Chris Hedges's Blog, page 206

U.K. Labour Backs New Brexit Vote; Tory Contenders Trade Blows

LONDON — The two men vying to be Britain’s next leader traded verbal blows in a televised debate Tuesday about who is more likely to break the country’s Brexit deadlock and lead the U.K. out of the European Union.

About 160,000 Conservative Party members are voting for a successor to Prime Minister Theresa May, who announced her resignation last month after failing repeatedly to get Parliament to back her divorce deal with the EU.

The two finalists, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, both used their only televised debate to argue that they were best placed to negotiate Britain’s twice-postponed exit, currently scheduled for Oct. 31.

Johnson, a populist former mayor of London whom polls suggest is the strong front-runner, argued that Britain leaving on schedule, with or without a divorce deal, is a “do or die” issue.

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A Progressive American in London: My Thoughts on Brexit and the Revolt Against Jeremy Corbyn



by Natasha Hakimi Zapata

“Delay does not deliver a deal. A deadline will deliver a deal,” Johnson said, adding that his “energy and optimism” would help Britain “get back our mojo.”

Hunt, a long-serving but lusterless senior minister who is currently foreign secretary, said he offered experience, realism and a broader appeal than the divisive Johnson.

“I’ll be your prime minister whoever you vote for,” he said.

Unlike Johnson, Hunt said he would be prepared to delay Brexit for a short time in order to strike a deal with the EU.

That led Johnson to call Hunt “defeatist.” Hunt accused Johnson of setting a “fake deadline” and asked whether he would resign if he failed to deliver on his promise to leave by Oct 31.

Johnson did not answer.

“It’s not do or die is it?” Hunt snapped back. “It’s Boris in No. 10 (Downing St.) that matters.”

Hunt and Johnson have both vowed to succeed where May failed and take Britain out of the EU — even if that means leaving without an agreement on divorce terms and future relations.

Most businesses and economists think a no-deal Brexit would plunge Britain into recession as customs checks take effect at U.K. ports and tariffs are imposed on trade between the U.K. and the EU. But many Conservatives think embracing a no-deal Brexit may be the only way to win back voters from the upstart Brexit Party led by Nigel Farage.

Growing concern about the chance of a no-deal Brexit and signs that the British economy could be heading toward recession have weakened the pound, which fell Tuesday to $1.2440, near a two-year low.

For underdog Hunt, Tuesday’s showdown offered a chance to turn the contest around, though it may be too late. Ballot papers have already gone out, and many Conservatives have made their choice.

The two candidates also faced questions about a fierce row over leaked cables from Britain’s ambassador in Washington offering unflattering assessments of President Donald Trump’s administration.

In the memos, Ambassador Kim Darroch called Trump’s White House dysfunctional, inept and chaotic. The president let rip with tweets branding Darroch “very stupid” and “a pompous fool,” and saying the administration would no longer deal with him.

Trump also renewed criticism of May’s handling of Brexit. In contrast, he has spoken warmly of both Johnson and Hunt.

Hunt reprimanded Trump, saying he should not meddle in Britain’s choice of ambassador.

“I have made it clear that if I am he next prime minister our ambassador in Washington stays,” Hunt said.

Johnson would not commit to keeping Darroch in his post.

“I have a very good relationship with the White House,” he said. “I think it’s very important we should have a close partnership, a close friendship with the United States.”

As the two Conservatives battled over who was the bigger champion of Brexit, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn shifted his party’s position, calling on May’s successor to call a new referendum on Britain’s EU membership, in which Labour would campaign to stay in the EU.

In a letter to party members, Corbyn said that the new prime minister “should have the confidence to put their deal, or no-deal, back to the people in a public vote.”

“In those circumstances, I want to make it clear that Labour would campaign for Remain against either no-deal or a Tory deal that does not protect the economy and jobs,” he said.

Labour’s opponents — and many supporters — have accused the party of dithering over Brexit for fear of alienating voters on either side of the national divide over Europe. Until now, Corbyn, a longtime critic of the EU, had resisted calls for a second referendum, saying Labour must respect voters’ 2016 decision to leave.

The left-of-center party has previously rejected May’s deal but also ruled out leaving the EU without an agreement and called for an election that the party hopes will bring a Labour government to power.

But the party’s poor showing in recent local and European elections suggests Labour is losing support to parties including the Liberal Democrats and the Greens that advocate remaining in the EU.

Corbyn’s letter clarified the party’s position — up to a point. It’s still unclear what Labour would do about Brexit if it formed a government.

Labour lawmaker Hilary Benn, who heads Parliament’s Brexit Committee, said “this is a very significant moment.”

“We saw what a lack of clarity did to Labour in the European elections. We got 14% of the vote,” he said.

But John Mann, a Labour legislator who backs Brexit, said the shift would cost the party support in areas of the country that voted strongly to leave the EU.

“There’s no indication whatsoever that voters in my area … have changed their mind,” he said.

___

Associated Press writers Danica Kirka and Pan Pylas contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP’s full coverage of Brexit and the Conservative Party leadership race at: https://www.apnews.com/Brexit

Twenty Steps in the Right Direction

On July 11, 2019, the U.S. Special Representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, will meet in Berlin with Lee Do-hoon, South Korea’s special representative on peace and security, and other representatives from the European Union to “advance our shared efforts to achieve the final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea” according to a State Department press release.

