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2023 was a year marked by devastating conflicts from Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine to Hamas's horrific terror attacks on Israel, from that country's indiscriminate mass slaughter in Gaza to a devastating civil war in Sudan. And there's a distinct risk of even worse to come this year. Still, there was one clear winner in this avalanche of violence, suffering, and war: the U.S. military-industrial complex.In December, President Biden signed a record authorization of $886 billion in "national defense" spending for 2024, including funds for the Pentagon proper and work on nuclear weapons at the Department of Energy. Add to that tens of billions of dollars more in likely emergency military aid for Ukraine and Israel, and such spending could well top $900 billion for the first time this year.Meanwhile, the administration's $100-billion-plus emergency military aid package that failed to pass Congress last month is likely to slip by in some form this year, while the House and Senate are almost guaranteed to add tens of billions more for "national defense" projects in specific states and districts, as happened in two of the last three years.Of course, before the money actually starts flowing, Congress needs to pass an appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2024, clearing the way for that money to be spent. As of this writing, the House and Senate had indeed agreed to a tentative deal to sign onto the $886 billion that was authorized in December. A trillion-dollar version of such funding could be just around the corner. (If past practice is any guide, more than half of that sum could go directly to corporations, large and small.)A trillion dollars is a hard figure to process. In the 1960s, when the federal budget was a fraction of what it is now, Republican Senator Everett Dirksen allegedly said, "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money." Whether he did or not, that quote neatly captures how congressional attitudes toward federal spending have changed. After all, today, a billion dollars is less than a rounding error at the Pentagon. The department's budget is now hundreds of billions of dollars more than at the height of the Vietnam War and over twice what it was when President Eisenhower warned of the "unwarranted influence" wielded by what he called "the military-industrial complex."To offer just a few comparisons: annual spending on the costly, dysfunctional F-35 combat aircraft alone is greater than the entire budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2020, Lockheed Martin's contracts with the Pentagon were worth more than the budgets of the State Department and the Agency for International Development combined, and its arms-related revenues continue to rival the government's entire investment in diplomacy. One $13 billion aircraft carrier costs more than the annual budget of the Environmental Protection Agency. Overall, more than half of the discretionary budget Congress approves every year — basically everything the federal government spends other than on mandatory programs like Medicare and Social Security — goes to the Pentagon.It would, I suppose, be one thing if such huge expenditures were truly needed to protect the country or make the world a safer place. However, they have more to do with pork-barrel politics and a misguided "cover the globe" military strategy than a careful consideration of what might be needed for actual "defense."Congressional FolliesThe road to an $886-billion military budget authorization began early last year with a debt-ceiling deal negotiated by President Biden and then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. That rolled back domestic spending levels, while preserving the administration's proposal for the Pentagon intact. McCarthy, since ousted as speaker, had been pressed by members of the right-wing "Freedom Caucus" and their fellow travelers for just such spending cuts. (He had little choice but to agree, since that group proved to be his margin of victory in a speaker's race that ran to 15 ballots.)There was a brief glimmer of hope that the budget cutters in the Freedom Caucus might also go after the bloated Pentagon budget rather than inflict all the fiscal pain on domestic programs. Prominent right-wing Republicans like Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) pledged to put Pentagon spending reductions "on the table," but then only went after the military's alleged "woke agenda," which boiled down to cutting a few billion dollars slated for fighting racism and sexual harassment while supporting reproductive freedom within the armed forces. Oh wait, Jordan also went after spending on the development of alternative energy sources as "woke." In any case, he focused on just a minuscule share of the department's overall budget.Prominent Republicans outside Congress expressed stronger views about bringing the Pentagon to heel, but their perspectives got no traction on Capitol Hill. For instance, Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation, perhaps America's most influential conservative think tank, made the case for reining in the Pentagon at American Conservative magazine:"In the past, Congress accepted the D.C. canard that a bigger budget alone equals a stronger military. But now, facing down a record debt to the tune of $242,000 per household, conservatives are ready to tackle an entrenched problem and confront the political establishment, unaccountable federal bureaucrats, and well-connected defense contractors all at once in order to keep the nation both solvent and secure."Even more surprising, former Trump Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller released a memoir in which he called for a dramatic slashing of the Pentagon budget. "We could," he argued, "cut our defense budget in half and it would still be twice as big as China's."Ultimately, however, such critiques had zero influence over the Pentagon budget debate in the House, which quickly degenerated into a fight about a series of toxic amendments attacking reproductive freedom and LGTBQ and transgender rights in the military. Representative Colin Allred (D-TX) rightly denounced such amendments as a "shameful display of extremism" and across-the-board opposition by Democrats ensured that the first iteration of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2024 would be defeated and some of the most egregious Republican proposals eliminated later in the year. In the meantime, virtually all mainstream press coverage and most congressional debate focused on those culture war battles rather than why this country was poised to shove so much money at the Pentagon in the first place.Threat Inflation and the "Arsenal of Democracy"Perhaps you won't be surprised to learn that the strategic rationales put forward for the flood of new Pentagon outlays don't faintly hold up to scrutiny. First and foremost in the Pentagon's argument for virtually unlimited access to the Treasury is the alleged military threat posed by China. But as Dan Grazier of the Project on Government Oversight has pointed out, that country's military strategy is "inherently defensive":"[T]he investments being made [by China] are not suited for foreign adventurism but are instead designed to use relatively low-cost weapons to defend against massively expensive American weapons. The nation's primary military strategy is to keep foreign powers, and especially the United States, as far away from its shores as possible in a policy the Chinese government calls 'active defense.'"The greatest point of potential conflict between the U.S. and China is, of course, Taiwan. But a war over that island would come at a staggering cost for all concerned and might even escalate into a nuclear confrontation. A series of war games conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) found that, while the United States could indeed "win" a war defending Taiwan from a Chinese amphibious assault, it would be a Pyrrhic victory. "The United States and its allies lost dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and tens of thousands of servicemembers," it reported. "Taiwan saw its economy devastated. Further, the high losses damaged the U.S. global position for many years." And a nuclear confrontation between China and the United States, which CSIS didn't include in its assessment, would be a first-class catastrophe of almost unimaginable proportions.The best route to preventing a future Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be to revive Washington's "One China" policy that calls for China to commit itself to a peaceful resolution of Taiwan's status and for the U.S. to forswear support for that island's formal independence. In other words, diplomacy, rather than increasing the Pentagon budget to "win" such a war, would be the way to go.The second major driver of higher Pentagon budgets is allegedly the strain on this country's arms manufacturing base caused by supplying tens of billions of dollars of weaponry to Ukraine, including artillery shells and missiles that are running short in American stockpiles. The answer, according to the Pentagon and the arms industry, is to further supersize this country's already humongous military-industrial complex to produce enough weaponry to supply Ukraine (and now Israel, too), while acquiring sufficient weapons systems for a future war with China.There are two problems with such arguments. First, supplying Ukraine doesn't justify a permanent expansion of the U.S. arms industry. In fact, such aid to Kyiv needs to be accompanied by a now-missing diplomatic strategy designed to head off an even longer, ever more grinding war.Second, the kinds of weapons needed for a war with China would, for the most part, be different from those relevant to a land war in Ukraine, so weaponry sent to Ukraine would have little relevance to readiness for a potential war with China (which Washington should, in any case, be working to prevent, not preparing for). The Disastrous Costs of a Militarized Foreign PolicyBefore investing ever more tax dollars in building an ever-expanding garrison state, the military strategy of the United States in the current global environment should be seriously debated. Just buying ever more bombs, missiles, drones, and next-generation artificial intelligence-driven weaponry is not, in fact, a strategy, though it is a boon to the military-industrial complex and an invitation to a destabilizing new arms race.Unfortunately, neither Congress nor the Biden administration seems inclined to seriously consider an approach that would emphasize investing in diplomatic and economic tools over force or the threat of force. Given this country's staggeringly expensive failures in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in this century (which cost trillions of dollars), resulting in hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties, and leaving staggering numbers of American veterans with physical and psychological injuries (as extensively documented by the Costs of War Project at Brown University), you might think a different approach to the use of your tax dollars was in order, but no such luck.There are indeed a few voices in Congress advocating restraint at the Pentagon, including Representatives Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Barbara Lee (D-CA), who have proposed a $100 billion reduction in that department's budget as a first step toward a more balanced national security policy. Such efforts, however, must overcome an inhospitable political environment created by the endlessly exaggerated military threats facing this country and the political power of the arms industry, as well as its allies in Washington. Those allies, of course, include President Biden, who has labeled the U.S. an "arsenal of democracy" in his efforts to promote a new round of weapons aid to Ukraine. Not unlike his predecessor, he is touting the potential benefits of arms-production investments in companies in electoral swing states.Sadly, throwing more money at the arms industry sacrifices future needs for short-term economic gains that are modest indeed. Were that money going into producing green jobs, a more resilient infrastructure, improved scientific and technical education, and a more robust public health system, we would find ourselves in a different world. Those should be the pillars of any American economic revival rather than the all-too-modest side effects of weapons development in fueling economic growth. Despite huge increases in funding since the 1980s, actual jobs in the arms manufacturing industry have, in fact, plummeted from three million to 1.1 million — and, mind you, those figures come from the arms industry's largest trade association. The United Auto Workers, one of the unions with the most members working in the arms industry, has recognized this reality and formed a Just Transition Committee. As noted by Spencer Ackerman at the Nation, it's designed to "examine the size, scope, and impact of the U.S. military-industrial complex that employs thousands of UAW members and dominates the global arms trade." According to Brandon Mancilla, director of the UAW's Region 9A, which represents 50,000 active and retired workers in New York, New England, and Puerto Rico, the committee will "think about what it would mean to actually have a just transition, what used to be called a 'peace conversion,' of folks who work in the weapons and defense industry into something else."The UAW initiative parallels a sharp drop in unionization rates at major weapons makers (as documented by journalist Taylor Barnes). To cite two examples: in 1971, 69% of Lockheed Martin workers were unionized, while in 2022 that number was 19%; at Northrop Grumman today, a mere 4% of its employees are unionized, a dip that reflects a conscious strategy of the big weapons-making firms to outsource work to non-union subcontractors and states with anti-union "right to work" laws, while exporting tens of thousands of jobs overseas as part of multinational projects like the F-35 program. So much for the myth that defense industry jobs are more secure or have better pay and benefits than jobs in other parts of the economy.A serious national conversation is needed on what a genuine defense strategy would look like, rather than one based on fantasies of global military dominance. Otherwise, the overly militarized approach to foreign and economic policy that has become the essence of Washington budget-making could be extended endlessly and disastrously into the future, something this country literally can't afford to let happen.This story was republished, with permission, from Tom Dispatch

