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When Congress voted to spend tens of billions of dollars on military aid to Ukraine, all six members of the Squad voted yes. So did the rest of the Progressive Caucus. Bernie Sanders voted for it in the Senate.

That was a serious mistake. The conflict in Ukraine is looking more and more like a proxy war between Russia and the United Statesin fact, Seth Moulton of the House Armed Services Committee openly called it a proxy warand the consequences of deepening American involvement could be catastrophic. A particularly troubling portion of the $54 billion aid package is earmarked to the CIA for unspecified reasons.

Some Republicans did vote no on the aid. Does this mean, then, that Republicans are now the real anti-war voices in Congress, as some have suggested? That idea doesnt stand up to scrutiny. After all, those Republicans who voted no told us their reasons for voting that way in public statementsand for the most part those reasons dont seem to have much to do with promoting peace.

Instead, most cited cost as their main objection. Some said European nations should be picking up more of the tab since the conflict is taking place in Europe. A common theme was that the money would be better spent on militarizing the southern border.

Rather than being horrified at the prospect of escalating a conflict that could blow up into a wider war, some of the Republicans who voted no expressed enthusiasm about the Ukrainian cause (while saying that someone else should pick up the tab) and some expressed frank indifference to the whole thinga posture typified by Marjorie Taylor Greenes recent tweet about having sworn an oath of allegiance to the United States of AMERICA not the United States of Ukraine.

To give one of the strangest devils in the Congressional GOP her due, Greene has actually expressed support for the United States seeking peace in Ukraine in the past, although its worth noting that she wrapped even that call in the language of anti-China hawkery and the danger of pushing Russia into Chinas hands. And shes an outlier within the Republican no votes for having ever having talked about peace when shes talked about Ukraine.

As disappointing as it is that the progressives didnt stick to their principles in this vote, almost none of the Republicans who voted against the aid package have ever even pretended to have such principles in the first place. Indeed, many have a recent record of extreme hawkishness and several of them seem pretty enthusiastic about escalating tensions with China. This could easily lead to an even more destructive conflict than the one in Ukraine, given that boots on the ground seem to be very much on the table in discussions of a U.S. response to a possible war in Taiwan.

These anti-war Republicans seem to be all about anti-China brinksmanship. Why exactly are we supposed to believe they have principled objections to anti-Russia brinksmanship?

In their public statements they said they were voting against more funding for Ukraine because were spending too much money on European freeloaders and Ukrainians should figure out another way to pay for their war because they would prefer that we spend the money making the United States a fortress. Its a little much to say that their reasons really have something to do with a desire to de-escalate the conflict.

Outside of Congress, there actually is a faction in American politics that does want to bring about peace in Ukrainethe socialist Left. Jacobin, for example, has run numerous articles denouncing Russian imperialism and expressing solidarity with Russias heroic anti-war movement but also warning of the dangers of ever-more-direct U.S. involvement and calling for a negotiated settlement. So has this magazine. So has The Nation. So has In These Times.

Noam Chomsky was widely slandered as a Putin apologist for his advocacy of peace negotiations. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) was pilloried by the mainstream media (very much including Fox News) and even denounced by the White House Rapid Response Director for the same reason.

The sad fact, though, is that no one in Congress fully shares the socialist Lefts positions on this issue. None of the Republicans or mainstream Democrats do, and even the most left-wing members of Congress have been unreliable allies on this and related foreign policy debates. Even Bernie Sanders advisor Matt Duss, the closest thing in Washington to a left-wing foreing policy thinker, has suggested that those in favor of a diplomatic settlement are advocating that Ukraine surrenders.

The Left has had some success in recent years in inserting some of our big domestic policy issues like Medicare for All into mainstream political discussion. On foreign policy, though, were still a long way from hearing anyone in the halls of power advocate for our positions.