The Berlin meeting, which will occur in advance of the anticipated resumption of direct talks between the U.S. and North Korea later this month, represents an important preliminary step forward in rebuilding consensus on denuclearization. It follows the collapse of a round of talks in Hanoi during the February 2019 summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean Premier Kim Jong Un.

The Hanoi talks faltered over North Korean objections to the U.S.’s hardline position regarding the pace of denuclearization, and the U.S.’s refusal to consider easing sanctions linked to North Korea’s nuclear program prior to the complete, verified elimination of the North’s nuclear weapons program. North Korea accused the U.S. of negotiating in bad faith and put President Trump on notice that it would no longer work with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo or national security adviser John Bolton. Moreover, it gave the U.S. until the end of the year to resolve the composition of its negotiating team and the substance of its negotiating position.

On June 30, President Trump conducted an impromptu meeting with Kim Jong Un along the border between North and South Korea, greeting him with a smile and a handshake before crossing over to the North Korean side—a symbolic first by a sitting U.S. president. He and Kim then retired to a building inside the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea for a 50-minute private talk. While the substance of their talk remains unknown, President Trump hinted at its gist in a press conference afterward, where he appointed Biegun as the new U.S. chief negotiator for denuclearization talks, thereby acceding to the demands of North Korea regarding Pompeo and Bolton.

Even more interesting were leaks from the White House that the U.S. might accept a “freeze” of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program as a preliminary step toward denuclearization, and that there could be a gradual easing of economic sanctions as the North Koreans made progress toward the total elimination of their nuclear weapons program.

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While many critics of President Trump’s dealings vis-a-vis North Korea’s nuclear weapons have condemned him for giving away too much for too little, the reality is that Donald Trump, whether by luck or design, has done more to advance the cause of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula than any president before him.

Much of what he has done to date has been little more than symbolic in nature. Take his decision to cross into North Korea. It was a walk of only 20-odd steps, not far as distances go. But in terms of its potential impact on international peace and security, that short stroll may represent the most important arms control-related journey since Paul Nitze and Yuli Kvitsinsky took their famous “walk in the woods” in Geneva in 1982 in an effort to break the impasse that had stymied negotiations over intermediate nuclear force (INF) reductions.

While the immediate impact of the Nitze-Kvitsinsky saunter was nil—negotiations eventually broke down in the aftermath of the shooting down of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 in September 1983—the spirit of compromise the “walk in the woods” embraced carried forward, eventually leading to the signing of the INF Treaty in December 1987 that pledged to eliminate all U.S. and Soviet intermediate-range nuclear missiles. While the irony of being seen as following in the footsteps of Paul Nitze would probably escape President Trump, given the latter’s role in killing that landmark arms control treaty, the spirit of Geneva circa 1982 was very much alive as the U.S., and North Korean leaders tried to breathe new life into denuclearization talks that had been frozen in the aftermath of the failed summit in Hanoi.

The Trump-Kim “Stroll Across the Border” not only advanced the prospects of an eventual U.S.-North Korean agreement on denuclearization, but the symbolism of the moment helped heal decades of disrespect of North Korea at the hands of the U.S. that had poisoned the prospects for peace. Not many Americans are familiar with Paragraph 13(d) of the 1953 armistice agreement signed by the U.S., along with the U.N.-led coalition and North Korea, that led to the suspension (not termination) of hostilities at the conclusion of the Korean War. Technically, North and South Korea remain in a state of war to this day.

The armistice created the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC) to conduct inspections on both sides of the military demarcation line. One of the NNSC’s principle tasks was to ensure that no new weapons systems were introduced into the Korean peninsula by either side, as spelled out in Paragraph 13(d). President Eisenhower opted in 1956, under pressure from Congress, to cut military spending and to reduce the number of troops stationed in South Korea and station nuclear weapons there instead. In June 1957 the U.S. unilaterally announced it was no longer bound by Paragraph 13(d), and by January 1958 began deploying nuclear weapons onto South Korean territory. Given that the stated objective of the U.S. at the time was to delegitimize and destabilize the North Korean government, that country could only interpret the U.S.’s actions as an existential threat.

Thus, the North Korean nuclear weapons program came about as a direct result of the U.S.’s actions vis-a-vis Paragraph 13(d) of the armistice agreement. In 1994 the U.S. sought to defuse the tension created by North Korean advances in nuclear capability by entering into direct negotiations with the North. That round of talks resulted in what was known as the Agreed Framework, according to which North Korea agreed to abandon its nuclear weapons program in exchange for economic assistance and provision of nuclear technology that could not be used in a nuclear weapons program.

While North Korea complied with its obligations, the U.S. did not. In 2002, President George W. Bush first violated the Agreed Framework by implementing a policy of nuclear preemption against North Korea; he later halted the delivery of fuel oil required under the Agreed Framework. North Korea retaliated by withdrawing from the Nonproliferation Treaty, setting in motion events that led to its testing of nuclear weapons and the eventual fielding of long-range ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear warhead.

The history of the North Korean nuclear weapons program is long but not that convoluted. Its genesis stemmed from the United States violating the terms of the armistice and deploying nuclear weapons onto the Korean peninsula; its expansion can be attributed  to a combination of bad-faith negotiations on the part of the U.S.—which never abided by the terms of any agreement it reached with North Korea—and the underlying reality that the U.S. has been actively seeking the demise of the North Korean government since the cessation of hostilities in 1953. The 20 steps just taken by President Trump onto the soil of North Korea represented the most respect a leader of the United States has ever shown North Korea in the tumultuous history of relations between these two nations.