 To be fair, the friendship was always either nascent or tenuous at best.  That Canada is host to the largest Sikh population outside of India, and like many diasporas, more enthused for more extreme political ends than those back home would set the tension level on "not good" anyway.  Then you add in that India is  ruled by the Hindu Nationalist Party and by Modi, so any friction becomes much hotter and much more useful for domestic political purposes back home.One can start on either side of the Indo-Pacific region on this.  Because my own start as a scholar of the international relations of ethnic politics, which included some study of South Asia, came long before my move to Canada, I will start with the India side. Modi and his party got into power by engaging in ethnic outbidding, by promising to be the best defenders of the Hindu majority, which meant, of course, targeting minorities of all kinds as threats that needed to be put in their place. So, Muslims have paid a significant price for this in India. It has meant in foreign policy that Canada is seen as a real problem, rather than Canada's self-image as the less imperial Commonwealth country that everyone loves more than the US (Canadians take great pride that Americans will put on a Canadian flag on their backpacks when the US is governed by a Bush or Trump).  In Modi's eyes, Canada is a supporter of Sikh separatism. That Sikhs in Canada are politically powerful and use that power to support separatism in the homeland.  Yes, Sikhs are powerful--Trudeau at one point had four Sikhs in his cabinet, far out of proportion to their population, but their population is not small.  Trudeau kept an awful Minister of National Defence because he didn't want to offend a key constituency and source of campaign dollars.  And, yes, an Air India flight was blown up by Canadian-based Sikhs.  The intelligence services and the cops messed up before and afterwards.  So, Indian fans of Modi cite that event as Canada being a base of anti-India terrorism.  The more accurate charge is that Canada continues to be lousy at stopping the flow of money to extremists of all kinds, but, no, Canada is not a place where Sikhs have bases to train for future terrorist attacks. Canada is not Afghanistan of 2001.  Turning to the Canadian side, some folks are accusing Trudeau of playing this up and publicizing this for political gain.  And that is, well, laughable.  There are two dynamics here that are intersecting.  The first is, yes, this government (and any other) would be pandering to Sikh voters, and, yes, significant numbers of folks in this community were asking for the government to take more seriously India's role in the death of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.  The other dynamic is that the Trudeau government has faced much criticism for being slow to deal with China's election interference. So, there has been pressure for Trudeau to act faster.Still, this government did not act precipitously in this case. They did not go public as soon as they got a hint of this.  Instead, they worked their allies, and they sent several folks over to India to get their support for an investigation, including Canada's National Security and Intelligence Advisor, Jody Thomas. They were rebuffed. It seems clear that the government would have liked to have continued to handle this quietly, but they got alerted that a reporter was going to release a story on this.  With more stories coming out that the US was the country that had provided some signals intel to Canada that supported the India connection in Nijjar's death, I am pretty convinced that, yes, India through its intelligence services had this guy killed, directly or indirectly. I am biased in this, as I have long been suspicious of Modi and his Hindu National party.  But the pattern of events seems to make it clear that there is more than just a little something to this. While India can be upset that Sikhs in Canada protest against India and support Sikh separatism, and that politicians took the sides of protesters in India over changes in agriculture policy last year, none of that justifies killing a Canadian citizen on Canadian territory. This is not what friends do to each other.  Unless something happened that I am not aware of, at no point did the British whack any fundraiser in Boston seeking to support the Irish Republican Army.  Modi did this because he is arrogant, and he may be right that he can get away with it since the US needs India in its anti-China containment efforts. And, yes, he would not be the first autocratic-leaning leader to bully Canada. It has been open season for some time with China, Russia, and the Saudis taking turns, with the Iranians also engaged in election interference.My pals in Ottawa who work in and near the intel scene are pretty outraged at how lamely this government and previous ones have dealt with such stuff. I am not sure better reactions would have mattered that much since the asymmetries in these situations are pretty stark, but, yes, Canada can do better on protecting its citizens, including those in the various diaspora communities, than it has.I don't expect things to get better between India and Canada. Modi is scoring a lot of points on this at home. Trudeau is not, but he is stuck. I have often wondered why his government pandered so much to Sikhs when there are also other Indian-Canadians here, and that pandering to one side might be problematic for the other. In this case, where a Canadian was killed, taking this seriously is less about the pandering of the past and more of the challenge of defending Canadians from backsliding democracies. 