Congressional progressives should be focusing their energies on pushing for a negotiated de-escalation of the conflict, with the United States having a direct seat at the tablesomething that Matt Duss seems to have forgotten that Bernie Sanders called for in an op-ed in the Guardian back in February. Ukrainian interests arent being served by prolonging the war with the professed goal of weakening Russia to the point where its no longer capable of waging warwhich, taken literally, would mean turning one of the worlds major nuclear powers into a failed state. Every day that peace talks dont happen, more Ukrainians die, and the world gets a little closer to a truly disastrous direct war between the United States and Russia.

As Anatol Lieven has pointed out, Russia has already suffered a massive defeat in Ukraine. Theres at least some grounds for hoping that this will make Putin more amenable to a settlement that can save him from humiliation and get the sanctions liftedif hes presented with that off-ramp. Right now, far from offering to sit down and talk, Biden keeps dropping ominous hints about regime change and war crimes tribunals that send the message that the Russians only option is to keep fighting to the bitter end.

We constantly hear from hawks that Putin has no interest in negotiating. Somehow, though, no one who says this ever seems to want to test their hypothesis by having Biden directly participate in peace talkseven though the United States is sending tens of billions in lethal aid, helping assassinate Russian generals and sink Russian ships, and taking the lead in imposing sweeping sanctions on the Russian economy. No serious person could deny that the United States would have far more leverage with Russia in such negotiations than any other country. And the idea that it would be meddling in the sovereign prerogatives of Ukraine for the United States to involve itself in negotiations to settle the conflictbut its not meddling to do everything I just describedis brain-meltingly ridiculous.

Back in March, Ilhan Omar raised a number of concerns about the possible bad consequences of flooding Ukraine with weapons that will in some cases end up in the hands of extreme right-wing paramilitaries or make their way to the global black market.

These remain extremely legitimate concerns. You can argue that Omars point is outweighed by the legitimate need of a nation facing imperial invasion to defend itself. Fine. But even so, Omar and the other progressives should have at least made their votes for further lethal aid conditional on the United States immediately entering peace talks to at least try to de-escalate the conflict.

This is hardly the first time that the informal social democratic caucus in Congress (the Squad in the House and Bernie in the Senate) has been a disappointment on issues of war and peace. Jamaal Bowman, for example, voted to fund Israels Iron Dome missile defense system, while AOC shamefully backed down under last minute pressure and changed her Iron Dome vote from no to present.

While Bernie Sanders is (thank God) not friends with Henry Kissinger and was clearly better on foreign policy than Hillary Clinton in 2016 (or anyone in the clown car of centrists he faced off against in 2020), his foreign policy voting record is far from perfect. For example, he joined the stampede of Democrats who, aside from a few honorable exceptions like Dennis Kucinich, voted to authorize the U.S. intervention in Serbia in 1999. His record on Palestine has been mixed, though hes moved to a more full-throated criticism of Israel in recent years. He, too, voted for Iron Dome funding, but at least demanded something in exchangeincreased aid for the victims of Israeli occupation in Gaza.

While its not exactly a secret that Bernie and the Squad are, in practice, often far more moderate and mainstream on any number of issues than we would like them to be, thoughtful leftists have often been understandably reluctant to focus much of our fire on the tiny handful of politicians who are closest to our views relative to the rest of Congress. It can smack of a self-destructive circular firing squad mentality, especially when approached in a flamboyant and click-bait-y way. (See: Dore, Jimmy.) But when left-wing politicians get it wrong on issues this important (or start out getting them right and waver in the face of jingoistic pressure), they deserve criticism. If we care as much about anti-imperialism as we do about Medicare for All and other domestic policy issues, we cant ignore the gap between where Left-aligned members of Congress are and where we need them to be.

Honesty about these issues cuts in multiple directions, though, and we need to acknowledge that allegedly anti-war Republicans like Josh Hawley actually stand much farther from our overall position on questions of war and peace than anyone in the Squad. Crumbling to public pressure and voting to pour more guns and money into a proxy war is bad, but you know whats worse? A foreign policy record like Hawleys. Just in the last few years, Hawley has:

The idea that Hawley, or any of the Republican no voters on the Ukraine bill who were calling for Biden to be impeached over the withdrawal from Afghanistan, is the real critic of militarism in Congress is a bad joke.

The America First element of the GOP sometimes uses rhetoric about how people are suffering at home as wars are waged abroad, but the truth is that they arent that anti-war. They also dont want to do much of anything to help those people suffering at home. For example, all of the most hardcore MAGA populists in Congress voted against capping the price of insulin. Even that was too much of themnever mind doing something truly crazy and socialist like just giving diabetics insulin for free. Thats the Rights alleged populists for you.

It is outrageous that the United States is fighting direct and proxy wars around the world instead of redirecting those resources to helping people meet their basic needs. And we do need to get more members of Congress elected who have better positions on both halves of that equation. The Squad are sometimes inconsistent and unreliable allies, especially on the foreign policy half. Theyre much better than the nothing that the Left had in Congress before they were elected, but still well short of what we need. We should recognize the complexities here with open eyesand apply that same clarity to outright enemies like Josh Hawley.

Read the rest here:
Congressional Progressives Need To Do Better on Foreign PolicyBut That Doesn't Mean Republicans Are Doves Current Affairs - Current Affairs

BlackRocks Salim Ramji tries to deflect criticism of his firms progressive political agenda (Letters, May 27). He claims that BlackRock casts proxy votes based only on long-term interests of clients. It needs to define long term, by which it means the benefits of mitigating climate change by leaving fossil fuels in the ground. If a client is a retiree, is long term sooner than death? Is BlackRocks $10 trillion in assets enough to engineer a self-fulfilling prophecy of a premature leap to a carbon-free but energy-deficient future?

Mr. Ramji claims that BlackRock merely wants more disclosure. But detailed disclosures about ESG policies are about as innocuous as progressives disclosing home addresses of Supreme Court justices. He adds that index-fund managers faithfully track an index and therefore cannot divert assets from specific industries. But when BlackRock pressures CEOs of oil companies in the index to spend less on oil exploration, production and distribution, the index return is affected. If the short-term effect of lower-carbon guidance is a lower index return, clients suffer an opportunity costbut no one is the wiser because BlackRock faithfully tracks and matches the return of the index.

See more here:
BlackRock Gives Up Neither Power Nor Progressivism - The Wall Street Journal

Candidates for U.S. Congress participate in a debate hosted by the Alaska Chamber, Alaska Miners Association, Alaska Oil & Gas Association, Alaska Support Industry Alliance, Associated General Contractors of Alaska, and Resource Development Council for Alaska, on May 12 at the Dena'ina Center in Anchorage. From left: Nick Begich, John Coghill, Christopher Constant, Al Gross, Jeff Lowenfels, Sarah Palin, Mary Peltola, Josh Revak, and Tara Sweeney. (Loren Holmes / ADN)

Industry experts say the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which Congress opened to oil development in 2017, is unlikely to play host to drilling rigs anytime soon if ever.

The refuge, nonetheless, has become a flash point among left-leaning candidates in Alaskas special U.S. House race, in which 48 people are seeking to replace the late Republican Rep. Don Young.

An offhand, pro-development comment from Democratic candidate Mary Peltola prompted a quick social media backlash, and a subsequent clarification. Another Democrat, Chris Constant, followed up with an 800-word blog post explaining his position: He supports drilling in the refuge only if theres broad local support and a realistic plan to ensure minimal impacts.

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders-aligned Santa Claus his real name is threatening to peel anti-development votes away from Peltola and Constant with his own uncompromising position.

Im well aware of the intricacies and complications and different considerations, forces at play, who wants what and who is willing to trade off something for another. My personal position still is defend the sacred, protect the Arctic, said Claus, an independent, referencing the slogan often voiced by the Gwichin, an Indigenous group opposed to development in the refuge.

The candidates differences over the Arctic Refuge track with a broader divide between Alaska progressives over what kind of candidate they support.

[2 oil companies quietly spent $10 million to exit Arctic Refuge leases]

Some argue that taking firm progressive stances like opposing development in the refuge in a state where more than 60% of people support it makes it impossible to appeal to a broad enough swath of voters to win an election. Democrats make up just 13% of Alaskas roughly 585,000 registered voters.

Ted Stevens and Frank Murkowski spent 40 years making the refuge the holy grail, said Mark Begich, the Democratic former U.S. senator. Opposing development in the area may not cost a Democrat a win in the primary, he added, but a no makes you a disqualified candidate, I believe, at this time as a statewide candidate.

But others say that candidates who endorse drilling and other more centrist positions risk alienating liberal base voters.

Alaskans are willing to work for and donate to candidates who have principled positions, said Ed Alexander, a Claus supporter and Gwichin leader who lives in Fairbanks. If you have a milquetoast position on things, theres a bunch of those guys out there and whats the difference between those guys and somebody else?

[More coverage of Alaskas 2022 congressional races]

He added: I have to vote for the person I think is going to help Alaskans the most, and thats Santa Claus right now.

In this photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an airplane flies over caribou on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Alaska. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via AP)

For decades, the question of development in the refuge has fueled caustic debate between Alaskas pro-development politicians and nationally focused conservation groups.

National polls have shown opposition to drilling. But Alaska-based surveys show residents broadly in favor of the idea with support last year hitting 64%.

Congress and former President Donald Trump, as part of their 2017 tax package, authorized drilling in the refuges coastal plain the highest-potential area for oil and roughly 7% of the refuges overall area.

The nearest Gwichin community, Arctic Village, is on the far side of a mountain range from the coastal plan, also known as the 1002 Area. But residents are stridently opposed to drilling because the coastal plain doubles as the calving grounds of the Porcupine caribou herd and those caribou are a staple of the Gwichins subsistence-based diet.

Drilling enjoys more support in the only village inside the coastal plain, Kaktovik, whose Indigenous Iupiaq residents have access to whale harvests, in addition to caribou.

But many Kaktovik residents, including a former mayor, oppose drilling in the refuge, too.

From a practical standpoint, development in the coastal plain faces a near certainty of lawsuits and challenges connecting to distant, existing infrastructure.

[Voter guide: Alaskas 48 U.S. House candidates in the 2022 special primary election]

When the Trump administration auctioned off oil leases in the days before President Joe Biden was sworn in, just one small oil company and none of Alaskas major multinational producers bid on them, along with one other private group of speculators. Alaskas state-owned economic development corporation placed most of the winning bids.

Bidens administration has since suspended the leases, and major banks and insurers are increasingly committing not to back oil projects in the Arctic.

The odds of ANWR ever being developed are minimal, said Larry Persily, a longtime observer of Alaskas oil and gas industry. Yes, prices have gone up significantly. But that doesnt change the economics of ANWR, or the fact that the companies have really shied away from these megaprojects that can take a decade or more to develop.

But opponents of drilling say that candidates positions on the coastal plain double as a litmus test on the broader issue of climate change: At least one major plan to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C and avert the largest risks of climate change makes no room for new oil developments.

Peltola, in her follow-up statement after the debate, said she supports possible exploration in the coastal plain which she described as a small sliver of the refuge based on what she described as studies showing minimal impacts to local subsistence species and huge benefits to the local economy.

Alaskans have consistently supported exploration in this area, Peltolas statement said, adding that shes committed to letting local people decide which projects move forward on their lands.

[As Texas school shooting reignites national debate on gun control, many Alaska politicians are leery of limits]

Asked how she reconciles that position with the Gwichins opposition to development, and the mixed views among Kaktovik residents, Peltola, in a phone interview, said she supports development because its written into ANILCA. Thats the landmark Alaska lands bill Congress passed in 1980 that left the coastal plain outside of the Arctic Refuges wilderness area.

