening shuttered health clinics. And I wasn’t afraid to call out the corporate-friendly Democrats who continue to cut vital social services while giving handouts to corporations and the wealthy.

Did this bold political vision make voters skittish? No way. They chose it in a landslide: 67 percent of voters in the 35th Ward on Chicago’s northwest side voted for me.

The same has been true outside of major urban areas as well. Last year, in Rock Island, Illinois, millennial diesel mechanic and democratic socialist Dylan Parker won election to the city council on a broad platform for the many and not the few that included equitable economic development and universal broadband internet access.

I’m a 29-year-old member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) who was elected to the Chicago City Council in 2015. I ran on an unabashed platform of fighting for this city’s working class.

Indeed, this hunger for anti-corporate, anti-establishment politics is spreading throughout the midwest. You can see it in the massive growth of the Democratic Socialists of America — currently boasting over 44,000 members. Ocasio-Cortez and I are both members of DSA, which has seen chapters spring up everywhere from Indianapolis, Indiana, and Cincinnati, Ohio, to Des Moines, Iowa and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. My own chapter in Chicago now has over 1,500 members.

The Democratic establishment may not want to acknowledge the growing popularity of the party’s left flank and its agenda of fighting for real social, racial and economic justice. But if they hope to win, it’s time they embrace it. If they don’t, we’ll take them head-on.

Midwesterners aren’t a monolith, demographically or politically, and we're also not scared of bold left-wing policies — in fact, we're hungry for them. That vision is firmly rooted in the Midwest’s past. It’s also our future.

Carlos Ramirez-Rosa has served as alderman of Chicago’s 35th Ward since his election to the City Council in 2015. Queer, Latinx and a democratic socialist, Ramirez-Rosa served as a deportation defense organizer prior to his election and was an elected Bernie Sanders delegate in 2016. He was named an “emerging power player” by Chicago Magazine in 2017.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewer_Socialism
Sewer Socialism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sewer Socialism was a term, originally pejorative, for the American socialist movement that centered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from around 1892 to 1960.[1] The term was coined by Morris Hillquit at the 1932 Milwaukee convention of the Socialist Party of America, as a commentary on the Milwaukee socialists and their perpetual boasting about the excellent public sewer system in the city.[2]

Ideology

With the creation of the Socialist Party of America, this group formed the core of an element that favored democratic socialism over orthodox Marxism, de-emphasizing social theory and revolutionary rhetoric in favor of honest government and efforts to improve public health. The Sewer Socialists fought to clean up what they saw as "the dirty and polluted legacy of the Industrial Revolution",[3] cleaning up neighborhoods and factories with new sanitation systems, city-owned water and power systems, and improved education. This approach is sometimes called "constructive socialism".[4] The movement has its origins in the organization of the Social Democratic Party, a precursor to the Socialist Party of America.

Victor Berger
Main article: Victor L. Berger

Victor Berger, Representative of Wisconsin's 5th district in the 61st and 67th-72nd United States Congresses.

Victor Berger was one of the prime movers of Sewer Socialism,[3] often compared to Robert La Follette and his representation of Progressivism. He was an Austrian Jewish immigrant who published English and German daily newspapers, distributing free copies to every household in Milwaukee before elections. He was the best-known local leader of this tendency. In 1910 he became the first of two Socialists elected to the United States House of Representatives, representing Wisconsin's 5th congressional district (The second was Meyer London of New York.) Berger was reelected in 1918, but was barred from his seat in the House because of his trial and conviction under the 1917 Espionage Act for his public remarks opposing U.S. intervention in the First World War. A special election was called, in which Berger again emerged victorious, but he was denied the seat and it was declared vacant. Berger served the 5th district again from 1923 until 1929, and during his tenure introduced proposals for numerous programs that were subsequently adopted, such as old age pensions, unemployment insurance, and public housing.

Electoral history

Campaign poster from the 1912 Presidential campaign, where Seidel was the running mate of Eugene Debs

In 1910, the Socialists won most of the seats in the Milwaukee city council and county board. This included the first Socialist mayor in the United States, Emil Seidel, who also received the nomination for Vice-President on the Socialist Party ticket in the 1912 election, when the Socialists netted 6% of the vote, their highest-ever percentage. Seidel and Berger both lost their campaigns in 1912, but in 1916, a new Socialist mayor was elected, Daniel Hoan, who remained in office until 1940. Socialists never regained total control over the local government as they did in 1910, but continued to show major influence until the defeat of Daniel Hoan in 1940. The Sewer Socialists elected one more mayor in Milwaukee, Frank P. Zeidler, who served for three terms (1948-1960). A Socialist has not been elected mayor of a major American city since the end of Zeidler's tenure.

Relationship with the Progressives

Although the Socialists had many ideas and policies similar to those of the Wisconsin Progressives, tensions still existed between the two groups because of their differing ideologies; Socialist Assemblyman George L. Tews during a 1932 debate on unemployment compensation and how to fund it argued for the Socialist bill and against the Progressive substitute, stating that a Progressive was "a Socialist with the brains knocked out".[5] Although as a rule the Progressives and Socialists did not run candidates against each other in Milwaukee, they rarely co-operated on elections. One notable exception was the 1924 Presidential campaign of Robert M. La Follette, Sr., who was endorsed by the Socialist Party of America. A factor that affected this lack of collaboration was the relationship of each party to the Republican Party. Socialists were outright opposed to the party while the Progressives sometimes worked with their parent party.