The “Stroll Across the Border” may not result in any immediate breakthrough in negotiations regarding denuclearization. But the spirit of respect and cooperation it engendered may well prove to be the spark needed to ignite a process that will lead to a lasting peace on a Korean peninsula freed from the terror of nuclear annihilation.

California Air Boss: Open to Compromise in Mileage Standoff

WASHINGTON — California’s air pollution control boss says she’s open to compromise with the Trump administration over its efforts to relax mileage standards, as the bitter standoff threatens to unleash years of court fights and confusion in the U.S. auto industry.

Five months after President Donald Trump broke off talks with California, the lead state fighting to keep tougher, Obama-era mileage standards, Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the state would be willing to give ground if any final deal includes the needed cuts in climate-changing vehicle emissions.

“Now we still have the Trump administration refusing to bend — but they could change their mind,” Nichols said. “It’s not too late.”

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Asked to comment on Nichols’ remarks, White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement: “The Trump Administration believes strongly in a national fuel standard that promotes safer, cleaner, and more affordable vehicles. The Federal government, not a single state, should set this standard. We are moving forward to finalize a rule for the benefit of all Americans.”

Twenty-three U.S. governors — most of them Democrats — signed a pledge Tuesday backing California in the mileage fight, saying a rigorous national standard requiring ever more fuel-efficient cars and light trucks is essential to curbing climate-damaging emissions.

The pledge by the governors says they “will not compromise on our responsibility to protect the health of our communities, our climate, and the savings consumers stand to gain at the pump.” It promises “additional concrete actions to fulfill this duty and defend against any threats.”

Besides California and Puerto Rico, the pledge was signed by the leaders of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

The governors’ pledge came a day after Trump delivered a White House address portraying his administration as a champion of clean air and water. Yet Trump often mocks climate-change science in tweets, has sought to roll back environmental regulations he sees as burdensome to business, and promotes global dominance for the U.S. oil and gas industry.

At issue is an administration plan to back off from Obama-era mileage standards that would require cars to get an average of 36 miles (58 kilometers) of real-world driving per gallon (3.8 liters) of gas by 2025. The Trump administration says it prefers to freeze the standards at 2021 levels, about 30 mpg, while California wants to keep them in place.

The auto industry contends that it will have trouble meeting those standards because people are buying less-efficient pickup trucks and SUVs and shunning electric and hybrid vehicles. An automakers’ industry group on Tuesday renewed a call for compromise that results in one national standard increasing fuel economy but stops short of the Obama requirements.

The Trump administration argues that demanding ever-more fuel-efficient vehicles will drive up automobile costs and keep less-safe, older vehicles on the road longer. Many engineers have challenged that claim.

At a House committee hearing last month, Bill Wehrum, former assistant Environmental Protection Agency administrator for air regulation, said the agency followed directions from Trump to try to make a deal with California. But Trump also told the agency to finish the final regulations.

Trump’s EPA and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are expected to send a final mileage rule to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget in the coming weeks.

California, Nichols said, made offers to come up with standards somewhere between a complete freeze and the Obama-era regulations

For any compromise to happen, Nichols said the administration would have to drop its challenge to California’s ability to set its own standards, a power granted by Congress in the Clean Air Act to combat the state’s smog problems in the 1970s. The state at one time had more stringent standards than federal ones, but the two sides voluntarily synced their standards under Obama.

Nichols predicted that the nation is headed into a period where California will enforce its own standards, which will be tougher than those from the federal government. But she disputed the contention that auto companies would have to build two versions of each vehicle, one for California and states that follow its rules, and the other for the rest of the country. That’s what happened decades ago when automakers added pollution control equipment to meet California standards.

“The idea that there will be chaos … I think is exaggerated,” she said.

Instead, companies would be able to comply with California’s rules by sending more efficient vehicles, such as battery powered or gas-electric hybrids, to the state, she said

Nichols said California could be willing to go for something less than the Obama standards, but it would have to be coupled with other changes such as wider use of more efficient auto air conditioners that use chemicals that aren’t as damaging to the atmosphere as those in use currently.

___

Krisher reported from Detroit.

Court to President: Blocking Twitter Critics Is Unconstitutional

NEW YORK — President Donald Trump lost a major Twitter fight Tuesday when a federal appeals court said that his daily musings and pronouncements were overwhelmingly official in nature and that he violated the First Amendment whenever he blocked a critic to silence a viewpoint.

The effect of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision is likely to reverberate throughout politics after the Manhattan court warned that any elected official using a social media account “for all manner of official purposes” and then excluding critics violates free speech.

“The government is not permitted to ‘amplify’ favored speech by banning or burdening viewpoints with which it disagrees,” the appeals court said.

Because it involved Trump, the ruling is getting more attention than a January decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found a Virginia politician violated the First Amendment rights of one of her constituents by blocking him from a Facebook page.

Still, the appeals court in New York acknowledged, not every social media account operated by a public official is a government account, and First Amendment violations must be considered on a case-by-case basis.

“The irony in all of this is that we write at a time in the history of this nation when the conduct of our government and its officials is subject to wide-open, robust debate,” Circuit Judge Barrington D. Parker wrote on behalf of a three-judge panel.