Since 1980, that little area has been a set-aside for exploration and possible development, Peltola said. In the 2017 tax package, GOP U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski advanced the proposal for lease sales in the coastal plain, Peltola added, so, technically speaking, it is the law, right?

Constant, in his blog post, described development in the refuge as an uphill battle, and cited division on the issue among villages and communities in the area. But he said he supports responsible resource development thats endorsed by local communities, if it comes with jobs and environmental protections.

If, one day, there is a realistic and safe plan for some level of drilling in ANWR with minimal environmental impacts that was supported by the vast majority of communities and organizations in the region, I would likely support it, Constant said. Until then, I think we are better off spending our time and energy leading the way to a more sustainable energy future.

[in a special U.S. House race, Alaska Democrats see opportunity]

Claus has aligned his anti-drilling position with the Gwichin and, after a recent phone interview, sent a photo of himself holding a defend the sacred/protect the Arctic Refuge sticker in front of a Gwichin Nation sign.

He said he defers to the Gwichins position, rather than that of pro-development Indigenous residents in Kaktovik, because the kind of drilling that some people seem to support is unnecessary.

There are plenty of other options, and the oil in this case companies dont seem interested in exercising those particular interests, Claus said.

Another candidate whos appealed to progressive voters in the past, independent Al Gross, said he supports development of the coastal plain that he believes can be done responsibly and safely.

I think you have to make compromises with all parties involved, including the Gwichin and the oil companies, he said in an interview.

Claus, Peltola, Gross and Constant all say they support actions to address climate change, though only Claus gave an unqualified endorsement of the Green New Deal a Democratic congressional proposal that calls for dramatic action from the federal government to phase out fossil fuels and boost clean energy industries and jobs.

Im not a cheerleader for it, but Im a big, strong supporter of Roosevelts New Deal, and I like anything thats bold and helps move us towards our goals, Constant said in a phone interview.

Peltola said she doesnt know enough about the Green New Deals particulars to say whether she supports it, but she added that she likes the concepts it contains. The government has already supported the oil industry with investments and tax credits and all those things, she said.

I do think that we need to be pursuing renewable energy pathways, she added.

Gross said he supports renewable energy everywhere and anywhere.

I dont support the Green New Deal per se, he said. Im just a strong advocate for renewable energy.

See the original post here:
Oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge faces long odds. It's still dividing progressives in Alaska's US House race. - Anchorage Daily...

The two most powerful politicians in Washington, D.C., are President Joe Biden and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

Our checks and balances system built into the Constitution limits the power of each of the three branches of government, especially the presidency. Indeed, James Madison and his colleagues were preeminently concerned to vest power in the legislature and prevent the kind of autocratic power associatedwith the British Crown and European monarchies in general.

President Biden needs Congress to advance virtually any major agenda item he has, and Congress given its current composition can be prevented from passing major legislation if one U.S. Senator refuses to side with 49 other U.S. Senators from his own party.

Biden and his Capitol Hill allies will take another stab at passing some version of the Build Back Better Bill,even as the Russia-Ukraine War and the likely prospect of Roe v. Wade being overturned dominate attention in Washington.

The saga alsoillustrates how you can come from one of the smallest, least economically powerful states in the country and be one of the most powerful politicians in the country: Delaware and West Virginia are two such states.

Only in America do we see such a wide distribution of power and only in America do we see a federal government as incapable of implementing major change. In parliamentary democracies, the executive and legislature are, in most cases, from the same party. When they want to move left, they do; when they want to move right, they do.

Democrats in Washington todayare still fighting over whether to be moderates or progressives:They are stuck.Some prominent swing state U.S. Senate primary races such as Pennsylvania and North Carolina have seen progressive rather than moderate candidates elected, but no one knows if this will pay off in the general election, especially against Trump-aligned Republicans.

On Capitol Hill,insidershave beensaying that prospects of a Biden rescue of core elements of the Build Back Better Bill, including extending the child tax credit, child care subsidies, and lower prescription drug costs, are slim. This is the caseso long as Manchin,whose popularity in conservative West Virginia soared 17 percent during the last year as he blocked the Biden agenda, has a vote in the U.S. Senate. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) is also an impediment, but less of a challenge.

Its time forSenate Majority LeaderChuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to advance one or more bills that will transcend the moderate vs. progressive battle.The national Democratic Party needs to be reset, even though most individual races will lean progressive or moderate. At some point, the entire party needs to move forward toward a new center for the entire country.

If the party cannot heal itself, it cannot heal the nation.

One place to start is family policy. Democrats want paid parental leave and major child care subsidies. Republicans have not budged.Democrats need togive in: Give the Republicans something that would interest them, notably a tax credit for stay-at-home parents.Give hard-working middle-class parents a choice between such a tax credit and child care subsidies after a period of paid parental leave.

Providing this option would speak to the massive cultural conflict in the country that is typically submerged in family policy debates: the side that wants to give women the path back to work after giving birth, and thesidethat wants parents toreceive the choice to have one of them to stay home for several years with a newborn, actually mom or dad, or one of the moms or dads if it is an LGBTQ family.

Since the 1980s, Democrats have failed to pass paid parental leave and major child care subsidies at the federal level;its time to adopta different strategy.

Even if offering the tax credit for stay-at-home parentsfails to convince Manchin, it would help many of the Democrats running in November get reelected or elected for the first time because there are millions of voters who would respect a candidate who wanted to offer them or their adult children this choice.

It could help Democrats running for office begin to transcend the moderate vs. progressive battle within the party.

Dave Anderson is the editor of Leveraging: A Political, Economic, and Societal Framework (Springer, 2014). He is also the author of Youth04: Young Voters, the Internet, and Political Power(W.W. Norton & Company, 2004) and co-editor of The Civic Web: Online Politics and Democratic Values (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003). He has taught at George Washington University, the University of Cincinnati, and Johns Hopkins University. He was a candidate in the 2016 Democratic Primary in Marylands 8thCongressional District.

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Democrats need to break out of struggle between moderates and progressives - The Hill

President Biden may be a lot of things, but Extremely Online isn't one of them. In fact, his allies have often boasted that he won the White House precisely by ignoring progressive chatter on the internet.

"There is a conversation that's going on on Twitter that they don't care about," a Democratic strategist said during the 2020 presidential campaign. "They won the primary by ignoring all of that. The Biden campaign does not care about the critical race theory-intersectional Left that has taken over places like the New York Times." This attitude, the argument goes, went on to serve them well in November.

But some of the people who have gone to work for Biden care a great deal about the Twitter conversation, in which they are enthusiastic participants. And it keeps getting them in trouble.

New White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre may be a subdued presence in the briefing room, but she certainly popped off a good bit on Twitter (and a handful of MSNBC appearances). Those tweets about stolen elections and the alleged racism of a network she now takes questions from got attention. Perhaps someday someone will even ask her about them!

Neera Tanden's nomination for Office of Management and Budget director was withdrawn in no small part because of mean tweets that offended various lawmakers. She now must confine her employment opportunities to parts of the White House that do not require Senate confirmation.

Tweets, and comments about Twitter, played an outsized role in the ouster of Nina Jankowicz and the shuttering of the government disinformation board she ever-so-briefly helmed.

Generations of Democrats from the age of 45 on down are going to have plenty of controversial opinions that they have painstakingly preserved on social media. It will be easy for their opponents in Congress and the press to track them down. It will come back to haunt them as surely as that college Facebook picture of a keg stand that is now being viewed by a consulting firm's human resources department.

Republicans are not immune from this trend either. Some Trump appointees ran into a version of this problem too, though usually lower-level ones. The former president's real-time Twitter habit was a constant source of controversy until his pre-Elon Musk ban. But younger people will hold higher positions in the next GOP administration and see their profiles scoured for wrongthink.

Blue checks won't be allowed to go unchecked.

Link:
A reckoning is coming for blue-checked progressives - The Week