In 1961, Progressive editor William Evjue wrote of the Wisconsin Socialist legislators he had known, "They never were approached by the lobbyists, because the lobbyists knew it was not possible to influence these men. They were incorruptible."[6]

See also
Jasper McLevy
Progressivism in the United States
References
"Socialism in Milwaukee". Wisconsin Historical Society. Retrieved 2009-10-11.
Louis Waldman, Labor Lawyer. New York: Dutton, 1944, p. 260. Hillquit was running against Milwaukee mayor Dan Hoan for the position of National Chairman of the Socialist Party at the 1932 convention, and the insult may have sprung up in that context.
"Milwaukee Sewer Socialism". Wisconsin Historical Society. Retrieved 2009-10-11.
Miller, Sally M. Victor Berger and the Promise of Constructive Socialism Westwood, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1973
Kaveny, Edward T. "$10,000,000 Tax: Assembly Passes Compromise Bill by 73 to 15 Vote" Milwaukee Sentinel January 6, 1932; p. 1, cols. 7-8
Evjue, William T. "Hello, Wisconsin," Capital Times November 9, 1961, p. 3, col. 1.

Further reading ....

This page was last edited on 13 June 2018, at 23:04 (UTC).
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.


SOCIALISM AND THE DEMOCRATS IN 2006

https://www.thenation.com/article/last-sewer-socialists/
The Last of the “Sewer Socialists”

"There is always a charge that socialism does not fit human nature. We've encountered that for a long time. Maybe that's true. But can't people be educated? Can't people learn to cooperate with each other? Surely that must be our goal, because the alternative is redolent with war and poverty and all the ills of the world." -- Frank Zeidler .

By John NicholsTwitter JULY 14, 2006
fbtwmailmsgwa

Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!

“There is always a charge that socialism does not fit human nature. We’ve encountered that for a long time. Maybe that’s true. But can’t people be educated? Can’t people learn to cooperate with each other? Surely that must be our goal, because the alternative is redolent with war and poverty and all the ills of the world.”

— Frank Zeidler

One of my favorite political artifacts is a “Frank Zeidler for President” campaign pin.

Zeidler, an old-school American socialist who served three terms as the mayor of Milwaukee from 1948 to 1960, and who died last Friday at age 93, never got very far as a presidential candidate. In fact, like so many of the great civic gestures he engaged in over nearly eight decades of activism, Zeidler’s 1976 campaign for the nation’s top job was more about “keeping the red flag flying” than actually winning.

In 1976, when the Socialist Party of Eugene Victor Debs and Norman Thomas was struggling to get its bearings after a series of internal struggles, splits and resignations, Zeidler presented himself as its standard-bearer. Campaigning on a platform that promised a shift of national priorities from bloated defense spending to fighting poverty, rebuilding cities and creating a national health care program, Zeidler won only a portion of the respect that was due this kind and decent man and the values to which he has devoted a lifetime.

The Socialist ticket won only 6,038 votes in 1976 4,298 of them from Wisconsin, where Zeidler retained a substantial personal following. Despite the paucity of support, Zeidler’s candidacy renewed interest in a great old political party, which once was a key player in the politics of his native state of Wisconsin and, to a lesser extent, of the nation.

Had Zeidler been born in another land — perhaps Germany, where the roots of his family tree were firmly planted — his national campaign at the head of the ticket of the Socialist Party would have been a much bigger deal. Indeed, he might well have been elected.

After all, in most of the world, the social-democratic values that Zeidler has advanced throughout his long life hold great sway. Latin America has been experiencing a revival of socialist fervor in recent years. And virtually every European country has elected a socialist government in the past decade. Indeed, the current leaders of Spain, Italy and Britain head political parties that are associated with the Socialist International, of which Zeidler’s Socialist Party is a U.S. affiliate.

Yet, outside of Milwaukee, New York City, Reading, Pennsylvania, and a few other outposts, America never took to socialism with the same energy that Europe and much of the rest of the world did. And by the time of his death, even Zeidler, the last Socialist Party activist to lead a major city in the U.S., was deemed worthy of only a wire-service “brief” in the obituary section of the New York Times.

So my “Zeidler for President” pin, presented to me by the candidate himself, is more a rare artifact than a record of consequential electioneering.

Like the man whose name it heralds, the pin is a reminder of a politics of principle that has mostly existed on the periphery of postwar America’s stilted economic and political discourse.

Beyond the borders of the United States, Zeidler’s contribution — a humane, duty-driven, economically responsible version of socialism that is reflective of the man as much as the philosophy — has always been better recognized by foreigners than by Americans.

Zeidler was the repository of a Milwaukee Socialist tradition with German radical roots and a record of accomplishment — grand parks along that city’s lakefront, nationally recognized public health programs, pioneering open housing initiatives, and an unrivaled reputation for clean government — that to his death filled the circumspect former mayor with an uncharacteristic measure of pride.