The debate generates a “level of passion and intensity the likes of which have rarely been seen,” the court’s decision read.

“This debate, as uncomfortable and as unpleasant as it frequently may be, is nonetheless a good thing,” the 2nd Circuit added. “In resolving this appeal, we remind the litigants and the public that if the First Amendment means anything, it means that the best response to disfavored speech on matters of public concern is more speech, not less.”

The Department of Justice is disappointed by the ruling and is exploring possible next steps, agency spokesperson Kelly Laco said.

“As we argued, President Trump’s decision to block users from his personal twitter account does not violate the First Amendment,” Laco said in an emailed statement.

Appeal options include asking the panel to reconsider, or seeking a reversal from the full 2nd Circuit or from the U.S. Supreme Court.

The decision came in a case brought by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. It had sued on behalf of seven individuals blocked by Trump after criticizing his policies.

Jameel Jaffer, the institute’s director, said public officials’ social media accounts are now among the most significant forums for discussion of government policy.

The ruling “will ensure that people aren’t excluded from these forums simply because of their viewpoints,” he said.

Katie Fallow, senior staff attorney at Knight, said the institute knew of about 75 individuals who have been unblocked since Buchwald’s ruling.

Another 30 or so remain blocked, in part because the Justice Department has required them to cite the tweet that caused blockage, she said.

Among individuals blocked from the account were author Stephen King and model Chrissy Teigen.

Teigen and TV personality Rosie O’Donnell are among those who remain blocked, Fallow said.

“We certainly think the president should unblock everyone who was blocked because of viewpoint,” Fallow said. “If they are not going to do it voluntarily, we’ll consider all options, including litigation.”

Earlier this year, attorney Jennifer Utrecht, arguing for the president, told the 2nd Circuit Trump’s account was created long before he became president and he acted in a private capacity by blocking individuals.

The three-judge panel concluded the official nature of Trump’s account “was overwhelming,” even though it was created in 2009. It cautioned it was not deciding whether an elected official violates the Constitution by excluding individuals from a “wholly private social media account.”

“We also conclude that once the President has chosen a platform and opened up its interactive space to millions of users and participants, he may not selectively exclude those whose views he disagrees with,” the judges said.

They noted that Trump had used Twitter to announce his nomination of an FBI director, to announce a ban on transgender individuals serving in the military, to announce the firing of his chief of staff, and about his decision to sell sophisticated military hardware to Japan and South Korea.

The 2nd Circuit said it didn’t matter that blocked individuals could still engage in dialogue through “workarounds,” such as logging out to view Trump’s tweets or searching for tweets by other users about the president to engage in conversations.

The ruling upheld a decision last year by U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald, who did not order Trump to unblock users but said people have a right to reply directly to politicians who use their accounts as public forums to conduct official business.

Trump has been a social media pioneer among politicians, earning daily headlines from tweets.

His Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, has over 60 million followers and has become a must-read forum for world leaders, critics and fans, who witness Trump boasting of accomplishments, belittling opponents and blasting critical media coverage as “fake news.”

Elizabeth Warren Is Putting the Consultant Class on Notice

When Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., announced in February that she was running “a different kind of [presidential] campaign,” one that swore off high-dollar fundraisers and personal phone calls with wealthy donors, the Democratic establishment was skeptical that she could pull it off. There were internal concerns too: Warren’s finance director resigned after she decided not to pursue big donations during the primary.

The campaign’s finances improved however, with $19.1 million donated in the second quarter. As Politico reports Tuesday, forgoing traditional fundraising is just one way that “Warren is defying the traditional playbook for running a modern presidential campaign.”

There’s no outside polling firm or plans to marshal resources for a massive television ad campaign. In fact, campaign staff tells Politico that “it is shunning the typical model for producing campaign ads, in which outside firms are hired and paid often hefty commissions for their work. Instead, Warren’s campaign is producing TV, digital and other media content itself, as well as placing its digital ad buys internally.”

“Campaigns offer a chance not only to tell people what kind of president you’ll be, but to show it,” Joe Rospars, Warren’s chief campaign strategist, told Politico, adding, “She’s running her campaign the way she intends to govern: willing to question existing power structures, making decisions grounded in evidence, and always fighting to build something more progressive, more inclusive, more joyful — and more democratic — than what came before.”

This approach, Politico reporter Alex Thompson explains, “is a rebuke of the consultant-heavy model of campaigns — an often lucrative arrangement in which the people advising campaigns invariably tell candidates that the best political strategy is to buy what they sell, namely TV ads and polling.”

According to Thompson, the ascension of Rospars to chief campaign strategist also “signals that the campaign is prioritizing smartphones and computers over TV.”

If Warren makes it to the general election, Thompson writes, “a large swath of Democratic consultants, including some whom Warren has used in past campaigns, could be relegated to the sidelines.”

Members of the consultant class on both sides of the aisle aren’t convinced Warren has made the right choice. GOP consultant Mike Murphy, who worked for Jeb Bush in 2016, told Politico, “Quality has cost. I’d rather have Jim Margolis [who is working for Kamala Harris] on my side and pay some fees than ‘Larry’ in a cubicle in-house who is learning media buying.”