Article about Brooks Hays along with personal interview in (We the people of) North Carolina magazine ; "It's been said time and again-and it's 100 per cent true-that the white man cannot hold back the black man without holding himself back at the same time. I hope all North Carolina employers will listen with total sensitivity to what legitimate spokesmen of the minority groups are saying. And I hope our businessmen will take more time to learn about the unconscious discrimination which unfortunately is still practiced." Hays: I'm a moderate - that's a rather worn out word but it's what I am and I'm proud to say so. One of my books is entitled, "A Southern Moderate Speaks." The Bible, you know, counsels moderation in all things. Once I expressed my concern to a Negro friend over the drift of blacks away from moderate thought and action. He countered by asking me why I didn't get more of my white friends to become moderates. I told him that's what I've been trying to do much of my life. N.C.: What is your view of the causes of the decline of moderation by black groups and their drift toward militancy or extremism? Hays: I think a minority group that encounters continued frustration tends to move to more extreme positions - I can understand it even while not approving of it. We have to understand that the black community is restless, will demand more and more a full participation in our economic life. N.C.: Isn't it true that many blacks nowadays regard the moderate viewpoint as one which gets nothing accomplished? Hays: Yes, but that isn't my kind of moderation. I don't believe in temporizing about urgent matters, such as holding back economic opportunity and racial justice. N.C.: Has the black community really moved so far beyond moderation that it listens to its own extremists rather than its moderates? Hays: I think the black community still holds a considerable reservoir of good will toward whites, toward the economic, political and legal system. In fact, I think the responsible black leaders have pretty well repudiated the Rap Browns. N.C.: Well, is progress being made in better economic, educational and other opportunities for Negroes? Hays: Of course it is. And more will be made. N.C.: As Chairman of the North Carolina Good Neighbor Council, how do you assess the state of race relations here? Hays: I could hardly be called an expert on the situation in this state, and you should remember that Fred Cooper, not I, is the full-time staff official for the Council. I used to think that North Carolina was the unquestioned leader in social and race relations. Now I'm afraid we've slowed down in this regard. There's still time for us to pick up the pace again. North Carolina has the potential to be a real model in racial progress. We were spared much of the pathology of Reconstruction times because this was largely a state of freeholders - there were relatively frew [sic] owners of slaves. Consequently the residual bitterness and racial prejudice didn't run as deep in North Carolina as in some of the other southern states. N.C.: What advice would you have for the state's business leaders on how they might further better race relations? Hays: They should recognize - and many of them do - that the future economic development of North Carolina and other southern states is going to depend on utilizing Negro manpower. Our economic future hinges upon developing and training and hiring our black population for better and more responsible jobs. Certainly I believe all employers should pay equal wages for equal responsibility without any racial discrimination. That doesn't always happen. It's been said time and again - and it's 100 per cent true - that the white man cannot hold back the black man without holding himself back at the same time. I hope all North Carolina employers will listen with total sensitivity to what legitimate spokesmen of the minority groups are saying. And I hope our businessmen will take more time to learn about the unconscious discrimination which unfortunately is still practiced. N.C.: What do you mean by unconscious discrimination? Hays: I'll give you an example I know about personally. A Negro foreman in a certain industrial plant had been there for years. He trained white boys coming to work there and soon they were making more money than he was. When this was called to the attention of the executives they corrected it. He was a valuable employee who was being held down, not because of any real intent, but because the situation just didn't come to the attention of the right people. N.C.: Do you think the black community is fully aware of improvements that are being worked at and accomplished for them? Hays: Not always. Quite often inequities like the one I mentioned are corrected but the word never reaches those who most need to know it. Whenever something like that happens, we in the Good Neighbor Council want it proclaimed. That's one of the things the Council exists for. And that name - Good Neighbor - is the best I can think of. I'm very proud to be its chairman. I had heard of and been impressed by the organization years before I moved to North Carolina. And I was proud to speak at its annual meeting in December of 1968. N.C.: What do you view as the Council's proper functions? Hays: I agree with Fred Cooper - the executive director - that they are twofold. First, there's the short-range objective of putting out brush fires before they become big ones. Fred and his staff spend a lot of time on that aspect. Second is the longer range objective of education and persuasion aimed at ending all discrimination continued page 44 21

The largest and fastest growing minority in the United States has not yet reached the level of political participation that could transform its numbers into tangible political power. Still, its surge, especially in certain key "battle" states, will be crucial for the outcome of the 2012 election. This realization has both parties scrambling to reach out to Hispanics. For the first time, an anti-Obama advertisement campaign has been launched in Spanish language in the state of Virginia, for example. This unprecedented move is part of a two-month, twenty million dollar anti -Obama push paid for by conservative group Crossroads GPS. The Obama White House has also organized its early campaign stage around this reality: it is consistently sending out emails in Spanish to its Latino constituents, enlisting their support with voter registration and the mobilization of their communities. Overall, the 2010 Census found that the number of eligible Hispanic voters has gone from 18million in 2008 to 22 million in 2010. This, coupled with the esoteric Electoral College voting system based on Winner Takes All by state, brings into sharp focus the importance of the Hispanic vote in the 2012 presidential election.The huge increase in Hispanic voting population in several key "swing" states which Obama won in 2008 is not going unnoticed by his campaign. Between 2008 and 2010, the voting age Latino population has grown by 19% in Virginia, by 20% in Nevada and by 40% in North Carolina. In Florida, the largest and most competitive swing state, it grew by 13%, adding 250,000 new voters. The arithmetic is pretty clear, to be re-elected, President Obama needs to win these states and that is why he is already campaigning in each of them.Obama won 67% of the Hispanic vote in 2008, but many voters, disillusioned with the high unemployment rate in the community (11.3%, compared to the national 9% rate), and the failure of the administration to make comprehensive immigration reform a priority, may not show up on election day. As usual, turn out will be key. The latest Gallup poll found that his approval among Hispanics is only 48%. This decrease in support is mainly due to economic woes and the fact that many in the community have been unable to refinance their mortgages and are losing their houses. To this it must be added that the loss of support is to some extent of his own making. In order to prove his security credentials with the country at large, Obama has deported more than one million of illegal immigrants in three years. Although he gave directives to his ICE agents to focus on those with a criminal record, the fact is this puts him at odds with the community and undermines his canvassing efforts and Latino youth outreach in the neighborhoods.On the other hand, given the deep discontent with the economic situation, the Republican Party is missing a great opportunity to bring at least some part of the Hispanic vote back to their party. While GW Bush got 44% of the Hispanic vote in 2004, John Mc Cain got only 31% in 2008. In the Senate, he had been a supporter of immigration reform and had cooperated with Edward Kennedy to introduce a comprehensive immigration reform bill that failed. Once he became a presidential candidate, he was bashed by the other candidates in the primary and completely changed his tune, saying he did believe in border security first. Such is the nature of primaries and their transformative power. This same kind of rhetoric still permeates the Republican primary today and is alienating Hispanics faster than any Crossroads ads bashing Obama.Just like the rest of the population, the main concern of Latino voters is slow economic growth coupled with high unemployment. However, they cannot ignore the offensive rhetoric that Republican primary candidates are spewing in order to energize their white rural base. Immigration has turned out to be a fundamental wedge issue among GOP candidates, and probably the one that allows them to throw the most "red meat" to the Tea Party wing of the electorate. Rick Perry, for example, was lambasted for his sensible, moderate immigration stance of allowing some undocumented Latino high school graduates living in the State of Texas to pay the same lower tuition rates as the rest of Texas residents. Herman Cain called for an electrified fence to prevent Mexicans from entering the United States (later he claimed it was a joke and apologized, but very few could see the humor in it). Michelle Bachman had earlier raised the issue of the so-called "anchor babies" whose mothers "purposefully" come to the United States to give birth so that their children will be US citizens; this led to the formation of a whole movement within the extreme wing of the party to change the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees citizenship to those born here. Responding to this demand, a group of GOP lawmakers very irresponsibly formed a committee to give "serious consideration" to the issue. Of course this is all a political move. This is a country of immigrants, and getting rid of the 14th Amendment would mean casting away one of its most valued foundational principles. One wonders if anti-Obama Spanish-language ads will be enough to counteract what seems to be a GOP all-out effort to offend not only Latinos but all citizens born here from immigrant parents.Historically, with the exception of the early arrived Cuban-Americans and other smaller Latino elites in Miami, Hispanic voters flock naturally to the Democratic Party because it is the party that focuses on jobs, public education, redistribution of wealth and welfare benefits, all values that are in line with what most Latino immigrants expect from the government. However, many are social conservatives and on social policies like abortion and gay marriage, they are ideologically closer to Republicans. The 2010 mid-term elections resulted in 30 Latinos being elected to the US House; and although Democratic candidates won the Latino votes, in most cases by wide margins, there were three important exceptions: a young Cuban, Marco Rubio, got elected to the US Senate in Florida, and two governorships were also won by Republican Hispanics (New Mexico and Nevada). Marco Rubio is constantly mentioned among the pundits as a likely GOP vice-presidential candidate, and by the way he consistently ducks the issue of immigration reform, he will accept it if offered. As these important recent victories show, there appears to be an opening for the GOP to recover some swathes of the Latino electorate.Republican tough rhetoric on tall electrified fences, on denying services and ending birth citizenship rights for immigrants' children will most likely subside immediately after the primary election. Once results are known and the anointed candidate starts his national campaign, the tone will be completely different. However, this kind of insensitive, offensive talk about Hispanics on the part of the candidates is neither prudent nor wise. At the ballot box, strong emotions often trump rational arguments, and even if they blame the president for the state of the economy and feel somewhat neglected by Obama, Hispanics will probably continue to favor Democrats over Republicans. As recognized by responsible voices within the GOP establishment such as Jeb Bush, this is a long-term strategic problem for the party.In 2010, Senator majority leader Harry Reid was very close to losing his seat to a Tea Party candidate when he decided to mobilize the Latino base: he promised them he would bring the DREAM Act to the floor again. This bill, which would allow undocumented students a path to citizenship if they meet certain requirements, including making good grades in school and serving in the military, had been removed from the Congressional agenda until 2013. By simply saying he would bring it back to the floor for debate, Harry Reid won the election, as Latinos came out en masse to vote for him. Both parties should consider taking a page out of Senator Reid's playbook. Whoever reaches out and strongly insists on rational Immigration Reform, thereby reassuring Hispanics they too can have their share of the American dream, will greatly enhance his or her chances of winning a large percentage of the Hispanic vote and with it, the White House. For their part, Hispanic voters should realize the potential of their own demographic power and bring it to political fruition.Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Science and Geography Director, ODU Model United Nations Program Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia

Four years ago, the largest single mistake in U.S.
public health history began its commencement, leaving former Democrat Gov. John
Bel Edwards to manufacture the most unsavory portion of his legacy, along with
others.