With its emphasis on providing quality services, the politics that Zeidler practiced was sometimes referred to as “sewer socialism.” But, to the mayor, it was much more than that. The Milwaukee Socialists, who governed the city for much of the 20th century, led a remarkably successful experiment in human nature rooted in their faith that cooperation could deliver more than competition.

“Socialism as we attempted to practice it here believes that people working together for a common good can produce a greater benefit both for society and for the individual than can a society in which everyone is shrewdly seeking their own self-interest,” Zeidler told me in an interview several years ago. “And I think our record remains one of many more successes than failures.”

On a Friday afternoon in the spring of 1999, the contribution that Zeidler made to Milwaukee and to the world was honored by people who well understood the significance of what this American socialist did and what he continued to do as someone whose activism slowed only slightly as he passed through his 80s and into his 90s.

At a gathering at the main branch of the Milwaukee Public Library, a favorite haunt of the man who as mayor battled to expand it, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation recognized Zeidler for his many years of public service and his unique contributions to the socialist cause.

Based in Bonn, Germany, the foundation was established in 1925 as a political legacy of Friedrich Ebert, Germany’s first democratically elected president. A socialist, Ebert became president of a devastated Germany in the years after World War I, and he struggled to rebuild it as a free and responsible nation.

Banned by the Nazis in 1933, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation began its work anew in 1947 and today operates educational programs and other activities in more than 100 countries. It awards thousands of scholarships in Germany and around the world and maintains an internationally recognized library on the history of labor.

Dieter Dettke, executive director of the foundation’s Washington office, came to Milwaukee to present Frank Zeidler with a bound volume of German constitutions — a text that the former mayor, whose facility with languages was one of his many political assets, could read without the assistance of a translator.

American politics being what they are, Zeidler was never accorded the full measure of honor due him in his own land. But the rest of the world will continue to take inspiration from the recollection of the white-haired Milwaukee socialist whose faith in the possibility of a better world withstood the batterings of depression, war, McCarthyism, the Cold War, and the Nixon, Reagan and Bush eras,

“The concept that motivates us is a community good as opposed to the concept of an individual pursuing their own self-interest and that somehow the public good comes out of that,” Zeidler told me not long before his death, still raising the red flag he carried across the 20th century and into the 21st. “Our concept is that a pursuit of the good of the whole produces the best condition for the good of the individual.”

John NicholsTWITTERJohn Nichols is The Nation’s national-affairs correspondent. He is the author of Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse: A Field Guide to the Most Dangerous People in America, from Nation Books, and co-author, with Robert W. McChesney, of People Get Ready: The Fight Against a Jobless Economy and a Citizenless Democracy.

To submit a correction for our consideration, click here.
For Reprints and Permissions, click here.


THE ABOLISH ICE MOVEMENT

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/6/28/17514806/abolish-ice-protest-democrats-immigration
“Abolish ICE” is becoming more than just a protest cry
Some Democratic lawmakers are starting to pay attention, too.
By Jen Kirbyjen.kirby@vox.com Jun 28, 2018, 4:50pm EDT

PHOTOGRAPH -- Protesters in Washington, DC, on June 28. Win McNamee/Getty Images

Hundreds of women protested against family separation and detention on Thursday in Washington, DC. They were also calling for the abolishment of ICE.

Calls to “abolish ICE” have been building in recent weeks, as the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” border policies have pushed the platform into the mainstream among some Democrats.

ICE is shorthand for US Immigration Customs and Enforcement, and many activists on the left see the agency as emboldened and out-of-control under Trump. (It’s also separate from US Customs and Border Protection, which acts as the border patrol; ICE acts as an interior patrol.)

Just this week Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) announced he was introducing a House bill to dismantle ICE in favor of a more “humane” border enforcement. In New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — who upset Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) in the 14th District’s congressional primary — has called for the abolishment of ICE, and she’ll almost certainly be elected to Congress in the fall.

But not all Democrats are ready to join the call. CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Bernie Sanders (I-VT) this week about abolishing ICE. The senator refused to answer the question, saying we need to “create policies that deal with immigration in a rational way” — and swiftly got blowback from his supporters.

“Abolish ICE” has also become a potent rallying cry in demonstrations against President Donald Trump’s family separation policies that have popped up across the country. Protesters confronted Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen with such chants as she dined at a Mexican restaurant last week.

Similarly, protesters who gathered for the march on Thursday chanted the slogan, en masse, outside of the Justice Department.


Alejandro Alvarez 🇺🇾
@aletweetsnews
· 28 Jun
#WomenDisobey have 10th Street shut down outside the gates to the DOJ, all shouting WE CARE on this march’s first sit-in demanding a stop to family detention. pic.twitter.com/5PAIHWISWH


Alejandro Alvarez 🇺🇾
@aletweetsnews
#WomenDisobey: Chanting ABOLISH ICE at the DOJ building, a demand I’m hearing more and more - cc: @SeanMcElwee pic.twitter.com/T6U9nRw6EM

1:13 PM - Jun 28, 2018 · Washington, DC

1,153
552 people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy

What to know about the “Abolish ICE” rallying cry

“Abolish ICE” began as pushback to aggressive immigration enforcement. Trump’s hardline agenda was a driving force behind the movement, but immigration activists and others largely see ICE as a problematic part of the larger immigration enforcement apparatus, as Vox’s Dara Lind wrote in her detailed explainer.