Rufus Gifford, the finance director for former President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, told The New York Times in March: “If Warren says, ‘I can’t raise enough money, so my way to win is through an aggressive field operation because I have fired-up volunteers,’ well, Bernie and Beto can say, ‘O.K., well, we can do both.’ ”

Warren’s campaign aides counter that their in-house approach makes the campaign nimbler. In interviews with Politico they point to Warren’s response after Alabama passed legislation that almost entirely banned abortion. In just two days, her campaign had a plan to codify Roe v. Wade on the federal level, plus ads, graphics, social media content and a strategy to garner traditional media coverage for the plan. She was even able to reach out to abortion rights groups personally.

If she makes it to the general election, Warren’s rejection of consultants could be game-changing. Tim Lim, a Democratic consultant and partner at the strategic consulting firm NewCo, told Politico that if Warren’s robust in-house operations are successful, “This will change the way that campaigns are run.”

Judge Blocks Trump Requiring Drug Ads to Reveal Prices

A federal judge has blocked a major White House initiative on prescription drug costs, saying the Trump administration lacked the legal authority to require drugmakers to disclose their prices in TV ads.

The narrow ruling Monday by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington struck down a requirement that was set to go into effect on Tuesday. Drugmakers had argued that requiring them to disclose list prices amounted to coercion that would violate their free-speech rights under the Constitution.

But in his 27-page ruling Mehta avoided debating the 1st Amendment, saying simply that the Trump administration had failed to show it had legal authority under the statutes that govern federal programs such as Medicare to require price disclosure.

He wrote that neither the law’s “text, structure, nor context evince an intent by Congress to empower [administrative agencies] to issue a rule that compels drug manufacturers to disclose list prices.”

Mehta also said he wasn’t questioning the motives of the Health and Human Services Department, which issued the price-disclosure rule. He suggested the administration could even be right on the merits.

“That policy very well could be an effective tool in halting the rising cost of prescription drugs,” the judge wrote. “But no matter how vexing the problem of spiraling drug costs may be, HHS cannot do more than what Congress has authorized. The responsibility rests with Congress to act in the first instance.”

Health and Human Services Department spokeswoman Caitlin Oakley said the administration was disappointed by the ruling and “will be working with the Department of Justice on next steps related to the litigation.”

The administration could appeal the ruling, and it could also ask Congress to specifically authorize requiring drugmakers to disclose their prices. The Senate and the House are working on a package of bills that aim to reduce healthcare costs for insured patients, and drug prices are one of lawmakers’ biggest targets.

The lawsuit was brought by three major manufacturers, Merck, Eli Lilly and Amgen. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar was once a top executive of Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly.

AARP vice president Nancy LeaMond also called the ruling a disappointment. “Today’s ruling is a step backward in the battle against skyrocketing drug prices,” she said in a statement. “Americans should be trusted to evaluate drug price information and discuss any concerns with their health care providers.”

Mehta was nominated to the federal bench by President Obama.

Where Is Joe Biden’s Apology for the Iraq War?

This piece originally appeared on antiwar.com.

Uncle Joe has never been much for apologies. Whether it was his backing of the ’90s crime bill that helped fuel mass incarceration, or his mistreatment of Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings, Biden has been loathe to admit wrong and make amends. Thus it was a bit of a surprise this weekend when the former vice president apologized for his insensitive remarks about segregationists; the very comments that prompted a fierce debate exchange with fellow candidate Kamala Harris. That’s all well and good, but since it’s in foreign policy that American emperors (read: presidents) wield near unilateral power, it’s time for Biden to plea for the electorate’s forgiveness on perhaps the worst mistake of his career: his support and vote for the Iraq War back in 2002.

Biden bills himself as an experienced foreign policy guru, as ready on day one to “handle the world.” His record on the 2003 invasion of Iraq – the most critical (and disastrous) global decision of the 21st century – suggests otherwise. Back in October 2002, when Congress essentially rubber-stamped President George W. Bush’s preordained rush to war, Biden, along with fellow establishmentarians Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, was one of 28 Democrats to vote with the majority. It was a colossal error, a foreign policy own goal that forever destabilized the Middle East and fueled the rise of ever more numerous and radicalized Islamist terror groups. The blood of some 5,000 U.S. troops, to say nothing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, is, in part, on Biden’s hands.

Though perhaps half of this country got Iraq wrong, Biden – as a long time member of the Senate Foreign Relations committee – should’ve known better and be held to a higher standard. Whether his vote was about politics, poor judgment, or both, it should give pause to Democratic primary voters. Consider all that might not have unfolded without the Iraq invasion that Biden blessed off on. It’s not only the lives and treasure that’d have been preserved, but America’s overall (now tarnished) reputation on the Arab and Muslim “street.” Without the embarrassingly euphemistically titled Operation Iraqi Freedom, there’d have been no ISIS (formed and germinated in US military prisons in Iraq), probably no Islamist takeover of Eastern Syria and Northern and Western Iraq, and no need for an American troop presence in Syria, Jordan, and various other Arab World locales. It’s hard to overestimate how much better would have been a world without the US regime change war of choice in Iraq. Now that’s a Biden, and mainstream Dem, liability.