With a paucity of information about the Wuhan
coronavirus in mid-March, 2020, it's difficult to fault the extreme steps taken
initially over the next few months. These comprised of closing schools, closing
of all but the smallest public gatherings, restricting commercial activities,
and requiring social distancing including face coverings.

Yet
within three months it had become clear enough that much of this was or had
been ineffective. Because the virus was quite selective in who got hit hardest –
those with co-morbidities, followed by the elderly – the overwhelming majority
of the public, and especially children, would face no more than an inconvenient
respiratory virus of relatively short duration. In this time span, it became
clear that these punitive measures Edwards imposed for the vast
majority cost much more than any benefits that might accrue – learning and
developmental loss among children, tremendous economic dislocation, and assaults
on personal liberties.

Alternative models already existed for Edwards'
consideration by the time the 2020 school year commenced. Internationally, on
almost every measure the light touch practiced by Sweden avoided these costs.
Nationally, other
states' governors far less severely locked down their states and reaped the
same benefits.

Edwards made matters worse, when availability
arrived by the end of the year, by imposing unnecessary and intrusive
vaccination policies on adults and worst of all on children without
co-morbidities. The research has shown because of the extremely low benefit for
children that becomes microscopic for those below the age of 5 since almost
none suffer more than minorly, because detrimental side effect risks remained,
even if very low in probability, overall children were put at unnecessary risk
with vaccinations.

Even
if he backed off from his goal of forcing vaccinations and/or frequent testing
on state employees for its impracticality and bad optics (by the fall of 2021),
for a time he tried to strongarm educational institutions into forcing their employees
and students to have the same. Colleges were allowed free rein, and they
stupidly did, to impose such rules. Worse, he pushed through a rule forcing
that vaccination on school children that, again, proved so at odds with the science
and public that only months later he had
to retreat sheepishly.

Chalk up his enthusiasm for defying the science to
his leftist impulse towards command and control, where mandates increased
government power. As well, being a politician who focused more on retaining power
than in deferring it to allow individuals greater autonomy, he fell prey to the
zero
COVID fantasy and attendant myths
(such as acquired immunity wasn't as good as vaccination, vaccines would prevent
spread, and a host of others) to stave of fear that his political standing
would be injured significantly with every single death that could be traced
back to the virus.

Which ended
up spreading blood on his hands. While overaggressive pandemic policies may
have saved some lives, statistics would verify over time that on net they cost
more. People couldn't access crucial medical interventions and restrictions
produced mental stress that, the data showed, led to Louisiana ranking among
the highest in excess deaths not attributable directly to the virus.

It's not like any of these warts and alternative
approaches to his weren't known within months of the pandemic descending, yet
for the next couple of years that he continued to insist on strict measures (and
ineffective ones; besides indicating that through the links in this post and
the links within those, there's here,
here,
here,
here,
and here,
among many others). Unfortunately, he had many other enablers who either didn't
stand up to speak necessary truth to power, or who actively aided him in leaving
this miserable legacy.

If it was Edwards who had blood on his hands from
his pandemic policy, the apparatchik most responsible for handing him
the knife was former state epidemiologist Joe Kanter. He came to the office a
few months into the pandemic when it was peaking, upon the previous occupant
resigning for what he said were personal reasons (who months
later took a private sector job on the east coast). If Edwards was wanting
a yes man to add a veneer of respect to his decisions, he found the right guy.

Kanter supplied
full-throated support to a number of now-discredited policy choices by
Edwards, with whom he shares political ideology. He kept up a drumbeat of alarmist
rhetoric that never panned out and acted as chief cheerleader for every
restriction or as thugee
trying to suppress dissent. Even as recently as a year ago, in his official
capacity he was pimping vaccination for infants. He didn't last two months into
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry's
term, either or both because Landry couldn't stomach his policy preferences and
history or he knew because of that Landry would show him the door sometime soon;
regardless, he has been shamelessly unrepentant
to the end.

If Kanter was Edwards' consigliere in the
unfolding poor and unscientific policy choices, a pair of milquetoast Republican
legislative leaders ended up facilitating these. Former House Speaker Clay
Schexnayder and former Sen. Pres. Page Cortez, despite multiple opportunities
offered by their party members, did little to put up resistance to Edwards'
agenda. They allowed many bills that would have clipped Edwards' wings, if not
reverse his moves, either to die
in their chambers or didn't
back their revival as part of veto override votes. They even refused until
too late to back a petition
that could have done the same.

While a number of almost exclusively Republicans
in the legislature and in some local governments did their best to overcome Edwards'
destructive pandemic agenda, one prominent appointed official stood out
heroically: Superintendent of Education Cade
Brumley, who didn't assume the post until a couple of months into the
pandemic. He defied Edwards and Kanter by refusing to order students out of
classrooms statewide after the last couple months of the 2020 academic year, leaving
it up to districts to decide, and he eventually he scrapped the rule that said
students without symptoms but who had family members come down with the virus couldn't
attend in-person instruction.

In fact, as a result of Brumley's decisions, Louisiana
students' learning weathered better than just about any states' students in the
pandemic period, and the dismal overall rankings the state received for
pandemic policy didn't hit bottom solely because its education policy
performance turned out near the top. (I was anything but his many media critics,
but if it helps, "OK,
Brumley was right").

Four years have passed, and what did and didn't
work and who were the responsible villains and heroes need public refreshing so
that those whose moves disserved the state and those moves don't get lost in a
memory hole (a binning no doubt encouraged by those at fault) that would hinder
future publics from avoiding the same mistakes again.