ICE came into existence in the early 2000s, when the federal government was reorganized and the Department of Homeland Security was created — so it’s a relatively new branch of the federal government. Its creation led to more deportations, which escalated during the Obama administration, especially during his first term. But it is under Trump that worries about the agency’s overreach grew.

Leftist activists are vilifying ICE as a symbol of all that’s wrong with US immigration policy — especially because any viable legislation solution is basically dead on arrival in Congress. It’s also a challenge to Democrats as the progressive and more mainstream wings of the party battle it out.

A push to abolish ICE wouldn’t be the end of immigration or border enforcement. Pocan, who is introducing “Abolish ICE” legislation, said he’s looking to transfer necessary functions to other agencies. Even Ocasio-Cortez isn’t calling for open borders, but instead emphasizing a renewed focus on security rather than just enforcement.

“In a similar way where we have law enforcement enforce legitimate crimes of violence, crimes of harm, mass, large fraud,” Ocasio-Cortez told Documented NY. “I think that there is a role for enforcement there, but I do not think that it in any way is equivocal to what we are seeing with ICE right now.”

This, in many ways, is the activists’ strategy working. A radical idea — abolishing ICE — transformed into a more viable, and potentially achievable, political plan.

Correction: This post misstated Pocan’s party. He is a Democrat.

NEXT UP IN POLITICS & POLICY
The Thai boys cave rescue is underway: what we know so far
“Abolish ICE” shows how far left Democrats have moved on immigration
Nazis and white supremacists are running as Republicans across the country. The GOP is terrified.
The Supreme Court vs. democracy
Trump’s reported Supreme Court finalists are likely down to these 4
John Roberts is the Supreme Court’s new swing vote. Is he going to overturn Roe v. Wade?


Recommended
[Pics] After Being Cast Aside By His Herd, A Baby Elephant Gets An Unlikely Surprise
[Pics] After Being Cast Aside By His Herd, A Baby Elephant Gets An Unlikely Surprise
Readerstrust
[Pics] Man Turned Boeing 727 Into His Home - Wait Till You See The Inside
[Pics] Man Turned Boeing 727 Into His Home - Wait Till You See The Inside
Ice Pop
[Pics] Jim Carrey Made A Brave Stand And It Appears To Have Cost Him His Career
[Pics] Jim Carrey Made A Brave Stand And It Appears To Have Cost Him His…
Scribol
Rolling Stone just published a new profile of Johnny Depp. It’s damning.
Rolling Stone just published a new profile of Johnny Depp. It’s damning.
How Big Dick Energy explains modern masculinity
How Big Dick Energy explains modern masculinity
Amazon just made an eye-popping play to disrupt drug stores
Amazon just made an eye-popping play to disrupt drug stores
Recommended by
THE LATEST

Why Starbucks, Seattle, and Tom Brady are all shunning plastic straws
By Radhika Viswanathan

The Thai boys cave rescue is underway: what we know so far
By Emily Stewart

“Abolish ICE” shows how far left Democrats have moved on immigration
By Dara Lind

Nazis and white supremacists are running as Republicans across the country. The GOP is terrified.
By Jane Coaston

The Supreme Court vs. democracy
By Ezra Klein

Trump’s reported Supreme Court finalists are likely down to these 4
By Dara Lind and Dylan Matthews



THIS REPUBLICAN DRIFT TO THE FAR RIGHT HAS BEEN HAPPENING SINCE THE TEA PARTY MOVED IN. THE RNC WILL NOW HAVE TO KICK THEM OUT, IF THEY ARE SMART PEOPLE. I NOTICED ALSO THAT ONE NAZI CANDIDATE WAS NOT ALLOWED TO BE SEATED IN A RECENT RNC MEETING – ON THE STATE LEVEL I THINK. THIS IS WHAT ISLAMIC GROUPS NEED TO DO, ALSO, WHEN RADICALS JOIN THEIR MOSQUES. A VOLUNTARY PURGE WOULD ONLY HELP THE RELIGION AS A WHOLE. SO FAR, THE RADICALS SEEM TO BE INDIVIDUALS RATHER THAN GROUPS, BUT IT REMAINS A THREAT.

I HOPE THAT THE CIVILIZED PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY WILL NOT ALLOW A NAZI TAKEOVER UNLESS IT HAPPENS BY SURPRISE. I DON’T THINK WE WILL. I AM OF THE OPINION THAT TRUMP WAS TRYING TO DO JUST THAT, BUT HE HAS MET RESISTANCE REPEATEDLY, FROM COURTS TO LAWSUITS TO THE NEWS MEDIA TO THE ORDINARY CITIZENS. THESE RECENT VERBAL ASSAULTS AT RESTAURANTS, ETC. ARE UNFORTUNATE, BUT THEY REALLY DO MAKE THE POINT. I NOTICE THAT IN THE RANGE OF TWO OR THREE DOZEN WELL-KNOWN REPUBLICANS HAVE PROTESTED AGAINST TRUMP’S ACTIONS AND FOLLOWERS SINCE HE WAS INAUGURATED, AND THERE WILL SURELY BE MORE AS THE TRUMPIAN PLANS CONTINUE TO PROLIFERATE.

https://www.vox.com/2018/7/9/17525860/nazis-russell-walker-arthur-jones-republicans-illinois-north-carolina-virginia
Self-described Nazis and white supremacists are running as Republicans across the country. The GOP is terrified.
The racist candidates are expected to lose, but they could drag their party down with them.
By Jane Coastonjane.coaston@vox.com Jul 9, 2018, 9:50am EDT

PHOTOGRAPH -- Men hold Confederate flags in front of a statue of Robert E. Lee prior to the Unite the Right Rally on August 12, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Jason Andrew/Getty Images

In at least five state and national races across the country, the Republican Party is dealing with an uncomfortable problem. Their party’s candidates are either a card-carrying Nazi, a Holocaust denier, a proud white supremacist, or all of the above.