Which is why running to the right – in other words, more establishment interventionist – of President Donald Trump on foreign affairs is a recipe for disaster and perhaps defeat. Though the Donald has rarely followed through since entering the Oval Office, in 2016 he ran on the rather popular promise of no more “dumb” new wars in the Mideast. That sensible position resonated with a sizable portion of the war-weary electorate, including many conservatives and Republicans. And why should that be a surprise? After all, her early support for the Iraq War almost certainly cost Hillary the 2008 primary with Barack Obama (who, as a little known state senator, criticized the impending invasion) and certainly didn’t help her any in the epic 2016 contest with Trump. If Biden gets the primary nod from Democratic voters, expect his Iraq War vote to come back and haunt Uncle Joe as much or more than his busing gaffes or decades of handsy encounters with the opposite sex.

What’s needed is a truly progressive, alternative foreign policy vision based on restraint, redeployment, and military de-escalation. Such a global platform should unite progressives’ with their natural allies on these matters: libertarian Republicans. No Dem candidate can hope to strip some of the Rand Paul wing’s vote from Trump without placing ending the forever wars at the forefront of campaign promises. That alone should probably rule out Biden as a viable candidate. Joe’s time has passed. He’s a relic of a (hopefully) bygone era of segregationist alliances, the Dems’ ’80s-90s tack to the right, and debunked “liberal” militarist interventionism. Trump, a truly seasoned political street fighter, would hammer away at Biden’s questionable judgment on the key foreign policy decision of this century: the absurd Iraq debacle. Count on it.

And, if matters do unfold as I predict, and Trump ride’s his anti-mainstream, populist outsider foreign policy pronouncements to another four years in the White House, Biden, and the Democratic base will have gotten exactly what they deserve.

Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army officer and regular contributor to Antiwar.com. His work has appeared in the LA Times, The Nation, Huff Post, The Hill, Salon, Truthdig, Tom Dispatch, among other publications. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet.

Amy McGrath Announces Bid for McConnell’s Senate Seat

WASHINGTON — Amy McGrath, a Marine combat aviator who narrowly lost a House race to an incumbent Republican in Kentucky, has set her sights on an even more formidable target: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

McGrath, whose campaign announcement video in her House race showcased the viral power of social media to raise money and national profile, said Tuesday she will be trying to defeat one of the most entrenched officials in Washington in McConnell. But she sees him as vulnerable because of his lengthy tenure in Washington, his stance on health care and his taut allegiance to the policies of President Donald Trump.

Her decision to enter the race represents a rare victory for Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who has had difficulty persuading top-tier candidates in other states to take on incumbent Republicans with control of the Senate at stake.

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by Ilana Novick

The contest also will test the power of incumbency against a call for generational change along with a measure of whether Trump’s popularity is transferable.

McGrath, 44, will almost certainly be able to raise enough money to mount a serious challenge to McConnell, 77, but she is still a decided underdog in a state that has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since Wendell Ford in 1992.

“I’ve been always somebody who stepped up to the plate when asked, when I felt like my country needed me, and this is one of those times,” McGrath said in an interview.

She is attempting to repeat her viral moment with a new video , one that leans hard on idealism while also attacking McConnell as the embodiment of a dysfunctional Washington.

“I felt like somebody needs to stand up to him,” McGrath said.

McGrath also reprises one element of her first video, pointedly noting that when, as a 13-year-old girl, she wrote to McConnell to make the case that women should be able to fly in combat, the senator never wrote back.

But her attacks on McConnell and his record carry risks because Trump remains highly popular in Kentucky, and McConnell has pushed through much of the president’s agenda and, perhaps more importantly, his nominees to federal courts, including Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

She said that Kentucky voters are not fans of either political party and they supported Trump in part because of his promise to “drain the swamp” in Washington, lower drug prices and deliver a more effective alternative to the Affordable Care Act.

“Those things haven’t happened because of guys like Senator McConnell,” she said.

McConnell struck back quickly in a Twitter message that presaged what a race between him and McGrath would look like. The tweet strung together a series of quotes from McGrath that depicts her as an out of touch liberal who also opposes Trump, notably his call for a U.S.-Mexico border wall.

McConnell campaign manager Kevin Golden said McGrath lost in 2018 “in a Democratic wave election because she is an extreme liberal who is far out of touch with Kentuckians.”

The Senate majority leader’s tone was more sanguine. “It’ll be a spirited race,” he said Tuesday at the Capitol. He says unlike others, “I actually enjoy campaigns.”

Since becoming party leader, McConnell said he notices he gets “more attention than I used to. I look forward to the contest and laying out our differences to the people of Kentucky.”

McGrath lost to Rep. Andy Barr by 3 percentage points in the 2018 midterm election, a race that she had been so confident of winning that she was working on her victory speech as the first returns came in.

She ran up comfortable margins in the heavily Democratic Lexington area, but Barr was able to win overwhelmingly in rural areas. Barr also benefited from a campaign appearance by Trump, rare for a House member. Former Vice President Joe Biden went to Kentucky to campaign for McGrath in what proved to be a failed effort to win back onetime Democrats in rural areas.

Trump also is expected to actively support McConnell and to try to muddy McGrath at least as much as Barr did.

In that race, McGrath, a Naval Academy graduate, foreswore negative attack ads against Barr while he and several outside groups supporting him spent millions of dollars labeling her as “too liberal” for Kentucky. McGrath, who must first win the Democratic nomination, would not show similar restraint against McConnell.

Democrats have prepared briefing books of more than 1,000 pages on McConnell, whose long record and ties to Washington interest groups provide ripe openings for attack. But he also can make the case that he has been able to use his power in Washington for the benefit of the state.