As Congress starts its last scheduled workweek of 2023, observers are becoming increasingly concerned that U.S. aid for Ukraine will at least temporarily run out.The reality of the situation is starting to set in both in Washington and Kyiv. The Biden administration announced recently that aid will run out before the end of the year, and Joe Biden himself argued last week that a cutoff in funding could lead to a direct Russia-NATO conflict.These stark warnings led Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to make a surprise visit to the United States this week for emergency meetings with the White House and congressional leadership. It remains unclear whether his pitch will prove convincing to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who now poses the largest obstacle to continued aid.So what actually happens if U.S. support for Ukraine dries up? While Kyiv could likely weather a short gap in funding, a longer delay or even permanent cutoff would force the Ukrainians to substantially cut back their military operations, raising the possibility that Russia could reverse Ukraine's hard-won gains in the country's east. The sudden move would also make it substantially harder to reach a negotiated solution in the short term, according to George Beebe of the Quincy Institute."[T]hose tempted to believe that the United States could end the war by simply ending its aid to Ukraine should think hard" about how such a move would affect Kyiv's leverage in talks, Beebe argued in RS."The United States should not remove cards from its hand by ending aid to Ukraine unilaterally or playing them prematurely," he wrote. "But unless it moves quickly to complement aid with diplomacy, it may find that the opportunity to play its cards has suddenly disappeared."Playing the numbers gameOne important factor complicating discussions about future aid is the widespread uncertainty about exactly how much cash the U.S. still has left to burn. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said in October that even Congress has struggled at times to get a straight answer on a deadline for new funding.
As of last month, the White House said it had spent roughly 96% of the more than $100 billion Congress has allocated for Ukraine. A Pentagon accounting error left the Department of Defense with several billion dollars of extra "presidential drawdown authority," which allows the Biden administration to send equipment from U.S. stockpiles. But there is only about $1 billion in funding left to replace those weapons, and the White House has so far been reluctant to send arms without promises to replace them, according to Mark Cancian of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The impact of a cutoff in funding would not be immediately apparent, especially given the slow pace of fighting during the winter, but would lead to a progressive reduction in Ukrainian operations, Cancian told RS. In his estimation, the pace of aid is "already declining" when compared with the early days of the war, though a steady stream of weapons deliveries will continue for years given the timeline needed to produce new arms.
"As that flow declines, then Ukraine's military capability will decline with it," Cancian said. "At some point, probably in January, they would be unable to launch a full-scale counteroffensive, and then maybe in February they'd be unable to do any attacks at all."
"Maybe later in the spring, Ukraine would be hard-pressed to hold the Russians off," he continued. "It's not that they won't have any [weapons], but they won't have the flow that's needed to maintain operations at a high level."
Biden's supplemental request would allocate about $59 billion in funds related to Ukraine. One third of that goes to humanitarian aid and direct economic support, while the majority goes to various military funding needs.
Of the $38.7 billion in military aid, roughly $30 billion is earmarked for purchasing weapons to send Ukraine or drawing down U.S. stockpiles. The remaining $8 billion would support the expanded U.S. troop presence in Europe in response to the Ukraine war, with a small portion of funds going to aid oversight.
Cancian noted that much of this funding should be understood as an investment in the U.S. economy given how much of it will be directed to American contractors. This argument, which the Biden administration has also made, has drawn criticism from opponents of increased military spending, who note that defense dollars produce fewer jobs than many other forms of government spending.On the economic front, a sudden cutoff in U.S. funding would be less drastic than an end to military spending given that much of Ukraine's budgetary aid comes from the European Union. Though even that funding could be blocked by Hungary, which, under right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has often frustrated its European partners. (Zelensky and Orban appeared to get into a heated argument on the sidelines of the presidential inauguration in Argentina this past weekend.)Political reverberationsAn end to U.S. aid would be a sharp rebuke of the Biden administration, which has long argued that American support for Ukraine will last as long as it takes for Kyiv to achieve its stated aim of retaking all of its territory, including Crimea.
Many believe that European states would also pull back their funding if American support ends, according to Cancian. "The logic is the same as in the U.S.," he explained. "They have elements that are opposing, on both the left and the right, the high costs and the lack of success. If the United States stops, then many of their critics will point to this and say, 'The United States is stopping. Why are we sending money for a failing effort?'"
As the possibility of an aid cutoff grows, some analysts have argued that it's time for the Biden administration to shift its approach to the war and set more realistic objectives — a move that could tamp down concerns in Europe while also responding to the White House's domestic critics, who argue that the president has no clear strategy for the war.
"[T]he White House should seek to build a new narrative: that this is a war of defence for Ukraine, and a strategic defeat for Russia, and that the US can support Ukraine while also acknowledging that there are other national security priorities that might need to take precedence," Emma Ashford of the Stimson Center argued in The Guardian. "This narrative is less aspirational, but more pragmatic.""[M]ost importantly, if the Biden administration is re-elected in November, this approach would place them in a much stronger position to pursue armistice negotiations in late 2024," Ashford wrote.

While the United States remains the dominant extra-regional superpower as the war between Hamas and Israel threatens to spread more broadly, China's growing presence across the Middle East raises important questions about how it conceives its response to the crisis.Enjoying close ties to Israel and decent relations with major Palestinian and Lebanese players, including Hamas and Hezbollah, Beijing's foreign policy in the post-Mao era has been quite balanced between Israel and Arab actors. But Israel's conduct of the war is pushing Beijing to take a stance that is increasingly pro-Palestinian, which risks harming its relations with Tel Aviv.China's main interestsUltimately, what China wants in the Middle East more than anything else is stability. The region is extremely important to the success of the Belt and Road Initiative, which will face serious problems if wars continue to plague the region. To help stabilize the Gulf, in particular, China played a catalyzing role in the renormalization of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran almost eight months ago. Now, he escalating conflict in Israel/Palestine and along the Israeli border with Lebanon has raised growing concern in Beijing about the possibility of a wider war. Beijing has called for a ceasefire, followed by a lasting political settlement to the conflict based on the implementation of a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians as the best course.China and Israel's multifaceted and complicated bilateral relationship has evolved over the decades. Under Chairman Mao Zedong's rule (1949-76), China supported left-wing and "radical" Arab regimes — namely Algeria, Egypt, South Yemen, and Syria — as well as national liberation movements in the Middle East, including the Palestinian struggle. By contrast, Mao saw Israel as a base of Western imperialism in the Arab world. But since Beijing and Tel Aviv established diplomatic relations in 1992, economic relations between China and Israel have flourished across countless sectors, including technology, infrastructure, tourism, health, education, logistics, ports, and cosmetics. There is also a history of a military-tech exchange between the two countries going back to the 1980s. Sino-Israeli relations have deepened to the point where U.S. officials have pressured Tel Aviv to cool its ties with the Asian giant.Despite these deep economic relations, however, China has opposed Israel's occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territory outside its United Nations-recognized borders and criticized its past bombing campaigns against Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon. Unlike Israel, the United States and some other Western states, China has refused to designate Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations, instead viewing them as legitimate representatives of segments of the population in Palestine and Lebanon.Beijing reacts to Hamas' surprise attackIn response to Hamas' unprecedented incursion into southern Israel on October 7 and the Israeli bombing campaign of Gaza that followed, Beijing has stressed three main messages. First, it condemned all attacks on civilians. Second, it called for the reactivation of dialogue between the warring sides. Finally, it has called for the effective establishment of a Palestinian state based alongside Israel's 1949-67 borders."China has tried to maintain [neutrality], criticize attacks on civilians, and call for de-escalation and ceasefire," said Yun Sun, co-director of the China Program at the Washington-based Stimson Center, in an interview with RS. "Hamas's attacks on civilians are inexcusable. But for China, Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian territory is also the origin of the attacks."China's response to October 7 was similar to the way Beijing positioned itself after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, according to some experts. "If in Ukraine there was talk of a 'pro-Russian neutrality,' in this case it is a 'pro-Palestinian neutrality,'" according to Enrico Fardella, Director of the Italy-based ChinaMED Project."Neutrality is functional to maximize [China's] diplomatic flexibility by presenting itself as the only major power capable of dialogue with both sides," he told RS. "This serves to win consensus at the center (among all those actors critical of the [Benjamin] Netanyahu government but at the same time disgusted by Hamas' brutalities), showing the superiority of its own diplomatic action in the face of the American one that is decidedly pro-Israel. The pro-Palestinian component, on the other hand, serves to gather support on the left, i.e., in the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel (and therefore anti-American) area inside and outside the Middle East."Can China help de-escalate?Earlier this year, the Chinese offered to mediate between the Israelis and Palestinians. Now more than ever, the region could benefit from an outside actor playing an effective peacemaking role. But given Beijing's apparent inability to muster the leverage necessary to bring the Israelis and Palestinians toward a peaceful settlement, it is doubtful that China can succeed."We know that Beijing wants to prevent the escalation of the crisis, but I do not think that it has enough instruments to defuse the crisis," said Nurettin Akçay, of the Center for Global Studies at Shanghai University. He explained that China's limited leverage over Israel is a major obstacle to Beijing successfully de-escalating this conflict through diplomatic means. "It is my belief that China's position in the Middle East is somewhat overstated. Its actual power to shape events in the region is quite limited, despite its economic clout. The ongoing crisis has highlighted the fact that China lacks the necessary hard power to pursue its objectives," he told RS."I think all countries that call for de-escalation will help," noted Sun. "Beijing has relatively good relationships with both Israel and Palestine, as well as other regional players. But such good relationships do not necessarily translate into influence on such a major issue," she added. "To assume that Beijing can effectively help de-escalate is to assume that parties to the conflict are willing to change their course, which I do not see as probable at this point."Implications for U.S.-Israel tiesHow much the ongoing violence in Israel-Palestine and Lebanon will impact China's relationship with Israel is unclear. In recent years, China has become more vocal about the Palestinian cause, which serves to boost Beijing's standing among governments and societies across the Islamic world and much of the Global South. This has served to differentiate China from the U.S. and helps Beijing to depict Washington as the isolated player on this issue while countering Western efforts to use the Xinjiang human rights file to distance Muslim-majority countries from China.While the Chinese and Israelis have generally managed to separate their political disagreements from their economic ties in recent years, China's increasingly pro-Palestinian position has the potential to create considerable irritation in the bilateral relationship. And while Netanyahu was flirting earlier this year with the idea of traveling to China and meeting with President Xi Jinping in the face of Biden administration's criticism of the Israeli leader's far-right domestic agenda, such a show of defiance and independence seems highly unlikely given both Washington's strong backing for Israel in the current conflict and Beijing's more pro-Palestinian position.