In North Carolina, for example, GOP officials are stuck with Russell Walker, a white supremacist running for the state House of Representatives. According to his personal website (littered with the n-word), he believes that “the jews are NOT semitic they are satanic as they all descend from Satan.”

Republicans in the state have regrets. “This is a very Democratic district, one that we failed to keep our eye on,” Dallas Woodhouse, executive chair of the North Carolina GOP, told me in an email. “However, we can’t stop him from running.”

In Illinois, meanwhile, the Republican Party shrugged off Arthur Jones, a candidate for the state’s 3rd Congressional district who boasted of his membership in the American Nazi Party. But Jones won the GOP primary, and now party officials, including ones who called Jones “morally reprehensible” and “a complete nutcase,” are scrambling to launch a write-in campaign. Jones’s campaign website features a section called “Holocaust?” in which he argues that the “idea that six million Jews, were killed by the National Socialist government of Germany, in World War II, is the biggest, blackest lie in history.”

In Virginia, the chair of the state GOP resigned earlier this month, reportedly because of alt-right leaning, pro-Confederate candidate Corey Stewart’s win in the Republican primary. But even Stewart had to disavow Wisconsin’s Paul Nehlen, who is running to replace Speaker Paul Ryan. Nehlen’s too racist for Twitter and even for Gab, the preferred social media platform of the alt-right. Meanwhile, a California Republican running for Congress has been making appearances on neo-Nazi podcasts and argues on his campaign website that “diversity” is a Jewish plot. (The California GOP has disavowed him.)

Racial animus helped fuel the rise of Donald Trump. Since the end of the civil rights movement and under Republican strategist Lee Atwater’s “Southern strategy” that used racism as an unstated cudgel against Democrats, the Republican Party itself has played a welcoming host to racial tensions and fears. Simultaneously, it has depicted itself, as conservative columnist Jeff Jacoby put it in 2012, as “the party of color-blind equality and “a party that doesn’t think with its skin.”

But in a year when the left is energized in opposition to Trump, particularly by his policies toward minority groups and immigrants, and as the GOP tries to hang on to their majorities in Congress and state houses around the country, state party officials say they do not need racist fringe candidates running for office. None of these candidates is expected to win in the general election this fall, but they are going to give liberals on the hunt for examples of simmering neo-Nazi and neo-Confederate rhetoric at least five places to point.

An anti-Trump Nazi is running in Illinois

Arthur Jones, an independent insurance salesperson known as “Art,” regrets voting for Donald Trump. But he’s got a different reason than most who’ve thought twice about their vote. In a speech in April 2017, Jones said:

The Jewish lobby has Donald Trump locked up. I don’t think the man realizes how naive he appears to the rest of the world. He’s nothing but a puppet in their hands. And we were foolish enough to send this naive, Jew-loving fool into the White House. I’m embarrassed that I voted for him. I’m sorry I voted for him. If I could take the vote back, I would in a minute.

Art is a card-carrying Nazi. Jones reportedly once led the American Nazi Party, and he was a member of a later version of the ANP, the National Socialist White People’s Party.

His website says he’s “concerned about the future of our country,” which, for a normal politician, might sound like a generic call for more spending on their generic priorities. But it takes on a very different connotation when you click over to the section called “Holocaust?,” a page that features a variety of conspiracy theories and racist ideas shared by the Holocaust-denier world.

Art Jones Holocaust Denier Nazi

Arthur Jones openly denies the Holocaust. artjonesforcongress.com
artjonesforcongress.com

Arthur Jones perpetuates racist conspiracy theories about Jewish people.

Jones also brags about protesting against Elie Wiesel, who wrote one of the most renowned memoirs of surviving the Holocaust, Night. (To be clear: This is not an oppo-research photo. It is posted proudly on Jones’s own site.)

From Arthur Jones’s campaign website.

Jones’s ideas aren’t resonating widely with suburban Chicago voters. He is expected to lose. In 2016, the district went to the Democratic incumbent Dan Lipinski, who won 100 percent of the vote because no Republican bothered to run against him. Jones only got on the ballot because, as the Atlantic detailed earlier this year, he went door to door gathering signatures (and not mentioning his views on race or Jewish people). By December, he was the only Republican to file to run.

Jones will lose and he could drag the GOP through the mud behind him

State Assembly member David McSweeney, a Republican, spoke with me about what Jones’s run could mean for his party. “The guy is a complete jerk and a nutcase,” he said, adding, “it’s politically harmful to have a jerk and a nutcase like this associated with the party.”

McSweeney is mad at Republicans in Illinois for failing to take Jones seriously at every turn: They said nothing as he gathered signatures to run, they didn’t challenge the signatures when he submitted them, and they didn’t try to run an alternative write-in candidate in the primary. Then, just two weeks ago, they missed an important filing deadline to get a third-party candidate on the ballot.

Sen. Ted Cruz heard the news about the missed deadline and said voters should support a write-in candidate or support the Democrat. “This bigoted fool should receive ZERO votes.”


Ted Cruz
✔
@tedcruz

US Senate candidate, TX
This is horrific. An avowed Nazi running for Congress. To the good people of Illinois, you have two reasonable choices: write in another candidate, or vote for the Democrat. This bigoted fool should receive ZERO votes. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/29/arthur-jones-nazi-illinois-republicans-686875 …

3:46 PM - Jun 29, 2018

‘I snookered them’: Illinois Nazi candidate creates GOP dumpster fire
Republicans fear blowback from a Holocaust denier’s run for Congress.

politico.com
36.8K
23.2K people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy

The GOP has since scrambled into action. McSweeney is pleased that it appears the Illinois GOP will finally work to support a write-in candidate to challenge Jones. But the damage, some in the party argue, has been done.

“Morally reprehensible, that is the most important part,” Mcsweeney told me. “It’s just a disaster. This guy is a complete jackass, a complete nutcase, and doesn’t represent anything from the party that we’re all part of. It’s just absolutely necessary to make sure the people know that this guy is a fraud, a nutcase, a loser, and should be shunned, and hopefully gets zero votes except for his own pitiful vote.”

(When Jones was told by Politico there would be no third-party challenger from the GOP on his race, he said, “I snookered them. ... I played by the rules, what can I say?”)

North Carolina’s GOP has a proud racist on the ballot

About 800 miles southeast of Chicago, Russell Walker, a retired chemical engineer, is running to represent District 48 in the North Carolina state House of Representatives. On his website he explains that he believes white people are superior and that there is “no such thing as equality.”

The latest and the most demonized expression in the English language, surpassing hate and racist is --”White Supremacy”. Well someone or group has to be supreme and that group is the whites of the world. As explained in detail in another section of this website, there is no such thing as equality. Someone or something has to be superior and someone or something has to be inferior. That is just such a simple fact that it needs no explanation.

He has picketed a local newspaper while holding a sign stating, “GOD IS A RACIST.” He refers to Barack Obama as “genetically inferior” and says “woman are [sic] the weaker sex.” He refers to white women who have interracial relationships as “race traitors.” And according to his appearance this week on the neo-Nazi Stormfront Action podcast, he’s advising Arthur Jones, saying: “Jones is for real. He has strong ideas about Nazism.”

Walker gained some national notoriety in 2017 when, during a television interview following a lawsuit he filed to keep the Confederate flag in South Carolina courtrooms was dismissed, he referred to Martin Luther King Jr. using a racial slur.


Yoojin Cho
✔
@Yoojin_Cho
Russell Walker filed a lawsuit in York SC, demanding confederate flags be returned to the main courtroom @SpecNewsCLT

10:24 AM - Aug 24, 2017
2,828
4,334 people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy

The North Carolina Republican Party has repeatedly disavowed Walker’s campaign, as has the Hoke County Republican Party. (Hoke is one of the counties included within Walker’s district.)

In a June 26 post on a county party website, SaveHoke.com, Hal Nunn, county party chair, stated: “The Hoke County Republican Party agrees with NCGOP Chairman Robin Hayes comments on the Republican candidate for NC House 48 race and adds that this person’s actions and comments, past/present, are completely disturbing, and we will not support a candidate with such racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic and anti-military views.”

Mark Schenck, chair of the Scotland County Republican Party (also included within Walker’s district), went further, blasting Walker in an email sent to a North Carolina journalist: “Russell Walker does not represent Republican Values. Republicans are said to be the Party of Lincoln, Walker hates Lincoln.”

Walker responded by threatening both Schenck and Nunn. He and Schenck had a confrontation on June 25. A day later, after Nunn posted on SaveHoke.com that the Hoke County GOP wouldn’t be supporting Walker, Walker wrote Nunn an email “telling, not politely asking” him that the post must be taken down.

Walker also left a voicemail for Nunn (you can listen to it here), threatening to force foreclosure on Nunn’s home and cars (“I’ll put liens on your house, every goddamn car I can find and everything else”). He also said, “You don’t know where Jews come from.”

On July 2, Walker was sent a “no trespassing” notice by the North Carolina GOP, which stated in part: “The North Carolina Republican Party did not make this decision lightly; however, due to your recent behavior and threatening messages we feel it to be necessary. The Party has determined that your presence at the events and on Party offices or property impair the functioning of the Party.”

Signs of a bigger problem for the GOP

Walker — and Jones, Corey Stewart, a neo-Nazi running for office as a Republican in California, and others — are a problem for Republicans and the GOP at large.

The party has responded largely by either condemning and attempting to disavow far-right candidates while arguing that somewhere, a Democrat is doing something even more dastardly (praising anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, for example). Or they maintain complete radio silence about candidates who claim the party’s mantle despite openly embracing the worst of the alt-right.

