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Vice President Kamala Harris had strong words for migrants making their way to America's border on her first trip as vice president, to Guatemala. "Do not come," Harris saidtwicewhile speaking to reporters. "The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border. There are legal methods by which migration can and should occur, but we, as one of our priorities, will discourage illegal migration."

Her words were a rebuke to the masses of people flocking to the southern border since Joe Biden won the presidency, some of whom have explicitly referenced Biden's language on immigration as the impetus for their journey north. But the idea that America should have a national borderone which it polices and securesand that America is entitled to a formal legal process whereby it grants citizenship to would-be immigrants, was not an obvious point to everyone.

"This is disappointing to see," tweeted Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the standard-bearer for the progressive Left. "First, seeking asylum at any US border is a 100% legal method of arrival. Second, the US spent decades contributing to regime change and destabilization in Latin America. We can't help set someone's house on fire and then blame them for fleeing."

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez's disappointment that Vice President Harris was discouraging illegal immigration seemed to suggest that the only position she would welcome would be one in which every immigrant is indiscriminately welcomed. In publicly expressing her dissent, Ocasio-Cortez telegraphed to the Biden administration in no uncertain terms that any legal restrictions at all on immigration will face fierce opposition from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. She was not the only one.

"We should not abandon our values and rights to far right white nationalists," tweeted fellow Squad-member Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) atop video of Harris's speech.

This view, that discouraging illegal immigration is a white nationalist value, is actually a new one for progressives. "Open borders?" democratic socialist Bernie Sanders (D-VT) scoffed in an interview with Ezra Klein for Vox as recently as 2015. "That's a Koch Brothers proposal."

"It would make a lot of global poor richer, wouldn't it?" Klein pressed.

"It would make everybody in America poorer," Sanders responded. "You're doing away with the concept of a nation-state, and I don't think there's any country in the world that believes in that. If you believe in a nation-state or in a country called the United States or U.K. or Denmark or any other country, you have an obligation in my view to do everything we can to help poor people."

It was a right-wing proposition to have unbridled immigration, Sanders insisted as recently as six years ago. "What right-wing people in this country would love is an open-border policy," Sanders explained. "Bring in all kinds of people, work for $2 or $3 an hour, that would be great for them. I don't believe in that."

Sanders was voicing what many Americansboth white and people of color had already figured out. A large majority of African Americans and Hispanics said they would vote for a presidential candidate who stood for strengthening our border security to reduce illegal immigration, a 2019 Harvard-Harris poll found. That shouldn't be surprising; illegal immigration has been tied to a 20-60 percent decrease in Black working-class wages. Another recent study suggested that immigration accounts for a third of the decline in the Black employment rate over the last 40 years. "Black Americans are more supportive of limiting immigration than any other bloc of the Democratic coalition. And Hispanics actually tend to be more concerned about illegal immigration than are whites or Blacks," the sociologist Musa al Gharbi reported.

You wouldn't know this to listen to the politicians and influencers of the Democratic Partyand not just from the progressive wing; when Democratic candidates running for the 2020 presidential nomination were asked if they would decriminalize illegal border crossing, almost all of them said yes.

Why? How did progressive leaders go from understanding that mass immigration is a de facto tax on the pooras recently as six years agoto casting it as the only morally defensible position, the only non-racist one?

It has to do with who the Democrats' new base is. In a new paper, the French economist Thomas Piketty along with a others detailed a colossal shift that has been underway in Western democracies in terms of who populates the ranks of the Left. If in the 1960s, the Democratic Party and other liberal-leaning political parties were filled with members of the working class, over the course of the past 60 years, they have become the bastion of the highly educateda Brahmin Left whose concerns and demands increasingly constitute Democrats' agenda.

It's counterintuitive, write Picketty et al., given the skyrocketing inequality across the developed world. "Given this recent evolution, one might have expected to observe rising political demand for redistribution and the return of class-based (income-based or wealth-based) politics," write the economists. "Instead, Western democracies seem to have shifted to new forms of identity-based conflicts in recent decades, embodied by the increasing salience of environmental issues and the growing prosperity of anti-establishment authoritarian movements."

A class-based political spectrum has been replaced by what Picketty et al. call a "multi-elite party system." If we once had one party representing the rich and one party representing labor, today, we have one party representing the rich and one party representing the highly educated and no party representing the working class. In 2020, Biden won 84 of the 100 counties with the highest percentage of college degree-holders. But the ranks of the rich are increasingly split, too: In 2020, Wall Street donors gave more money to Biden than to Trump.