Ten years after Chinese President Xi Jinping announced China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Kazakhstan and Indonesia, a new connectivity initiative was unveiled with great fanfare by the United States, India, and the Arab Gulf and European countries during the G20 meeting in New Delhi earlier this month.Since the announcement was made without the presence of the Russian and Chinese presidents, it has stirred conflicting interpretations. Some see it as a potential alternative to BRI, while others, pointing to the failure of similar projects backed by Western powers in the past, view it as a paper tiger.Details are still missing, but the project's ambition is enormous. It follows a transregional approach as noted by the White House statement: "Through the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), we aim to usher in a new era of connectivity with a railway, linked through ports connecting Europe, the Middle East, and Asia."The idea of this corridor dates back to 2021 and has also been discussed as part of the I2U2 group that includes India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United States. Like the BRI, its design vision follows the corridor's logic. This is no surprise. "Corridorization" is the most significant spatial manifestation of infrastructural capitalism and geo-economics since the beginning of this century.Corridorization, which is part of the thriving "minilateralism" space, could be viewed as contradictory because middle powers are trying to navigate between two hardening geopolitical blocs. But the ongoing process of reshaping the global supply chain connectivities created by decades of globalization could make it a viable proposition.The BRI and the IMEC seem to share many similar goals. But there are also critical geographical differences. Most importantly, the new initiative features India, which has never been part of the BRI, as a central cross-regional player amid rearranged geo-imaginations.Each of the parties to the new initiative comes with its own perspective and interest.For the United States, the I2U2 and IMEC serve as platforms for infrastructure investment, bringing together Middle Eastern and South Asian partners and providing an alternative to Chinese projects. Washington sees this approach as an opportunity to encourage its regional partners to take a more active and independent role in shaping the region's future, allowing the United States to reduce its own resource investment while maintaining its presence and influence.For the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the goal is to strengthen their increasingly diversified and multi-networked economic diplomacy covering a wider geography. Both countries are active members of the BRI, and their cooperation with China is growing. Apart from burgeoning trade, they are dialogue partners of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and will soon become full members of the expanded BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). Both countries are trying to expand their strategic autonomy and vying to become influential regional and international players. Getting involved in multiple new minilateral groupings is a key ingredient of their approach to strengthening their middle power status.As Saudi Arabia opens to the world with a tilt towards China, the UAE has found its new unique selling point in connectivity and multi-alignment. While diverging approaches toward geostrategic and regional issues, particularly China's rising power and global influence, remain a concern, Gulf Arab countries' participation in U.S.-led initiatives reflects their new penchant for equidistance amid U.S.-China competition.Indeed, the United States might see the IMEC as a vehicle to counter China's growing influence in the region. In the Middle East, however, competition and convergence are mixed and less black and white than the increasing U.S.-China bipolarity would suggest. If the United States expects this to be a "counter BRI" move for the region, it will likely be disappointed. Competition in the Indian Ocean could escalate, but potential synergies and convergencies should allow for some degree of mutual accommodation.India, which the United States treats as an "indispensable partner," has been showcasing a good template of multi-alignment for others to follow. It is a member of the Quad and I2U2, both comprising the United States, and it's also a member of BRICS and SCO, with China in both, despite New Delhi's feud with Beijing over border issues. The IMEC adds another thread to its longstanding multi-alignment policy, as it highlights the other connectivity corridor that India is promoting — the International North South Transport Corridor — with Iran and Russia. Together, these projects add value to India's development story and its boast that it is the fastest growing economy in the world.The new economic corridor also envisions the potential addition of Israel. This should be seen as a step in the renewed U.S. efforts to expand the Abraham Accords by facilitating the normalization of Israeli-Saudi relations. This form of regional engagement also allows Israel to manage tensions with the United States, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia in the wake of the politics of a far-right coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.For Israel and the United States, expanding the Abraham Accords, especially to include Saudi Arabia, remains a top priority despite Riyadh's insistence on linking the normalization of relations to progress on the two-state solution. There are tentative indications that Netanyahu might agree to some concessions on the Palestinian front, even at the cost of his right-wing coalition falling apart, in order to capitalize and sustain Israel's broader regional integration.For China, which will soon host the first in-person BRI summit in Beijing after major COVID-19 shutdowns, IMEC throws up a challenge and an opportunity. It could dismissively treat the IMEC like the United States has done with the BRI. The other option, as indicated soon after the G20 meeting, is to demonstrate its openness to support multidirectional connectivity, even if it is not part of this corridor, as long as such projects are "open, inclusive, and form synergy," and do not become "geopolitical tools."The last piece in this new connectivity saga would be Europe, especially the Eastern Mediterranean countries. The IMEC is a welcome development because the "Global Gateway," the European Union's own connectivity project, has not gained adequate momentum because European diplomats in Brussels are hesitant about multi-alignment strategies and transregional corridors.While the IMEC is an economic-diplomatic-security interplay, its prospects will depend on its ability to promote connectivity and translate its economic potential into commercial success. Critics have already pointed out that the initiative may be unviable in terms of profit. However, it could also be argued that there are virtues other than economic efficiency. In a world of de-risking and politically induced supply chain shifts, the new corridor could be viewed as a tool for promoting strategic resilience, friendshoring, and tech cooperation, especially for middle powers.