As Democrats try to hold onto a polling lead in advance of this fall’s midterm elections, they have and will tie racist and far-right leaning Republican candidates to other Republicans running for office or already serving, forcing Republicans to either disavow them or risk appearing soft on anti-Semitic racism.

Racist rhetoric, after all, doesn’t typically serve Republicans well electorally. In Virginia’s 2017 governor’s race, for example, Republican Ed Gillespie rode hard on NFL protests and keeping Confederate statues in place — and lost, as Democratic and independent voters were motivated to turn out in part by Gillespie’s strategy.

Not to mention that racism is inherently anathema to minority votes. A critical rise in black turnout in Alabama’s Senate special election helped push Democrat Doug Jones over controversial Republican Roy Moore. One activist told the Atlantic that black voters were responding to “the resurgence of this white conservative overtly racist rhetoric.” Bad Republican candidates also depress Republican voting. In that Alabama election, thousands of voters — including many who supported Donald Trump in 2016 — simply didn’t show up.

More important, candidates like Walker and Jones threaten to further inculcate the idea that the Republican Party is inherently susceptible to candidates who espouse racist and anti-Semitic ideas. The Republican Party is, after all, both the party of Lincoln, and the party of Richard Nixon and Lee Atwater’s Southern strategy aimed at getting racists on board without, in Atwater’s own words, “saying, ‘nigger, nigger, nigger.’” And it’s also the party of the nation’s most prominent birther, who rode to the White House on a wave of what researchers in December 2017 called “racial resentment.”

In the wake of Trump’s “very fine people on both sides” comments after Charlottesville, and with his outward support of Corey Stewart and silence on other extremist candidates, and with what feels like more and more Republican candidates with connections to racist and anti-Semitic ideas and figures emerging by the day, that idea isn’t likely to go away.

NEXT UP IN EXPLAINERS
John Roberts is the Supreme Court’s new swing vote. Is he going to overturn Roe v. Wade?
The impact of Trump’s trade wars, explained
Jim Jordan and the Ohio State sexual abuse controversy, explained
The 4 risky options to rescue the Thai boys trapped in a cave, explained
Why Scott Pruitt lasted so long at the EPA, and what finally did him in
Ant-Man and the Wasp’s post-credits scenes, explained



FOLLOWERS OF BERNIE SANDERS, CHECK THIS BOOK OUT. I PERSONALLY CAN’T BELIEVE THAT MONETARY FAIRNESS REALLY HAS TO COME FROM A HARD-CORE REVOLUTION, THOUGH. FDR DID IT BY THE VOTE WHEN THE TIMES WERE RIGHT. I THINK, MAYBE, THE TIMES ARE RIGHT AGAIN. WHAT IF WE ALL WROTE BERNIE’S NAME IN ON THE BALLOT IF THE DEMS DO NOT CHOOSE HIM AGAIN IN 2020? I BELIEVE MANKIND CAN BE REACHED ON THE EMOTIONAL AND INTELLECTUAL LEVEL, AND THAT’S WHAT BERNIE DOES SO WELL. WE NEED SOME HARDER AND FIRMER LAWS, THOUGH, TO RESTRICT THE VERY WEALTHY FROM CONTINUING TO OBSTRUCT THE PEOPLE’S BASIC ABILITY TO LIVE IN AN ACCEPTABLE WAY.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31951505-the-great-leveler
The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century (Princeton Economic History of the Western World)
BY Walter Scheidel
Published January 9th 2017 by Princeton University Press

Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes. Tracing the global history of inequality from the Stone Age to today, Walter Scheidel shows that inequality never dies peacefully. Inequality declines when carnage and disaster strike and increases when peace and stability return. The Great Leveler is the first book to chart the crucial role of violent shocks in reducing inequality over the full sweep of human history around the world.

Ever since humans began to farm, herd livestock, and pass on their assets to future generations, economic inequality has been a defining feature of civilization. Over thousands of years, only violent events have significantly lessened inequality. The "Four Horsemen" of leveling--mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic plagues--have repeatedly destroyed the fortunes of the rich. Scheidel identifies and examines these processes, from the crises of the earliest civilizations to the cataclysmic world wars and communist revolutions of the twentieth century. Today, the violence that reduced inequality in the past seems to have diminished, and that is a good thing. But it casts serious doubt on the prospects for a more equal future.

An essential contribution to the debate about inequality, The Great Leveler provides important new insights about why inequality is so persistent--and why it is unlikely to decline anytime soon. (less)


Get A Copy
Amazon
Stores
Libraries
Hardcover, 528 pages
Published January 9th 2017 by Princeton University Press



https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3096971-the-ancient-economy
The Ancient Economy
by Walter Scheidel (Editor), Sitta von Reden (Editor)
2.93 · Rating details · 15 Ratings · 1 Review

The Ancient Economy introduces readers to the nature of economic life in the ancient world, and provides a valuable guide to scholarly debates on the subject. The book describes and examines the economic processes and fluctuations of the ancient world, and shows how these relate to political and social change and conditions. Leading experts address the central issues, from agricultural production to the uses of money and the creation of markets. Taken as a whole the book exemplifies the range of interdisciplinary perspectives on the ancient economy, and illustrates the methodological approaches scholars have deployed to understand it. In doing so it draws on literary, ecological and archaeological evidence. (less)

COMMUNITY REVIEWS
(showing 1-45)
Rating details
Lori rated it did not like it
Shelves: history, nonfiction, ancient-history, z-reviewed
Don't read it. Really, it's not worth it, and I rarely say that.
1) Book is a collection of mostly older articles (between '95 and '02). Things have changed a lot, especially in the Roman area.
2) Most of the chapters are academics arguing over definitions, instead of discussing actual evidence.