McConnell has in Kentucky a fiercely loyal team of political operatives who are known for hard-hitting campaigns that leave his opponents badly bruised.

Schumer worked hard to persuade McGrath to run against McConnell. Several other would-be recruits, including former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, declined his overtures, and others, like former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, passed on Senate races to run for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Associated Press reporter Lisa Mascaro contributed to this story from Washington.

Trump Takes Aim at an Unlikely Target: Fox News

NEW YORK — During a live segment on a cable news network, from a sports bar in France where patrons were celebrating the United States women’s World Cup Championship, a profane chant about President Donald Trump broke out.

The First Viewer was not pleased.

But the object of his ire was not CNN or MSNBC. It was his favorite outlet, Fox News Channel, and the president issued a not-so-veiled threat about the network’s programming.

No president has been so closely aligned with a single news outlet as Trump is with Fox News, so his criticism carried added significance. While it was not the first time he has singled out Fox, it was the most pointed, raising the question of how the network, and the president’s supporters, would respond.

Trump on Sunday night wrote that watching Fox on the weekend was worse than watching CNN and MSNBC, outlets he frequently attacks. He said Fox is “loading up with Democrats” and criticized the network for using The New York Times as a source for a story. He also attacked Fox for hiring former Democratic National Committee head Donna Brazile as a contributor and poked at afternoon host Shepard Smith’s ratings.

“Fox News is changing fast, but they forgot the people who got them there,” Trump wrote.

Fox did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

While it was not clear what Trump was specifically responding to, he was particularly annoyed by Fox correspondent Greg Palkot’s live report from a sports bar in France, where patrons erupted in a “F— Trump” chant, according to two advisers not authorized to speak publicly about private discussions.

Fox also aired two segments about immigration Sunday that used as a hook a Times story that said workers at a child detention center in Texas are “grappling with the stuff of nightmares,” according to Matthew Gertz of the liberal watchdog Media Matters for America.

By some measures, Trump has never been closer to Fox News, or at least their evening hosts. He regularly calls into Sean Hannity’s show, touts Laura Ingraham’s program and, last month, frequently consulted Tucker Carlson, who strongly opposes military action against Iran, off-air. A few days later, Carlson was spotted among Trump’s entourage during the president’s visit to the demilitarized zone between North Korea and South Korea. Carlson traveled with Trump for an interview that was shown on Fox.

But the president’s frustration with the network has grown in recent months.

He has angrily told confidants he is confused about why Fox News sometimes “goes negative” in its coverage of his administration when it features an unflattering portrait of his White House, the advisers said.

Trump was particularly annoyed at Fox’s coverage when he saw his ties to billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein being played up on the other networks.

Epstein was charged Monday with sexually abusing dozens of underage girls. His powerful friends over the years have included Trump, former President Bill Clinton and Britain’s Prince Andrew.

Trump has gone on to complain that he feels that MSNBC and CNN rarely criticize Democrats and instead deliver pointed and, in his estimation, unfair attacks on the administration. To counter that, Trump has said, he feels it is important for Fox News to remain “loyal” to the White House and Republicans as a balance to the other networks’ alleged bias, according to the advisers.

“I think he takes ‘Fox & Friends’ literally, that they’re supposed to be friends,” said Frank Sesno, director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. “Fox has real journalists who ask real questions, like Chris Wallace. If he thinks the ‘no spin zone’ is going to be the no criticism zone, he’s right most of the time, but not all of the time.”

Trump tweeted negatively about Fox this spring after it aired town halls featuring Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg. “Fox is moving more and more to the losing (wrong) side in covering the Dems,” he tweeted May 19.

He said “what’s with Fox News?” on April 16 after the Sanders session, accusing the network of turning away Trump fans who wanted to attend.

In March, he suggested Fox weekend anchors Arthel Neville and Leland Vittert should be working at CNN.

“I suspect Fox executives don’t get too worked up over the president’s tweets and offhanded comments,” said Ken LaCorte, a longtime Fox News executive who now operates his own website. News reporters and anchors at Fox, who work in the shadow of opinion hosts, don’t necessarily mind when a presidential tweet illustrates that not everyone at Fox is in the president’s pocket.

Still, many of Fox’s regular viewers also follow Trump on Twitter, and there’s a risk when the president foments discontent. LaCorte said if the crticisms became more frequent, or if Trump cuts off the frequent access that many Fox personalities have for interviews, that would be a more worrisome sign.

Sesno, however, said the latest incident foreshadows potential trouble for Fox as the campaign heats up. Trump will obviously come under criticism; to what extent does Fox reflect that?

While there are other conservative websites and news networks, like One American News Network and NewsMax, none come close to the reach and influence that Fox has with this audience.

“What other channel are you going to if you want to see pro-Trump stuff on TV?” Sesno asked.

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Editor’s note: AP White House reporter Jonathan Lemire is a paid MSNBC contributor.

Why Trump Caved to China and Huawei

Everything about the trade war between the United States and China is bewildering. The world’s two largest economies entered a titanic struggle with harsh words and high tariffs, sending shudders through the global economy. Hundreds of billions of dollars of goods on either side stood before tariff walls that seemed unbreachable. Truces would come out of nowhere—as at the 2018 G20 meeting in Buenos Aires—but then they would be set aside by U.S. President Donald Trump in a stream of tweets at odd hours.

In May, Trump went after Huawei, one of the world’s largest technology firms. The attack this time was not on economic grounds. Trump accused Huawei of being an espionage arm of the Chinese government. Firms from the United States that supplied Huawei with software and chips would no longer be permitted to do so. Trump’s diplomats went on the road to strongarm U.S. allies into no longer using Huawei technology in their countries. Pressure on China resulted in the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer, on charges of bank and wire fraud in relation to U.S. sanctions against Iran. Meng Wanzhou is the daughter of Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei.

Huawei

Like many Chinese firms, Huawei began in 1987 with a modest aim—to manufacture phone switches for telecommunications firms. Then, gradually, Huawei emerged as the largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer—overtaking the Swedish multinational Ericsson—and the second largest manufacturer of smartphones—just behind the South Korean multinational Samsung. It is now one of the world’s largest technology firms, with an annual revenue that is in excess of $200 billion.

The sudden loss of 1,200 U.S. suppliers struck Huawei hard. A quarter of the components of Huawei’s systems come from these suppliers. These U.S. firms lost $11 billion per year, but Huawei lost immediate access to key parts. Ren Zhengfei seemed unfazed, saying that Trump’s attack on his company only strengthened their resolve to source its parts from Chinese manufacturers. Failure to get access to Google’s Android operating system led Huawei to adopt a Chinese operating system called Hongmeng. The Kunpeng 920 chip could substitute for imported chips.

In 2015, China’s President Xi Jinping had launched a program called Made in China 2025, which urges Chinese firms to use Chinese materials as much as possible. Trump’s ban on sales to Huawei merely accelerated the firm’s drive to buy from within China. Fears of more such bans and tariff wars have led even the most moderate corporate leaders—such as both Ren Zhengfei and Jack Ma—to adopt a language of technology independence.

Then, as if from nowhere, Trump withdrew his assault on Huawei. At this year’s G20 summit at Osaka, Trump said that U.S. firms can sell to Huawei. Trump had earlier withdrawn his ban on the sale of goods to another Chinese firm, ZTE. That example showed that he would not wait long to give up his fight against Huawei.

Struggle over 5G

The next generation of high-speed wireless technology—5G—is currently being dominated by Huawei, with Sweden’s Ericsson and Norway’s Nokia far behind. No U.S. firm is near these three in the production of 5G technology.

In April, the U.S. government’s Defense Innovation Board released a report that noted: “The leader of 5G stands to gain hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue over the next decade, with widespread job creation across the wireless technology sector. 5G has the potential to revolutionize other industries as well, as technologies like autonomous vehicles will gain huge benefits from the faster, larger data transfer. 5G will also enhance the Internet of Things by increasing the amount and speed of data flowing between multiple devices, and may even replace the fiber-optic backbone relied upon by so many households. The country that owns 5G will own many of these innovations and set the standards for the rest of the world. For the reasons that follow, that country is currently not likely to be the United States.”

Since the U.S. firms are unable to manufacture the equipment currently made by Huawei and others, only 11.6 percent of the U.S. population is covered by 5G. There is no indication that AT&T and Verizon will be able to manufacture fast enough the kind of transmitters needed for the new technological system.

The erosion of U.S. firms in the telecommunications industry can be directly attributed to the deregulation of industry by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Many firms fought to gain market share, with different mobile standards and carrier plans with different configurations that made it hard for consumers to switch companies. This fragmented market meant that no firm made the necessary investments toward the next generation. It has meant that U.S. firms are at a grave disadvantage when it comes to the next generation of technology.

The rapid advance of Huawei, and the European firms, threatens both U.S. technology firms in particular and the U.S. economy in general. Over the past few decades, these U.S. technology firms have become the main investors in the U.S. economy and are the engines of its growth. If these firms falter before companies like Huawei, then the U.S. economy will begin to splutter on fumes.

Trump’s war against Huawei is not as irrational as it seems. His administration—like others before it—has used as much political pressure as possible to constrain the growth of technology in China. Accusations of theft of intellectual property and of close ties between the firms and the Chinese military are meant to deter customers for Chinese products. These accusations have certainly dented Huawei’s brand, but they are unlikely to destroy Huawei’s ability to expand around the world.

Huawei claims that two-thirds of 5G networks outside China use its products.

Even the United Kingdom—a firm U.S. ally—decided in secret to allow Huawei to help build the UK’s 5G network. When Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson allegedly leaked news that the UK’s National Security Council made this decision, he was fired from the cabinet. Huawei’s technological advances are greater than the chatter about security threats and intellectual property thefts. All four of the major mobile networks in the UK already use Huawei equipment.

It is likely that Trump’s administration will withdraw its request that China extradite Meng Wanzhou. In December, Trump said that if he thinks it is good for the United States, then he will intervene with the U.S. Justice Department to no longer pursue the extradition. This statement—made to Reuters—suggests that Trump is not committed to using family pressure against Huawei. It suggests that Trump now realizes that he can try to twist Ren Zhengfei’s arm as tightly as possible, but that Huawei and China are unlikely to blink. They have the upper hand.

This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written more than twenty books, including The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (The New Press, 2007), The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South (Verso, 2013), The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution (University of California Press, 2016) and Red Star Over the Third World (LeftWord, 2017). He writes regularly for Frontline, the Hindu, Newsclick, AlterNet and BirGün.