On August 20, Guatemala's anti-corruption candidate Bernardo Arévalo of the center-left Movimiento Semilla party won a resounding victory against establishment favorite Sandra Torres of the National Unity of Hope party (Unidad Nacional para la Esperanza) in the presidential run-off. Arévalo secured a 58 percent to 37 percent victory over Torres, obtaining the majority of votes in 17 of the Central American country's 22 departments, including a number of rural and indigenous communities. The new president is expected to take office on January 14.Arévalo's unexpected rise and landslide victory were a strong repudiation of the corrupt and entrenched interests that have ruled the country for decades. His triumph is a major triumph for Guatemala's democracy and offers an opportunity to tackle widespread corruption and restore the rule of law. The vote in Central America's most populous nation also marks an important victory against the wave of authoritarianism that has swept the region in recent years.The road ahead, however, will be rough. The country's political establishment appears set on using everything in its arsenal to disqualify Semilla and annul Arevalo's victory to maintain their grip on power.Challenging Road to TransitionOn August 28, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal certified Bernardo Arévalo's victory proclaiming him Guatemala's next president, and the outgoing president, Alejandro Giammattei promised an orderly and transparent transition of power. But an orderly transition remains far from certain as Semilla and Arévalo continue to face a wave of legal battles in attempts to block his rise to power.Despite Arévalo's resounding victory, the country's attorney general, Consuelo Porras, who was named to a second term by Giammattei and has been the subject of U.S. sanctions due to corrupt and undemocratic activities, is determined to push ahead with spurious cases against Semilla and election officials. Following the presidential run-off, her office also requested that charges be brought against election officials and has demanded the list of election workers.The threats do not stop there. Hours before the August 28 certification of results, the electoral registry, under mounting threats of prosecution, suspended Semilla pending further investigation, in violation of court orders that ostensibly protected the party until October 31, when the electoral process officially ends. Two days later, the leadership in Congress, led by the governing party, stripped Semilla's legislators of their party status; the move bars the party's current and incoming lawmakers from serving on committees or as part of the leadership. Given several credible threats to their lives, including two assassination plots, one involving state actors, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a resolution calling for protective measures on behalf of Arévalo and his running mate, Karin Herrera. The resolution also noted repeated threats presumably coming from individuals linked to the attorney general's office.Porras has not commented on the assassination plots but, instead, unsuccessfully filed a motion before the Constitutional Court asking for protection measures of her own and denouncing posts on social media calling for her resignation, including from journalists.At the same time, Arevalo's rival, Sandra Torres, has refused to concede, and has filed a complaint alleging fraud in the vote count. However, the electoral observation missions of the Organization of American States and the European Union have validated the results, and several countries, including the United States, have recognized Arévalo's victory.Post Inauguration ChallengesPresuming the establishment's efforts fail and Arévalo can assume office on January 14, he will face steep challenges.He will confront a strong opposition in Congress dominated by clientelist and hardline right-wing parties. Semilla obtained 23 out of 160 seats. If the establishment succeeds in permanently suspending Semilla's legal standing, Arévalo will be left without a party bloc in Congress to help advance his legislative agenda.Moreover, the establishment will continue to exercise power through the courts and the public prosecutor's office, both of which have been stacked with its allies. By law, Porras, the attorney general, will remain in office until 2026 and will likely remain hostile to the incoming administration. Those who have profited from the status quo will fight him tooth and nail.Despite these challenges, there are reasons to be hopeful. Arévalo and Semilla are genuinely committed to democratic values and tackling systemic corruption. The path forward will require careful collaboration and agreements with other sectors, including members of the private sector who share their goals and are open to supporting needed reforms, as well as with civil society.Addressing the country's deep inequalities will require working with indigenous organizations and leaders and ensuring they have a seat at the table. Arévalo will also need to rely on the support of the international community. More important, he enjoys the support of an important segment of the citizenry that is eager for change and a better future. Managing their expectations will be critical to his success.US PolicyTwo years ago, the Biden administration launched a five-point, $400-million strategy to tackle the underlying causes of irregular migration from the region, but Central American governments have been reluctant to cooperate. The independent journalists, civil society activists, and other independent actors the U.S. has supported through the strategy have been the target of attacks, threats, and spurious charges by the region's governments, forcing many into exile. The Biden administration's relationship with the Giammattei government has been difficult as, at times, it has felt the need to cooperate on immigration enforcement matters, while, at others, it has sanctioned Guatemalan public officials due to corruption concerns.Arévalo's victory opens up new possibilities for the Biden administration. The president-elect understands the deep ties between both countries and is keen on developing a shared agenda with the United States. The U.S. is Guatemala's most important economic partner, and an estimated 20 percent of the country's GDP comes from remittances.He has vowed to improve basic services — education, health, access to water, and infrastructure — as well as to purge state institutions coopted by corrupt interests. He has promised to focus development efforts on the rural areas that have been most abandoned by the government. Almost half of Guatemalans live in poverty, and that rate rises to 80 percent among indigenous peoples, who make up over 40 percent of the country's 14.9 million people. Child malnutrition is one of the highest in the world, with nearly half of children under five suffering from chronic malnutrition, 58 percent among indigenous children.The Biden administration is likely to continue pressing for border enforcement cooperation, an issue that Arévalo seems to acknowledge and has signaled an openness to working on with the U.S. government.The Biden administration should view Arévalo's victory as an opportunity to revamp its Central America Root Causes Strategy and offer its political, technical, and financial support to help him succeed. First, it must continue to work with other countries in the OAS Permanent Council to exert pressure on the current Guatemalan authorities, as it did after the first round in the elections in June, to ensure that the will of the Guatemalan people is respected and that Arévalo is able to assume office and carry out his democratic mandate.

During a recent House hearing on "Iran's escalating threats," a Democratic lawmaker completely dismantled all the myths opponents of diplomacy peddle about Iran and its nuclear program.

The hearing was dominated by hawkish voices on Iran, who urged for increasing pressure and spurned any diplomatic engagement. The only exception was Suzanne Maloney from the Brookings Institute, who took a more moderate stance. The other witnesses, especially Behnham Ben Taleblu, from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a hardline "pro-Israel" think tank that often pushes militaristic approaches to U.S. foreign policy, called for a more confrontational U.S. stance by triggering the "snapback" of UN sanctions in October, a move that would likely drive Iran to the edge of a nuclear breakout and spark a major nuclear crisis.

Taleblu also lambasted what he said is the Biden administration's "overall risk aversion" in response to Iranian regional intervention, which he said amounted to "signaling irresolution" to Iran. He cited several incidents where he claimed the U.S. failed to enforce what he called "deterrence by punishment." He said they deserved a "kinetic response" (a euphemism used by the DC Blob to mean military strikes), arguing that these events eroded the perception of "American willingness to use force in general."

Against this backdrop, one of the most striking moments of the hearing was when Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) exposed the flaws and fallacies of Taleblu's arguments by eliciting the expert testimony of Maloney, a scholar on Iran and its politics. Connolly skillfully used a series of questions to highlight how the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), had successfully curbed Iran's nuclear program and ensured its compliance, before it was recklessly abandoned by the Trump administration in 2018. He also challenged the notion that a military solution was viable or desirable for the U.S., especially when Israel, one of the most vocal opponents of the JCPOA, had refrained from using it when it had better options.

Connolly dismantles the hawkish myths about the JCPOA

Connolly started by asking Maloney if there was ever a peaceful solution that had rolled back Iran's nuclear program and prevented it from reaching the threshold of a nuclear weapon. Maloney confirmed that this was achieved by the JCPOA, and added that Iran's compliance was verified by the IAEA and by Trump's own State Department. "Iran was complying with the JCPOA," she said.

She also said that if the deal had been fully implemented, and if there had been an opportunity to negotiate a follow-on agreement, as "everyone who was involved in the deal had hoped," then the U.S. would be "in a much stronger position with respect to Iran's proximity to nuclear weapons capability."

Maloney added: "We have far worse options today than we had in 2015 or we did in 2018 when President Trump exited from the deal."

Connolly then turned his attention to one of the most vocal opponents of the JCPOA before it was implemented: Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu. He recalled how Netanyahu had bypassed President Obama and addressed a joint session of Congress in 2015, arguing that the JCPOA was so vital and so dangerous that it superseded politics.

He asked Maloney whether Netanyahu had been concerned about Iran's nuclear threat when he first took office as prime minister, and whether he had the ability to launch a military strike against Iran then. Maloney admitted that Israel had better options then than it does now, but had refrained from attacking Iran.

Connolly wondered why some people were eager to advocate for a U.S.-led military option now, when Netanyahu himself had not used it when he had a better chance. He said that it would be much more complex, difficult, and costly for the U.S. to attack Iran now. Maloney agreed that this was "a fair statement."

Connolly concluded by saying that the U.S. had to consider the consequences of its actions:
"It's something we have to consider, and we have to take responsibility for the past. A lot of the people who opposed JCPOA were proved wrong, they didn't cheat, they complied, it was verified by IAEA and by the Trump administration itself, and we walked away from it. We did that. Not Russia. Not Iran. And we need to take some responsibility for that and try to repair some of the damage we caused."
Watch:



The Iran Hawks' Agenda: Sabotaging Diplomacy and Pushing for War

Connolly exposed the Iran hawks' arguments for what they are: a collection of lies, distortions, and contradictions that aim to sabotage diplomacy and drag the U.S. into another unnecessary and costly war.

The fact that hawks like Taleblu and FDD continue to advocate for more pressure and military confrontation with Iran, despite the dismal failure of their approach, reveals their true agenda: they want to destroy any chance of peaceful resolution and force the U.S. into a confrontation that would serve only the interests of neoconservatives and the right-wing Israeli government. We need more courageous politicians like Connolly to stand up to their warmongering and defend diplomacy as the only sensible way forward.