There are 4 good chapters (4,7,9,10) so if you can get it for less than $5 it might be worth it.

As far as I can tell the only reason this is in print is to make poor undergraduates suffer.
Search review text
Sort: Default |


MADDOW BLOG


THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 7/11/18
GOP stunt to smear counter-intel expert Strzok ripe for backfire
Rachel Maddow tells the story of the FBI spying on Russian spies in the U.S., "Donald Heathfield" and "Tracey Foley," and notes the extensive biography of Peter Strzok, who led many of those operations - the same Peter Strzok that Republicans are trying to smear in order to discredit the Mueller investigation. Duration: 27:52


HELP THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 7/10/18
Judge calls Manafort's bluff on pre-trial jail location
Rachel Maddow shows how former Donald Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort is running out of legal tricks to forestall his trial as he withdrew a request to change jails once the judge showed willingness to consent, and he lost another bid to suppress evidence taken from his storage locker. Duration: 12:11


HELP THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 7/10/18
Mueller prosecutors still not done with Mike Flynn: court docs
Rachel Maddow points out that while Michael Flynn's lawyers have expressed an eagerness to get through the sentencing of former Donald Trump national security adviser Mike Flynn, court documents show that Robert Mueller has told the court they are not ready for sentencing because they are not finished with Flynn. Duration: 3:02


HELP THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 7/10/18
Trump pushes lawyer who repped Russian Alfa Bank for key DoJ post
Rachel Maddow reports on Donald Trump's odd choice of Brian Benczkowski to lead the DoJ's criminal division despite a lack of prosecutorial experience, though he did help whitewash an awkward situation between Donald Trump and Russia's Alfa Bank. Duration: 6:05


HELP THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 7/10/18
Allies brace for train wreck as Trump heads to Europe, then Putin
Rachel Maddow reports on concerns of U.S. allies as Donald Trump heads to a NATO summit with a chip on his shoulder ahead of his one-on-one meeting with Vladimir Putin. Duration: 3:45


HELP THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 7/10/18
Democrats see Trump pick of Kavanaugh as act of self-preservation
Senator Jeff Merkley talks with Rachel Maddow about Democratic concerns that Donald Trump has chosen Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court on the belief that Kavanaugh's position on executive power will protect him from any prosecution stemming from the Mueller investigation. Duration: 7:05


HELP THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 7/10/18
Questions about past Kavanaugh lie follow him to new confirmation
Rachel Maddow shows that after he'd already been confirmed as a federal judge, new information called into question the truthfulness of Brett Kavanaugh's answers during his first confirmation hearing - a matter sure to come up in his next confirmation hearings. Duration: 1:51


THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 7/10/18
Questions about past Kavanaugh lie follow him to new confirmation
Rachel Maddow shows that after he'd already been confirmed as a federal judge, new information called into question the truthfulness of Brett Kavanaugh's answers during his first confirmation hearing - a matter sure to come up in his next confirmation hearings. Duration: 1:51


THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 7/10/18
Kavanaugh in for a long, hard fight for Supreme Court spot
Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, talks with Rachel Maddow about the high stakes of Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court and the considerable baggage Kavanaugh brings to his confirmation hearings that will drag out the process. Duration: 7:57


THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 7/9/18
Brett Kavanaugh brings long record to SCOTUS confirmation process
Dahlia Lithwick, legal correspondent and senior editor for Slate.com, talks with Rachel Maddow about Brett Kavanaugh's political past and legal history that will all be brought to bear in his confirmation process. Duration: 4:23


HELP THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 7/9/18
Booker: 'We cannot let this confirmation process go forward'
Senator Cory Booker talks with Rachel Maddow about what is at stake in Donald Trump's pick of Brett Kavanaugh to replace Justice Kennedy on the U.S. Supreme Court. Duration: 10:42


THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 7/9/18
Trump prioritizes self-protection in SCOTUS choice of Kavanaugh
Dahlia Lithwick, legal correspondent and senior editor for Slate.com, talks with Rachel Maddow about Brett Kavanaugh's previously stated position on whether a sitting president can be indicted, and the role that likely played in Donald Trump choosing him for the Supreme Court. Duration: 4:20


THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 7/9/18
Kavanaugh gives Democrats 'ample opportunity to get to no'
Adam Jentleson, former senior aide to Senator Harry Reid, talks with Rachel Maddow about whether Senate Democrats can maintain a unified opposition to Donald Trump's Supreme Court choice of Brett Kavanaugh. Duration: 6:23


THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 7/6/18
Trump admin fails to make deadline to reunite separated families
Lee Gelernt, ACLU attorney suing the Trump administration on behalf of separated families, talks about the sloppy job the Trump administration has done tracking the families it has broken up, leading to failure in trying to meet a judge's deadline to reunite kids with their parents. Duration: 7:25