Needless to say, they didn't do so because they are keen on economic redistribution.

The truth is, the Brahmin Left doesn't want redistribution; it wants culture wars over identity. It wants environmentalism, open borders, and student loan forgiveness.

Open borders was once the calling card of the libertarian-infused Right. Now, it's a humanitarian cri de coeur that flatters the vanity of highly educated liberals while working class Americans of all races bear the burdenand are then smeared as racists for being afraid they might lose their jobs due to an influx of labor.

"The history of Citizenship in the US is deeply woven with the history of racism," tweeted Ocasio-Cortez back in 2019. "It has been used as the legal enforcer of racism for most of US history."

She got it exactly backwards: Protections from racism, like all civil rights, depend on a national border and on the compact a sovereign citizenry makes with its own government. A Left that was invested in the working class wouldn't have forgotten this, wouldn't have had the luxury of smearing people afraid of losing their jobspeople of all racesas racists. But instead of listening to the concerns of our multiracial working class, the Democrats are listening to the Squadthe patron saints of the Brahmin Left.

Batya Ungar-Sargon is the deputy opinion editor of Newsweek.

The views in this article are the writer's own.

Read more from the original source:
The Immigration Debate Shows Progressives Have Abandoned the Working Class | Opinion - Newsweek

But some maneuvers can easily overshadow the others. Perhaps the most incendiary move by DOJ in recent weeks came in the lawsuit against Trump by E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of rape in 2019. After Trump publicly denied her claims and called her a liar, Carroll filed a defamation lawsuit against him in New York state court. Last September, the Barr Justice Department intervened and sought to move the case to the federal courts, substituting the United States as a defendant. The department justified the move by noting that Trump made the denials while he was president, thus implicating the executive branch itself. Under Garland, DOJ is declining to change course.

If the departments position prevails in court, most legal experts believe that it is exceedingly unlikely that Carrolls lawsuit will succeed. The move drew the ire of Trump critics who expressed horror at the prospect of the Biden administration formally defending a former president over one of his accusers. Carroll herself strongly criticized Garland for the decision. They argue that Trump was doing his job when he repeatedly slandered me and told the world that I was too ugly for him to rape, she wrote in her newsletter. (Emphasis hers.) Bidens DOJ turns out to be run by someone who may be more interested in protecting his vision of the DOJ institution than in cleaning up its corruption.

Other observers noted that Garlands stance in the Carroll case reflects the departments broader goal of defending the executive branch and the presidency itself, no matter who happens to hold the White House. The issue is whether a presidents duties include answering questions during an interview given in his official capacityincluding questions about his earlier private life that may reflect on his fitness for office, Randall Eliason, a George Washington University law professor, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed this week. Assuming they do, then federal law provides that he cant be sued for what he said. Eliason said that the alternative was that any federal employee could face lawsuits for their on-the-job remarks if opposing lawyers are clever or tenacious enough.

Eliason said the same long-term reasoning also appeared to be guiding Garlands actions in the Barr memo case. As for the Mueller investigation memo, if Garland simply agreed to release it, he creates another precedent, he wrote. Future senior advisers to the attorney generalor to other government officialsmight be reluctant to offer their candid views in controversial cases out of fear of disclosure if the political winds shift. Thats why the law has long recognized legal privileges for such internal communications. He added that he expected the department to prevail in both cases.

Continue reading here:
Merrick Garland's Moves Have Progressives Feeling the Angst - The New Republic

The pattern of events in the recent hostilities between Israel and the terrorist organizations, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, was unfortunately predictable in many ways. We have witnessed the same routine in several previous battles, since Hamas violently took over the Gaza Strip in 2007. Hamas shoots rockets at Israeli civilians. Israel responds by bombing Hamas infrastructure located in the midst of Gaza civilians. Israel is accused of using disproportionate force and of war crimes. A ceasefire is eventually agreed upon.

What was different this time was the immediate attack against Israel by extreme-left members of the United States Congress. The vehement assaults by progressive members of the Democratic party were shameless in their irresponsible slander against Israel that was dictated solely by the ideological requirements of their woke agenda.

On May 13, three days after Hamas initiated the latest round of hostilities, the Progressive caucus dedicated time to allow members of The Squad six Democratic members of Congress and their leftist comrades to proclaim their outrage at Israels self-defense against the onslaught of thousands of rockets shot at Israeli civilians. Their well-known jargon apartheid, ethnic cleansing, brutalization, violent oppression, occupation, etc. flowed freely in their frenzied condemnation of Israel.

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A particularly obnoxious, yet very telling, speech, was delivered by Cori Bush, the representative from St. Louis. This newly inducted member into The Squad sounded more like a propagandist for Islamic jihad than a member of Congress. Apparently unencumbered by any knowledge of the subject, Bush felt free to accuse Israel of ethnic cleansing and apartheid, among other human rights violations. Clearly, one need not agree with all Israeli actions, but accusations of ethnic cleansing and apartheid are sure indicators of extreme ignorance or extreme malevolence. She did not speak one word in opposition to Hamas violation of international law and human rights by shooting thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians from within its own civilian population

Bushs speech typified the progressive attack against Israel. Their self-righteous sense of morality expresses itself in spontaneous outrage in support of their designated victim without any regard for facts, context or history. Their convoluted sense of social justice is based on the simplistic notion that there are the oppressors and there are the oppressed. The oppressors can do no right and the oppressed can do no wrong.

The very use of the term progressive is misleading. The designation progressive has been used to mean anything from liberal Democrat to hard left neo-Marxist. These Congressional progressives would be better described as Washington wokesters adherents of the woke culture, with an unshakeable faith that they epitomize the heights of moral clarity. In fact, they embody the depths of neo-Marxist depravity. Woke politics employs gang-like methods: cancel culture, shaming, intimidation, threatening job loss and more, to force their moral certitude on others.

All that is progressive about the woke left is its progressive descent into the netherworld of poisonous propaganda, moral distortion and vile antisemitism.

These Washington wokesters, can be classified into two undesirable groups:(1) the wacky and wonky wokesters whose unabashed ignorance of the Israeli-Arab conflict allows them to speak freely on the subject without fear of embarrassment by unaccommodating facts; and(2) the willful and wanton wokesters who will distort or ignore any fact in their malicious drive to defame, demonize, and delegitimize Israel.With their loud and obnoxious speech and action, the Washington wokesters are quickly effecting the transformation of the Democratic party from a party of liberal Democrats to a party of neo-Marxists.

Wokesters use cheap and meaningless slogans to promote a selective application of lofty concepts such as social justice and human rights. Their accepted parameters of social justice often include ignoring calls by Palestinian leadership to murder Jews and its denial of Jewish history. The Palestinian Authoritys encouragement and reward for suicide bombings, knifings and car rammings also are not condemned as part of their woke sense of justice. Hamas charter calling for the destruction of Israel, its launching of incendiary balloons, shooting rockets and building tunnels to target Israeli civilians, seem to pose no problem for the wokesters understanding of human rights. By not forcefully denouncing these terrorist and criminal acts, they give legitimacy to them. They seem to excuse the Palestinian Arabs for these acts because they are oppressed victims.

Yes, the Palestinian Arabs are victims. They are victims of their incompetent, corrupt and criminal leadership. They are victims of the anti-Jewish hatred that their schools teach, that their mosques preach and that their media screech. Palestinian Arabs have rejected every effort at peace for the last 100 years. They teach an ever-changing historical narrative that leaves no place for a Jewish state in the Middle East. Radical as it might sound, perhaps the Palestinian Arabs have actually played some role in the perpetuation of their victimhood.

One of the original members of The Squad is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. During the Israel-Hamas hostilities, she was a lead sponsor, along with eight other leftist Democrats, of a Democratic resolution to block a $735 million sale of precision-guided weapons to Israel during the hostilities. Israels ability to strike Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets with, usually, incredible precision would be an inducement for the terrorists organization to agree to a ceasefire sooner rather than later. Without such weaponry the choice is: (1) to not respond at all to Hamas attacks; (2) to bomb Hamas targets with much less precision causing innumerably more casualties; or (3) to attack Hamas on the ground by entering Gaza causing still more casualties. Thankfully the resolution did not pass, but this is only a taste of what is to be expected from the Washington wokesters.

The insidious infiltration of the woke culture into the Democratic party in Congress brings to mind the resistible rise of Jeremy Corbyn as head of the British Labour party in 2015. During his term as Labour leader from 2015 to 2020, Corbyn moved the party to the extreme left. He once referred to Hamas and the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah as his friends, although he later expressed regret for doing so. In 2014, he was present at a wreath-laying at the graves of Palestinian Arab terrorists who murdered Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972. The rise of antisemitism in the Labor party grew immensely during Corbyns reign. Corbyn himself was accused by many, including the late Chief Rabbi of England, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, of being an antisemite and of tolerating antisemitism in the ranks of the Labour party. Many members of the Labour party who complained about antisemitism were harassed and abused by Corbyn supporters and left the party. Corbyn and the Labour party suffered a humiliating defeat in the 2019 general election and Corbyn resigned in disgrace.

The far lefts hatred of Israel is interwoven with left-wing antisemitism. This awaits the Democratic party if it remains an obsequious kowtower to the arrogance and dangerous madness of the Washington wokesters.

It is not unreasonable to postulate that the dramatic rise of anti-Semitic attacks in the United States, during and following the Israel-Hamas hostilities, is occurring, not only due to the vile attacks against Israel in social media and the unprofessional and irresponsible reporting by large segments of the mainstream media. It, no doubt, has also increased due to the extremist political attacks by the Washington wokesters.

Lets hope and pray, if there are any adults left in the Democratic party who still adhere to the values of liberal democracy, that they develop some moral courage and fight back. PJC

Reuven Hoch, J.D., is a legal editor living in Squirrel Hill.

Original post:
The danger to Israel and Jews posed by progressives in Congress - thejewishchronicle.net

Terry McAuliffe prepares to speak after winning the Democratic primary for governor on June 8, 2021, in McLean, Va. (Drew Angerer / Getty Images)

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Virginia heralded the anti-Trump electoral resistance in 2017 when it elected 15 Democrats to the House of Delegates, including 11 women, one of them transgender and four of color, plus a democratic socialist, along with a Democratic governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. Two years later, they took the General Assembly, giving the state that hosted the capital of the Confederacy complete Democratic control. Progressives hoped Virginia would become a bellwether for political change, and in some ways it was, as the state expanded Medicaid, repealed restrictive abortion laws, expanded voting access, and promoted antidiscrimination laws.

Tuesday nights election results set back the progressive dream, some. Former governor Terry McAuliffe swept aside his opponents, winning more than 60 percent of the vote; progressive favorite Jennifer Carroll Foy, endorsed by Emilys List, Higher Heights and more unions than any other candidate, eked out 20 percent. McAuliffe won every city and county in Virginia. In some ways, it felt like a rerun of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, where a historically diverse fieldincluding four female Democratic senators, two Black senators, a Latino former congressman, an Asian American, a gay mayor, and at least two solid progressivesmade it hard for voters to coalesce on the grounds of representation or ideology, and elder white statesman Joe Biden ultimately cruised to victory.Related Article

Similarly, in a race with three Black candidatesCarroll Foy, state Senator Jennifer McClellan, and Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfaxand two progressives, Carroll Foy and democratic socialist Delegate Lee Carter, a single strong challenger to McAuliffe could never emerge. Like Biden, McAuliffe was able to count on the support of most Black establishment leadershe had roughly as many Black elected officials in his corner as the three Black candidates combined. He launched his campaign last year flanked by Black allies, including state Senator Louise Lucas and Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney. McAuliffe is credited with helping to inspire the Democratic resurgence in the state, and gets wide credit for restoring the voting rights of Virginia felons in 2017. Also: Black Virginians want a winner in November, and the well-funded former governor (and Democratic National Committee chair) may be the only one who can compete with self-funding businessman Glenn Youngkin in raising money.

Elsewhere around the state, there were other disappointments. Moderate Delegate Hala Ayala beat progressive Delegate Sam Rasoul for nomination as lieutenant governor. Ayala once seemed fairly progressive herself, but in this race she reversed course and took money fromVirginia energy monopoly Dominion. Another Muslim progressive, Delegate Ibrahim Samirah, lost his seat to well-funded moderate Irene Shin. Democratic socialist Lee Carter lost twice, in the governors race and in a primary for his delegate seat, losing to moderate Michelle Lopez-Maldonado. (Its worth noting that the two male progressives lost to women of color.) But with Carroll Foy replaced in the House of Delegates by Black moderate Candi King, its hard not to notice that the progressive wing of that body has been clipped some. MORE FROM Joan Walsh

For his part, Carter said he was relieved to lose, with an odd tweet saying, This job has made me miserable for the last 4 years and complaining of assassination threats and harassment. Some progressives on Twitter took it as a sign of the self-absorption that led him to run for governor, where he won only 3 percent of the vote.

The best news of the night for progressives? Twenty-six-year old Nadarius Clark, a Black community organizer endorsed by Democratic Socialists of America, Clean Virginia, and other progressive groups, beat a fairly conservative Democratic incumbent, Steve Heretick, known for his staunch defense of Dominion and his opposition to a law mandating the removal of Confederate monuments. Clark fought back tears at his victory party, telling reporters, Its just so remarkable we had the opportunity to show Virginia that a young 26-year-old can make a difference in their community. They can be the change they want to see. Daily Kos communications director Carolyn Fiddler says Hereticks loss is a boost for progressives: Democrats wont have to worry about Hereticks recurring contrariness if their House majority shrinks. Meanwhile, progressive Delegate Elizabeth Guzman, who dropped a run for governor, beat back centrist challengers to hold her seat.

There was also some good news on the GOP side, where wing nut attorney Wren Williams, who counseled Donald Trump during the Wisconsin recount last year, crushed seven-term incumbent Charles Poindexter, partly on the grounds of Poindexters insufficient loyalty to the disgraced former president. Its just another sign that Trump has a tight grip on the state party. Former Carlyle Group CEO Glenn Youngkin might want to try to distance himself from the former president, to win back suburbanites whove strayed to Democrats in the Trump years, but Trump already endorsed him and is unlikely to loosen his hug any time soon.Current Issue

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In his victory speech, McAuliffe quickly turned to bashing his opponent. Youngkin is not a reasonable Republican, he told the crowd, warning the race could be close. There are 75 million reasons that Glenn Youngkin could win, he added, referring to the Republicans wealth, and urged his supporters to give money every single day.

For his part, Youngkin welcomed McAuliffe to the race with an ad starring Carroll Foy saying the former Democratic governor is not inspiring and doesnt represent change.

But Carroll Foy quickly endorsed McAuliffe. Lets do everything we have to do. Lets get in the trenches. Lets do the work because at the end of the day, we must win in November, she told a crowd as she conceded. Another new Youngkin ad features him in a sea of older white male politicians in suits, his red vest supposedly marking him as an outsider.

Its hard to imagine overwhelmingly white Virginia GOP voters will be fired up by a progressive Black Democrats complaints about McAuliffe, or by complaints that white men have run Virginia for too longespecially coming from a wealthy older white man. This race will get uglier.

Read more:
Progressive Dreams Are on Pause in Virginia - The Nation

Mayoral candidate Maya Wiley accepted endorsements from a slate of progressive leaders, some of whom previously backed her opponent Scott Stringer, last week in Bushwick bar Pine Box Rock Shop.

State Sen. Julia Salazar, State Assembly members Maritza Davila and Emily Gallagher and District Leader Samy Nemir-Olivares announced their support. Sen. Salazar and Assemblymember Maritza Davila were part of a group of left-of-center elected officials who withdrew their support for Stringer in April after an allegation that he sexually harassed a campaign worker 20 years ago.

Wiley, who served as counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio and chair of the NYPD Civilian Complaint Review Board, emphasized that the progressive movement was unified in support of her campaign during the announcement.

It is clear, and I say this with a humble honor, that I am the progressive thats gonna win this race, said Wiley.

Proving her point, the Working Families Party, which recently withdrew its support of Scott Stringer and mayoral candidate Diane Morales, also announced a full endorsement of Wiley on Friday afternoon. And on Saturday she received big endorsements from former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro and progressive Congresswoman from the Bronx Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.

Maya, to me, has been the most consistent candidate. She has been the candidate who has maintained integrity throughout her entire campaign, said Sen. Salazar, explaining why she had decided to back Wiley. That became evident and clearer to me the closer that we have gotten to election day.

Congresswoman Nydia Valesquez, a long-time supporter of Wiley, was given some of the credit for bringing together the Bushwick progressives. Rep. Velazquez was not in attendance, but a representative spoke in her place.

Early voting starts on June 12. Election day is June 22. Find your poll site here.

All photos courtesy of Erik Kantar.

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Sen. Salazar, Other Local Progressives Back Maya Wiley For Mayor - bushwickdaily.com