Gene Healy


Last week, the New York Times ran a front-page story admiring President Biden's political acumen on culture-war issues ("Biden Sidesteps Any Notion That He's a 'Flaming Woke Warrior'", NYT, July 4, 2023). You've got to hand it to him, apparently: Biden has "deftly avoided becoming enmeshed in battles over hotly contested social issues" like transgender rights. "At a moment when the American political parties are trading fierce fire," we're told, "the president is staying out of the fray."
The claim is pure malarkey. In fact, Biden has repeatedly engaged the full powers of the presidency in an attempt to impose a forced settlement on issues where the American people are deeply divided.
The analysis, by Times reporter Reid Epstein, is entirely style over substance. Being elderly and somewhat out of touch is the president's secret superpower on social issues, the argument goes. Biden is "white, male, 80 years old, and not particularly up-to-date on the language of the left"; Epstein writes; "the president has not adopted the terminology of progressive activists," and sometimes seems confused by it.
To be fair, it's tough even for non-octogenarians to stay abreast of the ever-proliferating jargon in this area. Last month, Biden's Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, warned unsuspecting Americans of the perils of "biphobia" and "interphobia,"; and last week brought new "health equity" guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on "chestfeeding" infants. (Epstein got a little confused himself; the original version of the article included this perplexing sentence: "[Biden] also does not always remember the words most American politicians use to describe same-sex people.")
But even if, as the Times piece insists, "Mr. Biden has never presented as a left-wing culture warrior," what the president is actually doing with the weapons of executive power ought to count for something. For example:
the president's proposed Title IX edicts would give him the power to make national rules about which kid gets to use which bathroom and who gets to play on the girls' team for every K-12 public school and practically every college in America;
a rulemaking put forward by Biden's Department of Health and Human Services would require doctors and hospitals to provide "gender-affirming care"— puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and "top" and "bottom" sex-change surgeries—including for minor children. Private insurers—and the taxpayer, via Medicaid—will be required to foot the bill;
and in the president's June 2022 "Executive Order on Advancing Equality for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Individuals," he proposes sending the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) after doctors practicing "conversion therapy," which may be defined broadly enough to include psychologists who resist immediately forking over puberty blockers.
"Staying out of the fray"? C'mon, man.
Millions of Americans believe that medical intervention for trans-identifying minors is compassionate "gender-affirming care"; millions more believe it amounts to experimenting on children in the midst of social contagion. The state of the medical evidence here is "worryingly weak"; but even if it wasn't, the debate's not likely to be settled by telling people to shut up and "trust the science."
Biden's attempt to force a settlement on transgender issues points to a larger problem with "the deformation of our governmental structure" toward one-man rule. The original constitutional design required broad consensus for broad policy changes, but as law professors John O. McGinnis and Michael B. Rappaport warn in an important recent article, "Presidential Polarization":
"now the president can adopt such changes unilaterally…. Domestically, Congress's delegation of policy decisions to the executive branch allows the President's administration to create the most important regulations of our economic and social life. The result is relatively extreme regulations that can shift radically between administrations of different parties."

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is running for president, and he has his own views on medical treatment for gender dysphoria: he says it amounts to making children "guinea pigs" and "mutilating them." If elected, he'll certainly take inspiration from Biden's FTC move—maybe he'll even encourage a few creative prosecutions under the federal Female Genital Mutilation law.
Alexander Hamilton supposed that "energy in the executive" would lead to "steady administration of the laws." In the service of presidential culture-warring, that energy can mean whipsawing between "compulsory" and "forbidden" in four to eight-year cycles, depending on which party manages to seize the White House.
Worse still, as McGinnis and Rappaport note:
The imperial administrative presidency also raises the stakes of any presidential election, making each side fear that the other will enjoy largely unchecked and substantial power in many areas of policy.

That fear encourages the dangerous sentiment that every election is a "Flight 93 Election": charge the cockpit, do or die. The relentless growth of federal power—and its concentration in the executive branch—has made our government a catalyst of social strife.
Having a president who actually stays out of the culture-war fray isn't just a worthy goal: under current conditions it may be essential to the "domestic Tranquility" our federal government is supposed to ensure. But unless we expect them to refrain out of the goodness of their hearts, we'll need structural reforms that limit their power to intervene.

Este volumen surge en momentos en que el retorno del neoliberalismo y la ofensiva de la derecha que lo acompañó –en todos los frentes– en la región empieza a agrietarse. Y algunos países, como la Argentina, se ponen al borde del estallido. Es el momento para que la imaginación política descubra los caminos a seguir. Especialistas de disciplinas como la economía, la sociología, la filosofía e incluso las ciencias del territorio, se preguntan aquí de qué manera La teoría de la desconexión de Samir Amin puede ayudar a encontrar la salida. El neoliberalismo, sometido a agudas interrogaciones, queda así desprovisto del halo de objetividad, cientificidad e infalibilidad que pretende. Contra los precios del mercado mundial y la arquitectura financiera de los organismos internacionales (del Banco Mundial al FMI), contra las "leyes inalterables del mercado", el pensamiento de Samir Amin encuentra una clave en la gestión colectiva y en el desmarque de las encerronas económicas de la globalización. Estos artículos actualizan la Teoría de la desconexión para conjugarla con situaciones que atraviesan el desarrollo de la economía popular en el país o plantean la posibilidad de pensar al gobierno de Juan Domingo Perón y al de Néstor y Cristina Kirchner como ejemplos virtuosos analizados según esta perspectiva. Además, se incorpora la última entrevista al economista egipcio, antes de su fallecimiento, desconocida en el mundo académico local. El mejor homenaje que se le puede rendir a Samir Amin es, en lugar de idolatrar su pensamiento como si fuese parte de un museo, tomar sus conceptos para recrearlos en la lectura de los problemas argentinos. Eso, sin dudas, pone de relieve la vigencia y vitalidad de su enfoque. Es la idea del libro que aquí presentamos. ; Este livro nasceu em uma época em que o retorno do neoliberalismo e a ofensiva de direita que o acompanhava - em todas as frentes - na região latino-americana começam a rachar. E alguns países, como a Argentina, estão à beira do surto. Está na hora da imaginação política descobrir os caminhos a seguir. Especialistas de disciplinas como economia, sociologia, filosofia e até ciências do território se perguntam aqui como a teoria da desconexão de Samir Amin pode ajudar a encontrar a saída. O neoliberalismo, sujeito a interrogatórios agudos, é, portanto, desprovido do halo de objetividade, cientificidade e infalibilidade que pretende. Contra os preços do mercado mundial e a arquitetura financeira das organizações internacionais (do Banco Mundial ao FMI), contra as "leis inalteráveis do mercado", o pensamento de Samir Amin encontra uma chave na gestão coletiva e no alívio das pressões. da globalização econômica. Esses artigos atualizam a Teoria da Desconexão para combiná-la com situações que se desenvolvem na economia popular do país ou aumentam a possibilidade de pensar no governo de Juan Domingo Perón e Néstor e Cristina Kirchner como exemplos virtuosos analisados sob essa perspectiva. Além disso, a última entrevista com o economista egípcio é incorporada antes de sua morte. O melhor tributo que pode ser prestado a Samir Amin é, em vez de idolatrar seus pensamentos como se fosse parte de um museu, levando seus conceitos para recriá-los na leitura de problemas argentinos. Isso sem dúvida destaca a validade e a vitalidade de sua abordagem. É a ideia do livro que apresentamos aqui. ; This book was born at a time when the return of neoliberalism and the right-wing offensive that accompanied it - on all fronts - in the Latin American region begins to crack. And some countries, such as Argentina, are on the verge of outbreak. It is time for the political imagination to discover the paths to follow. Specialists from disciplines such as economics, sociology, philosophy and even the sciences of the territory, wonder here how Samir Amin's theory of delinking can help find the way out. Neoliberalism, subject to acute interrogations, is thus devoid of the halo of objectivity, scientificity and infallibility it intends. Against the prices of the world market and the financial architecture of the international organizations (from the World Bank to the IMF), against the "unalterable laws of the market", the thinking of Samir Amin finds a key in collective management and in getting out of the pressures of economic globalization. These articles update the Delinking Theory to combine it with situations that undergo the development of the popular economy in the country or raise the possibility of thinking of the government of Juan Domingo Perón and Néstor and Cristina Kirchner as virtuous examples analyzed according to this perspective. In addition, the last interview with the Egyptian economist is incorporated before his death. The best tribute that can be paid to Samir Amin is, instead of idolizing his thoughts as if he were part of a museum, taking his concepts to recreate them in the reading of Argentine problems. That undoubtedly highlights the validity and vitality of its approach. It is the idea of the book that we present here. ; Facultad de Trabajo Social ; Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación