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Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

In the age of Trump and Netanyahu, progressive values are winning

The victories of progressive candidates in U.S. midterms and Israel’s municipal elections prove that it’s possible to overturn national far-right policies.

By Bar Gissin and Maya Haber

The Women's March on Philadelphia, January 20, 2018. (Rob Kall/CC BY 2.0)

The Women’s March on Philadelphia, January 20, 2018. (Rob Kall/CC BY 2.0)

Something remarkable happened in the last few weeks: progressive candidates won elections in Israel and the United States, despite the rise of far-right, anti-democratic politics in both countries.

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This might come as a surprise, but it shouldn’t be. Many Jewish Israelis support ending the occupation, women’s right to pray at the Wailing Wall, and LGBTQ’s right to get married and adopt children. Similarly, most Americans approve of labor unions, support same-sex marriage, want stricter gun control, and oppose illegalizing abortions.

So why do the policies of the Israeli and American governments fail to reflect voter demands?

The reason is simple: President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu use fear to channel voter anxieties. Just look at how Trump repeatedly labels refugees as criminals and belittles their claims of persecution to mobilize the Republican base. Similarly, for the past 20 years, Netanyahu has been stoking existential fears, warning of attacks by Iran and Hamas in Gaza. Countering this hate has trapped liberals and progressives in a defensive, apprehensive posture, leaving little space to push a proactive agenda forward.

However, the progressive campaigns in recent Israeli municipal elections and American midterms provide a promising off-ramp. Progressives in each country enlisted volunteers and built local grassroots campaigns that proved stronger than fear and hatred. Activists in both countries knocked on doors, spread their agenda, and dispelled red-baiting from conservative candidates.

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In Pittsburgh, Pa., for example, the Republican opponent of state senator-elect Lindsey Williams desperately turned to Cold War-style red-baiting and tried to label Williams as a socialist. Such farcical tactics fell flat, as Williams’ canvassers directly appealed to voters’ support for workers’ rights and Medicare for All. Progressives scored victories across the U.S. with similar appeals, electing democratic socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Julia Salazar, Franklin Bynum and Rashida Tlaib to Congress.

In Israel’s recent municipal elections, progressives won even in the most unlikely communities. In October, the Left-leaning Meretz-Mekomi party became the largest party in Rosh Ha’Ayin. The Mekomi-Local Leadership movement was established two years ago to form a network of local elected officials and promote progressive values in municipalities. In Rosh Ha’Ayin, it collaborated with the left-wing Meretz party and ran as Meretz-Mekomi.

Rosh Ha’Ayin is a suburb of some 50,000 inhabitants, 15 miles east of Tel Aviv. The population is mostly conservative and religious, and tends to vote for center-right candidates. In the 2015 national election, Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party overwhelmingly won the elections there. At the time, only 576 Rosh Ha’Ayin residents voted for Meretz. In 2018, however, Meretz-Mekomi received 4,872 votes — a nearly tenfold increase that led to three seats on the Rosh Ha’Ayin city council.

Meretz-Mekomi did not to make itself electorally palatable by pandering to conservative voters. Instead, they articulated a clear progressive agenda. Meretz-Mekomi utilized local focus groups to write its platform, and advanced a diverse and equal pool of candidates. They campaigned on equal allocation of resources, religious pluralism, fair and affordable education, accessible public transportation and open businesses on Shabbat, among other progressive issues.

Members of the LGBTQ community and supporters participate in a protest in Tel Aviv against a Knesset bill amendment denying surrogacy for same-sex couples, on November 1, 2018, 2018. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

Members of the LGBTQ community and supporters participate in a protest in Tel Aviv against a Knesset bill amendment denying surrogacy for same-sex couples, on November 1, 2018, 2018. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

Meretz-Mekomi won in Rosh Ha’Ayin because it carried out a year-long grassroots campaign. This was quite unprecedented in Israel because few campaigns, even on the national level, take longer than three months. Meretz-Mekomi in Rosh Ha’Ayin bucked this norm by taking a year to identify and listen to voters, knock on doors, and organize get-to-know-the-candidate events. In addition to Rosh Ha’Ayin, Mekomi leaders did this in eight other municipalities.

Mekomi’s experience in municipal elections in Israel and recent progressive wins in the U.S. midterms prove that the future is not lost. Voters are receptive to progressive agendas, even if they don’t identify as such. If we learn from the local experience, and propose bold, authentic, progressive platforms that stand on their own, rather than as a reaction to right-wing fear-mongering, we can reproduce these victories on the national level, and change the political reality both in Israel and the United States.

Bar Gissin is the national chairperson of Young Meretz and leader of the Mekomi-Local Leadership movement. Dr. Maya Haber is the founder of Israel Forward, a nonprofit consultancy.

The post In the age of Trump and Netanyahu, progressive values are winning appeared first on +972 Magazine.

Whitaker appointment dispute reaches Supreme Court

Whitaker appointment dispute reaches Supreme Court

Since the moment President Donald Trump appointed Matthew Whitaker as Acting Attorney General on Wednesday, November 7, the move has been met with significant political and legal criticism, with numerous lawyers and commentators arguing that the president lacked both statutory and constitutional authority to name Whitaker—previously chief of staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions—as Sessions’ interim successor. That argument may soon receive a conclusive resolution, thanks to an unusual motion filed in the Supreme Court late on Friday afternoon.

The movant, Barry Michaels, brought suit in March of 2016 against the attorney general and another senior government official seeking to challenge the constitutionality of the federal ban on possession of firearms by convicted felons. After losing in the lower courts, Michaels filed a petition for certiorari on June 27, in which the solicitor general’s response is currently due on December 17. But in a filing late Friday afternoon, Michaels—who is represented by Florida lawyer Michael Zapin and a team of lawyers from Goldstein & Russell, P.C., led by SCOTUSblog founder Tom Goldstein—moved the justices to “substitute” the appropriate successor to Sessions, who was one of the respondents to Michaels’ petition.

As the motion explains, the court’s rules usually provide for automatic succession of government-officer parties upon the prior officeholder’s departure. But “that practice is premised on the ability of this Court to identify the correct successor, so that any judgment or Order of the Court is directed to the correct individual.” Here, however, the dispute over the validity of Whitaker’s appointment means that “the identity of the successor is both contested and has important implications for the administration of justice nationally. This Motion seeks to resolve the dispute.” Michaels’ motion argues that the dispute ought to be resolved against the validity of Whitaker’s appointment—largely on the ground that the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 does not override or otherwise displace the mandatory order of succession set forth in the Department of Justice succession statute, codified at 28 U.S.C. § 508. And even if it did, the motion argues, the appointments clause of Article II of the Constitution does not allow for officials who have not been confirmed by the Senate to exercise the functions of a principal office, like the attorney general, on a temporary basis so long as no exigency precludes another, Senate-confirmed officer from doing so.

The motion concedes that “no characteristic of this case distinguishes it from any other in which Mr. Sessions was a named party” and that no lower court has yet addressed the issue. Nevertheless, the motion urges the justices to resolve the issue now because “[t]here is a significant national interest in avoiding the prospect that every district and immigration judge in the nation could, in relatively short order, be presented with the controversy over which person to substitute as Acting Attorney General.”

The justices have repeatedly reasserted that the Supreme Court is one of “review, not of first view.” Other challenges to the validity of Whitaker’s appointment have already been brought in contexts in which the acting attorney general is more than just a named party. And the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has ordered supplemental briefing as part of a challenge to the validity of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s appointment and investigation as to whether the identity of Mueller’s current supervisor bears on the matter—and, if so, who it is. This issue therefore seems likely to reach the Supreme Court eventually. But the Michaels motion asks the justices whether they really want to wait that long. If they do not, then formally identifying the proper respondent to a petition for certiorari would certainly allow them to settle the matter once and for all.

[Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys contribute to this blog in various capacities, is among the counsel to the petitioner on this motion. The author of this post is not affiliated with the firm.]

The post Whitaker appointment dispute reaches Supreme Court appeared first on SCOTUSblog.

Democrat Gil Cisneros pulls further ahead of Republican Young Kim, putting GOP House seat in peril

Democrat Gil Cisneros extended his lead over Republican Young Kim on Friday in California’s 39th Congressional District, depressing the GOP’s prospects for retaining its last House seat in Orange County.

Updated vote tallies released by election officials in Los Angeles and Orange counties showed…

California fires: Number of missing soars over 1,000 as Paradise reels from unfathomable losses – Los Angeles Times

The Camp fire is by far the worst wildfire in recorded California history. By Thursday evening, the blaze had chewed through 141,000 acres and 11,862 structures, destroying an entire town in hours. Officials said it could take weeks to complete the search for victims. Thousands of survivors are without homes, living in shelters and tent cities.

Source: California fires: Number of missing soars over 1,000 as Paradise reels from unfathomable losses – Los Angeles Times

AMERICA/UNITED STATES – It is not a crime to seek asylum: the caravan of migrants arrives at the border

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Austin – “It is not a crime to seek asylum: we urge the Administration to look for other solutions that reinforce the integrity of the immigration system existing in the United States”. This is what Mgr. Joe Vásquez, Bishop of Austin, Texas, President of the Commission for Migrations in the United States Episcopal Conference, Sr. Donna Markham, OP, President of the “Catholic Charities USA” , Jeanne Atkinson, Executive Director of the “Catholic Legal Immigration Network” and Sean Callahan, President of “Catholic Relief Services” say in a joint statement sent to Agenzia Fides.
On November 9, President Trump issued a provision prohibiting people arriving at the southern border with Mexico from receiving asylum in the United States. This represents a direct contradiction with the existing asylum law, underlines the text sent to Fides.
In the statement shared by Catholic bodies we read: “While we recognize the right of every nation to regulate its borders, we find this action deeply disturbing. It will limit and delay access regarding the protection for hundreds of children and families fleeing the violence in Central America, which could leave them in conditions of insecurity in Mexico or in situations of indefinite detention on the border between the United States and Mexico. We reiterate that it is not a crime to seek asylum and that this right to seek refuge is codified in our laws and values. We urge the Administration to look for other solutions that reinforce the integrity of the existing immigration system, while ensuring access to the protection for vulnerable children and families. The Catholic Church will continue to serve, accompany and assist all those fleeing persecution, regardless of where they seek that protection and where they come from”.
In the meantime 400 Hondurans arrived at the border and others will arrive, perhaps more than 3 thousand. The tension is registered on both sides of the border because the group of migrants wants to enter US territory with legal permission. The applicants must therefore wait to be received by the migration office, present at the same border, with undeclared times and, in the meantime, the place where to stop for the wait cannot manage the flow of the people that have arrived. “Tijuana is not ready to receive a caravan of that size”, said the mayor of the border town to the press, saying that the city is now saturated and today, Friday 16 November, another 2 thousand migrants are expected to arrive, with social difficulties and need for assistance.

Pancho Villa (Wrongfully) Used to Justify Military at Border

By Arturo Castañares / Publisher and CEO

Although it’s been more than 100 years since Pancho Villa set foot in the US, the old revolutionary general was used this week as justification for militarizing our border with Mexico.

During the last few weeks before the midterm elections, Donald Trump couldn’t stop talking about the migrant caravan heading north from Honduras and labeled it as an imminent invasion of the US to gin up votes among Republicans. He claimed, without any evidence, that ISIS fighters and unknown Middle Easterners were imbedded among the people mostly walking the 2,000 mile trip through Mexico.

Those migrants, it’s assumed, are working their way toward the US in hopes of seeking asylum and refuge from the many dangers they face back home.

Just before the election, Trump ordered active US military troops to the border as a show of force against the migrants that were still at least 1,000 miles away. The “threat”, though, consists mainly of women and children fleeing horrific conditions in Central America.

In the election, voters turned against Trump and his divisive approach to politics, and instead voted for Democrats in overwhelming numbers, resulting in a flip of 35 districts from Republicans, and handing Trump an embarrassing defeat with Democrats regaining control of the House of Representatives.

But, since last week’s elections, Trump has been relatively muted about the caravan. This week he sent his Secretary of Defense, retired Marine General James Mattis, to tour the troops at the border this week along with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

Most people now believe that the troop order was nothing more than a political stunt from a president desperate to shore up his voter base. In the end, though, it didn’t work and now the deployment seems like just another blunder for Trump.

So, when General Mattis was asked during his visit at the border about the rationale for having troops there, he scrambled to come up with a comparison to justify that this is not the first time troops have amassed along the frontier.

General Mattis claimed that this deployment is similar to when the US Army mobilized at the border in 1916 in response to threats from Pancho Villa.

Yup, that’s right, he had to reach back 102 years to find anything close to what Trump is trying to do today, and even that comparison, is wholly different.

The irony of the argument is that the 1916 Army deployment was called the Punitive Expedition because it was organized solely as a retaliatory move, not a defensive one as the current one claims to be.

Mattis is referring to the order by then-President Woodrow Wilson to send Army Lt. General John Pershing into Mexico to hunt down Pancho Villa after the Mexican revolutionary general and his men attacked the city of Columbus, New Mexico, and its Army post, on March 9, 1916.

During the attack, Villa’s men killed eight American soldiers and ten civilians, and stole guns, ammunition, horses, and supplies before escaping back into Mexico.

In retaliation, Pershing led 6,600 soldiers into Mexico in what he expected would be a simple mission. The expedition included the first use of motorized vehicles in a US military operation, as well as a relatively new weapon; airplanes.

After about two months, though, Pershing’s expedition ultimately ended in frustration after being run in circles by Villa and his forces. In the end, the emerging Mexican military threatened to fight the Americans if they didn’t retreat.

Pershing wrote that he was “outwitted and out-bluffed at every turn” by Villa, and that “having dashed into Mexico with the intention of eating the Mexicans raw, we turned back at the first repulse and are now sneaking home under cover, like a whipped [dog] with its tail between its legs”.

Pershing’s expedition has now become known as the Mexican Expedition because it sounds more like a treasure hunt than the revengeful incursion that it truly was.

To many, it symbolizes the negative attitude that the US has had against Mexico in the past, and has again under President Trump.

The caravan of migrants currently in Mexico is not an imminent national security threat as Trump proclaimed. We have over 16,000 Border Patrol agents deployed along the Mexican border who have primary jurisdiction for immigration-related arrests and detainments. For nearly 100 years, the Border Patrol has maintained peace at the border without the use of military troops to fight immigrants.

In fact, under federal law, the military cannot directly apprehend suspected undocumented immigrants. During the deployment of both National Guard units, as well as the current military troops, soldiers can only perform support roles like drivers, mechanics, and building fences and erecting barb wire. The image of troops with rifles standing watch at the border is a political myth.

This week, the first wave of migrants reached the Tijuana border, but, it wasn’t thousands of people, it was a few hundred, and they didn’t storm the border fence as Trump suggested they would. More migrants are expected to arrive in Tijuana this weekend and into next week in what is expected to total about 3,000.

When they arrived at the border this week, many migrants were surprised by the size of the border fence and the heavy Border Patrol presence. One woman said it looked like a scene from a movie.

But, it wasn’t the military that kept them from crossing. The caravan migrants are hoping to present themselves legally at the border and apply for asylum, as allowed under US and international laws. No one is storming the fence or causing a riot.

The movement of displaced people is happening all over the world, not just along our border. For many years, countries have been dealing with migrants seeking refuge from war, poverty, and violence, and taking people in through their own legal process.

The US in capable of handling this current migrant crisis as it has many before; with dignity and fairness. We shouldn’t resort to scare tactics and fear-mongering, we shouldn’t resort to allowing military troops to enforce civilian laws, and we shouldn’t resort to turning away people in need because of their race or ethnicity.

There is not a revolution at our border. Pancho Villa is not riding his horse across the border to raid our cities. We are not at war with Mexico.

We are better than this.

We should act like to world’s richest superpower that we are, not like a backward protectionist country led by a military strong man. That’s exactly what the caravan migrants are fleeing.