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Liberal groups and legal scholars are up in arms overa recent decision from a federal judge that theyargue is hamstringing the Biden administration's climate agenda.

The decision from Louisiana-based Judge James Cain, a Trump appointee, blocks the federal government from using a particular Obama-era metric for calculating greenhouse gasses.

The judge found that the Biden administrations use of the metric, called the "social cost of carbon," constituted an unfair disadvantage to the 14 Republican-led oil states that sued over the issue.

Liberal legal scholars have panned the decision, calling it highly unusual and accusingthe judiciary of improperly getting involved in an agency's internal decision-making.

"I don't mean to be uncharitable, but it was like watchingatoddler play with matches," said Lisa Heinzerling, a Georgetown environmental law professor.

The judge said that there was no authority [for the administration] to do thisbecauseit's such a big question, Heinzerling added. It's just almost hard to say how startling that is.

To the conservative attorneys general who filed the case, this was a necessary slapdown of an executive overreach.

Bidens executive order was an attempt by the government to take over and tax the people based on winners and losers chosen by the government, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) said in a statement after Cains decision.

But critics saw the ruling, which throws a wrench into some of the administration's attempts to address climate change, as part ofits own overreach: a judiciary which has in recent years been stocked with conservative judges taking unprecedented steps to control the federal government's ability to make various decisions.

Courtsare doingtruly bizarre things in the name ofmajor questions,Heinzerling said, referring toaconservative legal philosophy holding that on a loose set of big policy questions agencies can't act without explicit Congressional authority.

"It seems like its being taken up against particular kinds of goals. Health, safety and environmental regulation has been particularly hard hit," Heinzerling said, pointing to the courtsrecent reversal of OSHA vaccine mandates and theBiden administration's2021 eviction moratorium.

In last weeks ruling, liberal legal scholars say Judge Cain used the major questions idea as a springboard to control an agency's internal decision making an almost unprecedented move, they say, since plaintiffs usually can't sue over internal policies until they come to light in an official rule.

When a rule is final, that's when you could say, Well, there's all these problems with this rule, said James Goodwin of the Center for Progressive Reform.

Maybe it doesn't follow the Clean Air Act. Or maybe they didn't give enough time for notice and comment or maybe they relied on this flawed number for the social cost of carbon.

In those examples, the judiciary would be reviewing an actual, published rule. But that wasn't the case with the Obama-era carbon metric, according to Amit Narang of left-leaning Public Citizen.

The Biden administration's reprisal ofthe metric wasnt yet a rulewith bearing on the public. It was instead put forward as an internal guideline for calculating greenhouse emissions that might have been used, for example, to determine whether employees should fly to conferences or attend digitally.

There has long been partisan dispute over how extensive and expensive the cost of emissions are and how that should play into decision-making in the federal government.

The federal government uses the social cost of carbon metricto calculate the total estimated damage done to society by every ton of emitted carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane.

In 2013, the Obama administration reasoning thatthe damage from greenhouse gas was global in scope and such emissions present a risk to future generations set aninternal social cost of carbon at$52 per ton. Thatspurred immediate pushbackfrom Koch Industries and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, among others.

The Trump administration, by contrast, knocked that internal number down toa $7 per ton which stood until January 2021, when Bidenissued an executive orderdirecting federal agencies to come up with a new social cost of carbon.

In the meantime,Biden toldagencies to go back to the Obama number $52 per ton while they worked on coming up with an updated metric.

In March, 14 Republican attorneys general, led by Missouri's Eric Schmitt, asserted Biden had overstepped his authority.

If the Executive Order stands, it willinflict hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars of damageto the U.S. economy for decades to come, Schmitt said in a statement then.

It will destroy jobs, stifle energy production, strangle Americas energy independence, suppress agriculture, deter innovation, and impoverish working families,he added.

By asserting that such damages already existed, the attorneys general attempted to get around the problem of standing whether they had any legal recourse against rules that hadnt yet been made.

"A judge with a shred of integrity would say, Take this case away, you're wasting my time and yours. Come back to me with a concrete case where we actually have facts to work with, arguedGoodwin, with the Center for Progressive Reform.

Kevin Rennert, a climate scientist and economist with the nonprofit Resource for the Future, said the Louisiana ruling is likely to be appealed, particularly since other federal district courts like Californias Ninth Circuit have repeatedly ruled that the government must use a rigorous social cost of carbon.

It seems evident that there will be an appeal and ... given how unusual this particular ruling is, you know, it may very well be that this ruling is overturned as part of the appeal process, he said.

If it were to be successfully appealed, it would be in line to go to the right-leaning Fifth Circuit, which isin the middle of its owncontroversyover questions of state and corporate ability to impose health and safety standards.

In a blistering dissent over a recent decision knocking down United Airlines coronavirus vaccine mandate ruling that it caused irreparable harm by forcing employees to change their religion Judge Edwin Smith, a Reagan appointee, wrote that the Good Ship Fifth Circuit is afire.

If I ever wrote an opinion authorizing preliminary injunctive relief for plaintiffs without a cause of action ... I would hide my head in a bag, Smith wrote.

Heinzerling said federal agencies are likely closely watching such decisions.

I bet all across the federal governmentpeopleare thinking, Is the thing we're working on going to be a major question now?

Later this month, the Supreme Courtwill hear oral arguments around West Virginias challenge ofthe Obama-era Clean Power Plan that Trump discarded.

Conservative plaintiffs assert against Biden administration demurrals that the plan is going to be the basis of a forthcoming, yet-to-be-announced rule.

Its just bizarre to have the court reviewing the case in which there's nothing to review, said Heinzerling, noting the administrationasked the court to reject the upcoming case.

She added that the plaintiffs seem to be seeking a general judgment that knocks down the Environmental ProtectionAgency's ability to regulate carbon emissions even though no such rule currently exists.

Heinzerlingsaidthe cases present a challengeto agencies that are trying to tackle "questions about our biggest problems ... andthose are the very caseswhere thisprinciple will make them think twice.

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Progressives blast judiciary over Biden climate agenda | TheHill - The Hill

SAN ANTONIO Progressives in Austin think theyve found Texas next great Democratic leader: Greg Casar, a 32-year-old city councilman running in the Lone Star States 35th Congressional District.

Supporters and critics alike identify Casar as a key figure in Austins leftward shift in recent years. His backers say he has the energy and promise to be a politician in the mold of Beto ORourke or Julin Castro.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) rallied for Casar in San Antonio on Feb. 12, saying he has a proven, visionary track record and comes from organizing.

He is from this, she told the crowd. He is not new to this. He is true to this.

But before Casar becomes a household name, hell have to get through his primary.

Unhappiness with the very same local policies that have given Casar a major boost provides an opening to his most competitive rival, state Rep. Eddie Rodriguez (D), a mainstream progressive with a decidedly more cautious style.

Rodriguez has blasted Casar for his support of a 2019 law decriminalizing outdoor homeless encampments in the city of Austin, and for efforts to reduce Austins police department funding a year later.

In both cases, Casars agenda was overtaken by outside political forces that reflected a broader backlash to left-wing social policies in Democratic cities.

Texas March 1 primary, which will lead to a runoff if no candidate gets an outright majority, is a chance for progressives to demonstrate that Casars brand of activist lawmaking can still carry the day at the ballot box.

Some Wind At His Back

If Ocasio-Cortez a former bartender who first ran with little cash and even less experience in elected office reflected a less seasoned iteration of the current wave of progressive primary challengers, Casars relative strength speaks to how the new movement of left-wing gate-crashers has matured over time.

With internal polling that showed him with a 25-point lead in December and a consistent fundraising edge, Casar, a practiced local lawmaker, has managed to obtain an air of inevitability that was once the exclusive domain of establishment Democrats in races of this kind. His odds of victory have helped him rack up endorsements from the likes of U.S. Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee and Sylvia Garcia both Texas Democrats, but neither a tribune of the far left and taken some of the air out of moderate insiders efforts to stop him.

He definitely seems to have some wind at his back right now, said Ed Espinoza, executive director of Progress Texas, a liberal group that is neutral in the race.

What perhaps distinguishes Casar most from some of his less experienced ideological allies is that he avoids potential rhetorical traps with the agility of a ballet dancer.

Would Casar call on Spotify to expel controversial podcast host Joe Rogan, an Austin resident? Casar wouldnt say. Instead, he praised Neil Young and other artists for exiting the platform in protest, and then pivoted to a brief soliloquy on how Austin doesnt align with values of vaccine misinformation or racial injustice.

Would Casar be a member of the Squad if elected? Essentially, yes, but Casar joked that it wasnt up to him. I dont know if you get a membership card, or if thats bestowed upon you by others, he said.

It was very quickly clear that [Casar] was just a rock star.

- Brad Lander, New York City comptroller

Would Casar have joined Ocasio-Cortez in voting against the bipartisan infrastructure bill? He couldnt say for certain, noting that it was hard to predict that assurances of a vote on Build Back Better legislation would not come to fruition. With 20/20 hindsight, it looks like she made the right call, he offered.

Does Casar support imposing tougher conditions on U.S. aid to Israel? He referred HuffPost to a letter he sent last month to a prominent Austin rabbi. In the letter, Casar wrote that he supports restricting [U.S.] aid from being used in a manner that violates basic rights, but also that updates should not be imposed in a discriminatory manner against any people or nation. How that would apply to Israel is unclear.

Casars decision to distance himself from the far lefts more radical positions on U.S.-Israel policy, including the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, reflects the activist-lawmakers canny political instincts.

The move cost him the endorsement of his longtime allies in the Austin chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. But it likely also spared him from a multimillion-dollar assault by groups like Democratic Majority for Israel, which has not endorsed any candidate in Casars race.

He certainly does know how to manage tradeoffs, but he picks good spots, Espinoza said.

Casars political education began in earnest in 2014, when he was elected to the Austin City Council. At age 24, he was the youngest person ever elected to the local governing body.

Previously, Casar was policy director of the Workers Defense Project, a nonprofit that advocates for Austins immigrant construction workers. With the backing of major labor unions, Casar promised that on the council he would continue pushing for higher standards for Austins most vulnerable workers and take the fight to unscrupulous contractors.

Sure enough, gains for workers are among Casars lasting policy achievements on the city council. He played a role in the city extending its living wage law to employees of subcontractors, increasing city employee pay to $15 an hour, and adopting a paid sick leave requirement for all private-sector employees (albeit one that the Texas Supreme Court prevented from taking effect in June 2020).

That work put him on the radar of national progressive leaders like New York City Comptroller Brad Lander (D). A city councilman when Casar was elected, Lander began coordinating closely with him as part of Local Progress, a forum for left-leaning local elected officials.

At the same time, the citys business community did not initially see him as an enemy. The Austin Young Chamber of Commerce, a business group, honored Casar as an inspiring leader in 2015.

It was very quickly clear that he was just a rock star, Lander recalled during a trip to Texas in support of progressive candidates in mid-February.

Eddie Rodriguez for Congress

You Have To Make Progress

Just a few years ago, Eddie Rodriguez would likely have been one of the more progressive Democrats in the House. Among other stances, he supports Medicare for All, refuses corporate PAC donations, and is passionate about expanding affordable housing.

Asked why he is running for Congress after 19 years representing Austin in the state legislature, Rodriguez, a real estate title insurance executive raised in the Rio Grande Valley, said he wants to help working families get ahead and beat back Republican attacks on voting and abortion rights.

My parents instilled in me the American dream if you work hard, you can do better than we did, he said, noting that he was the first person in his family to obtain a college degree. That dreams faded away for a lot of people, especially working folks.

Rodriguez, who boasts endorsements of his own from members of Texas congressional delegation, has cast some votes as a state lawmaker that have given progressive critics an opening in the current primary. Along with virtually all of his colleagues, Rodriguez voted in 2007 to continue state tax breaks for oil and gas companies. And as noted in a new direct-mail item funded by the Working Families Party, which is backing Casar, Rodriguez has been a frequent recipient of donations from the fossil fuel industry during his tenure in the state House.

The Sierra Club nonetheless consistently gives Rodriguez top marks for his overall voting record. The environmental group gave Rodriguez an 86% score on its legislative scorecard in the 2021 session.

The pressures of a race in which he must occupy the clear moderate lane have also prompted Rodriguez to embrace his centrist side. While he is a member of the progressive caucus in Texas state legislature, Rodriguez would not commit to joining the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and the business-friendly New Democrat Coalition has endorsed him.

But as is the case with so many mainstream liberals of an older vintage and the newer cohort of leftists, Rodriguezs differences with Casar are often tactical in nature.

Rodriguez, 50, prefers behind-the-scenes politicking and incremental wins to movement-driven organizing and aim-for-the-skies policy ideas. He recalls with pride how he prevailed on the legislatures reigning Republicans to expand Texas free school breakfast program for poor students, and shepherded state-level legislation that gave Austin greater flexibility to address its affordable housing crisis.

You cant just make the perfect the enemy of the good.

- Texas state Rep. Eddie Rodriguez (D), congressional candidate

To be called a progressive, you have to make progress, Rodriguez said. You cant just make the perfect the enemy of the good.

Rodriguezs overall critique of Casar that his all-or-nothing approach to policymaking has undermined meaningful reform comes into sharper relief in two specific cases.

Casar was a key player in the Austin City Councils June 2019 decision to end the citys prohibition on camping in undesignated areas. The goal of the legislation was to stop criminalizing Austins growing population of homeless people and get them the help they needed.

But following the move, homeless encampments began popping up in greater numbers in Austins parks, thoroughfares and other public spaces, sparking a massive political backlash. A local Republican Party official spearheaded a ballot initiative to reinstate the camping ban. And despite the citys Democratic slant, 57% of Austins voters approved the referendum in May.

Rodriguez was one of the Democrats who voted for the reinstatement, telling HuffPost that there are better solutions. Rodriguez made Casars support for lifting the ban on homeless camping the subject of a direct-mail attack that also blamed Casar for fail[ing] to build affordable housing.

But Casar contends that the chaotic scenes of homeless encampments on the citys streets created political will to build supportive housing that had not existed previously.

It is worth it if a couple years from now, we could look back and say, There was a lot of political pain, but at the end of the day, we pulled thousands of real human beings out of real pain and out of the streets and into homes, he said.

Rodriguez has also seized on Casars role in championing cuts to Austins police department budget. In August 2020, Casar touted the city councils decision to reduce the police department budget by about one-third and spend it instead on things like an emergency mental health hotline. We did it! he declared on Twitter.

Critics blame some of the funding cuts for a shortage of personnel amid a historic rise in homicides in the city.

In June, the Texas state legislature passed a bill that would effectively confiscate funding from large cities that reduce law-enforcement funding. The following month, Austin responded by restoring most of the 2020 funding cuts.

Casar still defends the funding cut, characterizing it as a shift in resources that freed up money for the emergency hotline and much-needed shelters for families fleeing domestic violence.

We were told time and time again, Dont make things better, because the legislature will come and make things worse, he said. And instead, what we decided to do was go and try to make as many things better as we could.

Matthew Busch/The Washington Post/Getty Images

The National Narrative Cuts Both Ways

Lurking behind some of the criticism lobbed at Casar is a sense that left-wing Democrats like him have made it harder for the party as a whole to compete in Texas. Thats especially true, these critics contend, at a time when Democrats are at pains to thwart Republican advances among Latino voters in South Texas.

I am concerned that well have long-term damage to the Democratic Party in Texas if the party keeps nominating candidates like Casar, said Rebecca Viagrn, a former San Antonio city councilwoman running against Casar and Rodriguez.

Viagrn is the only major female candidate on the primary ballot in Texas 35th District, a status often described as an advantage in a Democratic primary. With less than $65,000 in cash on hand as of Feb. 9, however, she is very much a long shot for the Austin-centric seat.

But she speaks for a contingent of mainstream Democrats who are struggling to distinguish themselves to voters from a new generation of young democratic socialists who punch above their weight in the media and popular culture.

We need to have more people who can be progressive, but also talk to my neighbor down the street, whos a Vietnam veteran who agrees that we need to increase the minimum wage, and women should have their own rights, but doesnt believe that we should defund the police or have homeless encampments everywhere in the city, Viagrn said.

In Texas 35th, there may be enough voters who fit the profile Viagrn described to hand her, or Rodriguez, a surprise win or at least necessitate a runoff. Its unclear how accurate polling will be if the current pattern of anemic turnout holds.

At an early voting site in East Austin, Maxine Jackson, a church secretary, could not recall the name of the person she voted for, but she knew it definitely wasnt Casar.

Greg is giving me the impression that he wants to let them stay homeless under the tents, she said.

Why then does polling suggest that Casar is the unrivaled front-runner? Money talks, said Gonzalo Barrientos, a trailblazing former state lawmaker who is backing Rodriguez. Casar is probably getting a lot of money from New York and California from socialist Democrats.

We need to have more people who can be progressive, but also talk to my neighbor down the street.

- Former San Antonio city Councilwoman Rebecca Viagrn, now a congressional candidate

Another answer might be that Rodriguez has failed to sell donors on a path to victory. After receiving just one-third of the vote in a contentious state Senate primary in July 2020, Rodriguez dropped out rather than stand for the runoff. (Rodriguez promised to HuffPost that if he qualifies this time, he will proceed to the runoff.)

And in addition to Casars divorce with the Austin DSA, hes taken other steps to inoculate himself from the ire of the local pro-Israel community, which might ordinarily have stepped in more heavily on Rodriguezs behalf. The Saturday after the hostage crisis at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, Casar joined ORourke now a gubernatorial candidate and other elected officials at sabbath services at a synagogue in Austin as a show of solidarity.

In some ways though, Rodriguez, Viagrn and Democrats sympathetic to them are victims of their own success in painting individual elections as referendums on the direction of the party.

When moderate and mainstream liberal Democrats crowed about election results in New York City, Cleveland, Seattle, Minneapolis and Buffalo in 2021 declaring their critiques of the activist left had been vindicated leftists protested that there were confounding factors that complicated the takeaways from each of those races. They also singled out Austin as a bright spot, since the citys voters rejected a ballot initiative in November that would have required the city to hire hundreds more police officers.

The message of police accountability and oversight resonates, Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of the progressive group Our Revolution, told HuffPost in November. Thats clear.

Now, as a left-wing candidate is poised to prevail in a contested primary, the Democrats touting previous primary wins lack the credibility or the tools to push back on the progressive narrative.

Progressives, however, are eager to temper expectations.

Asked whether a win for Casar would show that left-wing positions on policing and homelessness are not as much of a liability as previously thought, Lander, the NYC comptroller, would not answer directly.

Gregs win would show that there can be more AOCs, he said.

Read the original:
Why Texas Progressive Greg Casar Gives Hope To The Embattled Left - HuffPost

The scandal of a child molester given a soft sentence by Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascn may finally mark the beginning of the end of Americas disastrous experiment with progressive justice.

At the age of 17, James Tubbs went into a ladies public bathroom, pushed into a stall and forced one hand down the pants of a 10-year-old girl in a violent sexual assault only halted by someone else coming into the bathroom.

When Tubbs was identified as the attacker some years later, following arrest on another offense, progressive Gascn insisted on trying the case under juvenile rules despite Tubbs being well into adulthood.

Gascn was further induced to soften the sentence by the fact that Tubbs now identifies as a woman and goes by the name Hannah.

Concerned for Tubbs supposed risk of victimization as a transgender woman in an adult prison, Gascn cited a probation report that had recommended home confinement. Tubbs was eventually sent to a facility for violent juveniles, despite being 26 at the time.

The things he did to me and made me do that day was beyond horrible for a 10-year-old girl to have to go through, Tubbs victim said in vain. I want him tried as an adult for the crimes he committed against me.

Gascns choices here reflect progressive beliefs that date back to the dawn of the liberal era, summed by the 1762 claim of French philosopher Rousseau, Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains.

That is: People are naturally good, and we only do bad things because society hurts and distorts this natural virtue.

Progressives argue that if only we could meet crime with compassion, all of us will become the good person we naturally are deep down.

We see this belief behind every liberal attack on boundaries, rules or limits. Its especially evident, and especially dangerous, in the push to replace drug prohibition with harm reduction, to defund the police in favor of community programs and to swap prison for therapy and rehabilitation, as if it all will magically make crime go away.

Across the country, progressive prosecutors have taken office in San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia and Manhattan, promising to transform society with empathy instead of just locking up criminals.

And you believe people only do bad things because society is broken, of course youll err on the side of the second chance. And youll do so even when the crime is sexual violence perpetrated by a mentally ill repeat offender on the cusp of adulthood, against a defenseless 10-year-old girl.

But faced with a criminal whos less victim than manipulative predator, this just looks like weakness.

In leaked audio from a prison phone call, Tubbs mocks the DAs leniency.

Im gonna plead out to it, plead guilty, Tubbs says. Theyre gonna stick me on probation, he gloats. I wont have to register, wont have to do nothing.

Even Tubbs father sounds shocked.

You wont have to register? he asks, meaning as a sex offender.

I wont have to do none of that, Tubbs replies.

So what are they going to do to you then?

Nothing, Tubbs answers, then laughs.

Its not even clear whether the gender switch is sincere. Tubbs seems to suggest being transgender will make prison easier.

So now theyre going to put me with other trannies that have seen their cases like mine, Tubbs says, coaching Pop to use the right pronouns in front of the judge: So when you come to court, make sure you address me as her.

The victim is not impressed. In an interview with Fox News she called it unfair to try him as a woman as well, seeing how he clearly didnt act like one on January 1st of 2014.

Gascn reportedly knew of Tubbs bragging calls about soft treatment, before sentencing took place. But he still opted to handle this violent pervert with kid gloves.

Gascn has said he now regrets the leniency, telling the Los Angeles Times, Its unfortunate that [Tubbs] gamed the system and accepting the transgender claim may have been to secure further concessions.

But in his statement following the Fox revelations, he doubled down on his rosy vision of human nature. He acknowledged the need to make exceptions but insisted, People change and evolve most often, for the better.

Others are not so naive. Opponents are well on their way to getting enough signatures by July to force a recall vote of Gascn. Already, the Association of Deputy District Attorneys for Los Angeles County voted Tuesday to recall Gascn by 90% of the vote.

More than 30 of the countys city councils have issued votes of no confidence in Gascn.

Similar movements are happening across the country, as the public recoils from the policies of progressive DAs. In Chicago, the police have gone to federal prosecutors to go after race-attack faker Jussie Smollett, when District Attorney Kim Foxx wouldnt. Theyre also looking to try to some gun and gang cases shes ignored.

In San Francisco, theres a recall election of radical DA Chesa Boudin on June 7.In New York, business leaders have complained about Manhattan DA Alvin Braggs unwillingness to charge armed robbers as felons. In a new poll, 65% of voters want the no bail law changed to allow judges to lock up repeat offenders.

Rehabilitating criminals is a noble goal. But not everyone can be cured of lawlessness. Progressive DAs are hoping that somewhere along the way well have made the world perfect enough that the violent criminals they treat so softly will no longer be tempted to offend. Theyre chasing this dream over the bodies of 10-year-old girls. Every time they get it wrong, they endanger innocent citizens.

The Tubbs case is turning into the last straw for those who have a more realistic grasp of human nature than Gascn, Boudin, Foxx and Bragg. Their pity seems all for the criminals. Who will stand up for the 10-year-old girl?

Mary Harrington is a contributing editor at UnHerd and author of the forthcoming Feminism Against Progress.

See the original post here:
Could the outrageous pedophile case finally end the 'progressive' justice farce? - New York Post

Joe Biden isnt floundering alone in the current culture war. The Democratic Partys brand has chosen the wrong side of some hot-button issues, ranging from soft on crime policies to COVID-19 shutdowns to critical race theory. It has gotten so bad that, according to Politico, the Democratic Partys congressional campaign arm is warning their candidates that they risk losing significant ground to Republicans in the midterms. If Dems dont adequately respond to Republican attacks on these culture-war issues, party operatives say the GOPs lead on the generic ballot balloons to 14 points from 4 points... This could be the difference between a wave and a tsunami.

Its tempting to dismiss the culture war as ginned-up or phony. But the problem with brushing off the culture war writ large is that culture is everything. Democrats should not dismiss peoples concerns about their culture being threatened as beneath them because it encompasses a persons way of lifeincluding their institutions, worldview, and sacred values.

Native Americans struggled against colonists and settlers to preserve not just their lives but their way of life. Today, conservationists fight against overdevelopment to conserve not just their environment but their culture. There is nothing inherently ignoble about this, except to those who view these fights as hindering progress. When it comes to social progress, we call these folks progressives.

Now, because some forms of change, like most technological advancements, are both salutary and inexorable, progress has a positive connotation. But when change is either perceived as harmful to a persons way of life and/or is radically thrust upon people, you can expect a visceral backlash. Such is the case in American politics today.

You might wonder how the Democratic Party preemptively and prematurely picked a culture war fight they couldnt win. I believe its because a) ideology is blinding, and b) they assumed a coalition of the ascendant would counter any attrition that might come from working-class voters defecting. (This is not an endorsement of replacement theory.)

The latter obviously hasnt panned out for them. For the purposes of this discussion, Im more interested in the former.

The loudest voices on the left today are very onlineyoung, educated woke white progressives. As Democratic data guru David Shor noted last year, as Democrats have traded non-college-educated voters for college-educated ones, white liberals share of voice and clout in the Democratic Party has gone up.

And since white voters are sorting [based] on ideology more than nonwhite voters, Shor continues, weve ended up in a situation where white liberals are more left wing than Black and Hispanic Democrats on pretty much every issue

In their minds, they are on the right side of history; and that history must be constantly progressing. And because progressives are always pushing for progress, they are the aggressors in the culture war. Or, as Kevin Drum, the liberal journalist formerly with Washington Monthly and Mother Jones, put it last year, It is not conservatives who have turned American politics into a culture war battle. It is liberals.

Thats because, according to Drum (who charted changes in public attitudes on issues like abortion, guns, gay marriage, taxes, and religion), Since 1994, Democrats have moved left far more than Republicans have moved right.

Not surprisingly, this shift is most acutely felt in rural and small-town America, which tends to be more non-college white and culturally conservative. The [Democratic] partys brand is so toxic in the small towns 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, the AP tells us, that some liberals have removed bumper stickers and yard signs and refuse to acknowledge publicly their party affiliation.

Progressives sometimes lament the fact that working-class and/or rural Americans vote against their self-interest, by which they generally mean economic self-interest. To the degree their premise is correct, it comes down to culture. The materialists cant fathom how intangibles like honor, respect, tradition, loyalty, religion, status, or identity so often trump pecuniary concerns. The truth is that not only will people often vote against their presumed self-interest to preserve their way of life, they will sometimes even die for it. This can be noble (as is the case with a war hero willing to die for his country) or even silly (think of the Americans who were so wedded to the anti-vax tribe that they would rather die than get a vaccine).

Of course, sometimes these culture war issues are not so esoteric. In some cases, the worry is not about losing ones way of life, but about losing ones life. Progressives can try to dismiss the defund the police phrase as a culture war slogan, but violent crime is a serious issue. What is more, its plausible that some of the problem is the result of a left-wing political culture where district attorneys are increasingly soft on crime and police officers feel like we have abandoned them. The crime issue isnt going away, and the latest front in this ongoing culture war seems to be bail reform.

As National Journals Josh Kraushaar pointed out, this week we saw the man who allegedly stabbed a 35-year-old Asian woman to death in New York City released without bail, and a local Black Lives Matter chapter posting bail for a man accused of attempting to murder a Louisville, Kentucky, mayoral candidate. Part of the political problem for Dems is that theyre months behind in appreciating how damaging their positions at the time are, Kraushaar tweeted.

It might be too obvious to say that the Democratic Party had better change if they want to mitigate their looming electoral losses in the coming November midterms. But if they want to remain a viable party in the near future, they better pump the brakes on progress and ease up on stoking the left-wing culture wars.

Read more here:
Democrats are losing the culture wars by blindly pushing progressive ideals - The Daily Beast

RIGA - As Ukraine is being targeted by Russia's aggression, Latvia's Progressives party is calling on the government to impose "comprehensive sanctions" on persons in Latvia that are close to Russian President Vladimir Putin's regime, said the party's co-chairperson Antonina Nenaseva.

The Progressives are urging the Latvian government to decide on freezing Latvia-based assets of officials of Russia's ruling United Russia party, entrepreneurs subject to other sanctions and close to the Kremlin, as well as their family members, the party says in a statement.

The Progressives strongly condemn Putin's decision to recognize the independence of the so called "People's Republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk, according to the statement.

The party denounces in especially strong terms the sending of Russian forces into these territories without the Ukrainian government's consent, which should be considered a repeated occupation of Ukraine's territories.

Nenaseva indicated that that the Latvian government should "set an example by introducing comprehensive sanctions against persons in Latvia that are close to the Putin regime".

The regions of Donetsk and Luhansk are part of sovereign Ukraine's territory and the recognition of their "independence" by Russia, like the annexation of Crimea in 2014, is a gross violation of international law, the Progressives stress in their statement.

"We are calling on Latvia and the international community to immediately introduce comprehensive economic and financial sanctions that would target Russia's political leadership, military industrial complex, military command and the country's economic structures, and to leave the sanctions in place until Russia stops its provocative actions against Ukraine," the party said.

"Although Ukraine's has the right to defend its territory, we are calling on the Ukrainian government to keep calm and refrain from direct military confrontation, restore the Minsk agreement process if possible and rely on diplomatic solutions in settling the situation," representatives of the Progressives said, adding that they are against any military resolution of the conflict as people's lives are the highest value.

Originally posted here:
Progressives call for sanctioning persons in Latvia with close ties to Putin's regime - Baltic Times