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Now, with Republicans in control of the House, the Senate and the White House, the party is being forced to confront its deep divisions over immigration, which threaten to compromise its capacity to provide coherent governance.

The debate is matching various party factions against one other and testing the willingness of the Republican base to accept a necessary compromise with Democrats that is certain to be portrayed by some as a moment of political betrayal.

"Everybody has their own franchise ... but somebody has to put forward a document, somebody has to put forward a bill," Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake said Wednesday. "I don't see any other game in town."

For Trump, the immigration policy debate marks a watershed moment. It is one of the first times that he has been required to show genuine political courage, to take steps likely to alienate his loyal voters, who have stuck with him through everything.

All presidents reach such a moment sooner or later, when the national interest, the requirements of governance and even their own legacies require them to expunge political capital they have spent years building.

Trump's improvised and shifting positions over the past few days on what he wants to see in the bill suggest that he has not yet reached the moment when hesitation solidifies into resolution and trust in political fate.

Yet Republicans on Capitol Hill say that only an unequivocal statement by Trump about the bill he wants to see, and a sincere effort to offer cover to conservative lawmakers, will allow a compromise to get to his desk.

Closing the deal

Given the central role played by immigration in his presidential campaign, Trump may be the only personality in Washington who can close the deal.

But the President's comment Tuesday at a bipartisan meeting at the White House that his position would be "what the people in this room come up with" struck many of his allies in Congress as an abdication of leadership, and well short of the level of commitment needed to bring the party together.

That has left the fate of the immigration bill, despite multiple efforts by different groups in Congress to find a solution, in limbo.

"In terms of how we get to the finish line, I'm not sure I see that yet," one Republican senator told CNN on Wednesday on condition of anonymity. "Everyone seems to think there's the outlines of a deal, but like I said, I'll believe it when I see it."

For Republican lawmakers, the showdown marks a moment when the responsibilities of power clash with their pursuit of ideological purity.

The party is split between comparative moderates who want to solve the issue, understand the political and humanitarian weight posed by the plight of those affected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and believe that the GOP must ease its position on immigration to ensure future viability. They include South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and Flake, who have fought for years to enact immigration reform and are part of the 'Gang of Six' GOP and Democratic senators seeking a deal.

The chasm that the party must traverse is huge. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said Wednesday he could not countenance voting for the kind of bill he understands would be put forward by the gang of six.

"It would be inconsistent with the promises made to the working men and women of this country that we would put them first, so I very much hope Congress doesn't do so," he said.

Potent Issue

No one in the Republican Party doubts the potency of immigration. Key figures in the conservative media have warned it is the one issue that could tear the party apart and even threaten Trump's hold on his dedicated base voters.

In fact, immigration is an issue that changed the face of American politics, since it was used deliberately by Trump to build an insurgent power base that eviscerated the Republican primary field in the 2016 campaign.

The current debate is also forcing Democrats into a searing process of political self-examination -- since the fate of DACA recipients is as important to their grass roots as the wall is to Trump's. Failing to fight their corner could have consequences for the party's support among Hispanic voters, who are vital to the party's hopes of winning back power on Capitol Hill this year and the White House in 2020.

But since it is in power, the price for the Republican Party has never been so acute if it fails to find a resolution for DACA recipients. Overwhelming majorities of Americans support shielding people who were brought to the US illegally as children through no fault of their own, and the specter of mass deportations could be hugely damaging to the GOP in already tough midterm elections.

Even lawmakers who oppose granting a path to citizenship for DACA recipients understand the need to avert that nightmare scenario.

"Right now, I think the best way to do this is not to offer any kind of long-term citizenship, but legalization instead," said Rep. Mark Walker, the leader of the conservative Republican Study Committee.

As well as the national political consequences of acting, or not acting, the DACA imbroglio is forcing the GOP to question longtime and fundamental positions on the details of immigration as never before.

That journey into the party's soul includes finally coming up with a definition of what exactly Trump means -- and will accept -- when it comes to funding the border wall that he placed at the center of this campaign.

Will the President -- and his voters -- settle for an amalgam of walls, fences and electronically monitored border areas broken by areas of impassable topographical features like rivers and mountains, for instance?

Then the GOP must shape its own position on questions that include whether DACA recipients should be allowed to bring their parents or grandparents into the country once they are legalized. The party must arrive at a definition of exactly what it means by border security and balance the demands of its rambunctious base with other Republican constituencies like business and agricultural groups that are alienated by hard-line GOP positions on workplace verification systems like E-Verify.

The politics of the debate are so treacherous that there is no guarantee that any compromise forged by the various interest groups in the GOP caucus will win majority support in the party or in Congress, a dynamic that often played out in the health care and tax reform debates and can make assessing the progress of any reform effort highly uncertain.

"Just because we have two groups negotiating their position, they don't speak for everybody," said Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy.

"I mean they don't speak for me. I'm gonna see what this final product looks like."

Read more:
Republicans, Trump face immigration reckoning - CNNPolitics

UPDATE, January 12, 2018: The Senate could vote Tuesday on a disastrous NSA surveillance extension bill that violates the Fourth Amendment. Click the link at the bottom of the page to email your Senator today and tell them to oppose bill S. 139.

The House of Representatives cast a deeply disappointing vote today to extend NSA spying powers for the next six years by a 256-164 margin. In a related vote, the House also failed to adopt meaningful reforms on how the government sweeps up large swaths of data that predictably include Americans communications.

Because of these votes, broad NSA surveillance of the Internet will likely continue, and the government will still have access to Americans emails, chat logs, and browsing history without a warrant. Because of these votes, this surveillance will continue to operate in a dark corner, routinely violating the Fourth Amendment and other core constitutional protections.

This is a disappointment to EFF and all our supporters who, for weeks, have spoken to defend privacy. And this is a disappointment for the dozens of Congress members who have tried to rein NSA surveillance in, asking that the intelligence community merely follow the Constitution.

Todays House vote concerned S. 139, a bill to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a powerful surveillance authority the NSA relies on to sweep up countless Americans electronic communications. EFF vehemently opposed S. 139 for its failure to enact true reform of Section 702.

As passed by the House today, the bill:

You can read more about the bill here.

Sadly, the Houses approval of S. 139 was its second failure today. The first was in the Houses inability to pass an amendmentthrough a 183-233 votethat would have replaced the text of S. 139 with the text of the USA Rights Act, a bill that EFF is proud to support. You can read about that bill here.

The amendment to replace the text of S. 139 with the USA Rights Act was introduced by Reps. Justin Amash (R-MI) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and included more than 40 cosponsors from sides of the aisle. Its defeat came from both Republicans and Democrats.

S. 139 now heads to the Senate, which we expect to vote by January 19. The Senate has already considered stronger bills to rein in NSA surveillance, and we call on the Senate to reject this terrible bill coming out of the House.

We thank every supporter who lent their voice to defend the Constitution. And we thank every legislator who championed civil liberties in this months-long fight. The debate around surveillance reform has evolvedand will continue to evolvefor years. We thank those who have come to understand that privacy does not come at the price of security. Indeed, we can have both.

Thank you to the scores of representatives who sponsored and co-sponsored the USA Rights Act amendment, or voiced support on the House floor today, including Reps. Amash, Lofgren, Jerrold Nadler, Ted Poe, Jared Polis, Mark Meadows, Tulsi Gabbard, Jim Sensenbrenner, Walter Jones Jr., Thomas Massie, Andy Biggs, Warren Davidson, Mark Sanford, Steve Pearce, Scott Perry, Sheila Jackson Lee, Alex Mooney, Paul Gosar, David Schweikert, Louie Gohmert, Ted Yoho, Joe Barton, Dave Brat, Keith Ellison, Lloyd Doggett, Rod Blum, Tom Garrett Jr., Morgan Griffith, Jim Jordan, Earl Blumenauer, Ro Khanna, Beto ORourke, Todd Rokita, Hank Johnson, Blake Farenthold, Mark Pocan, Dana Rohrabacher, Ral Grijalva, Ral Labrador, Peter Welch, Tom McClintock, Salud Carbajal, Ted Lieu, Bobby Scott, Pramila Jayapal, and Jody Hice.

Email your Senator today and tell them to uphold your constitutional rights by rejecting S. 139.

Take Action

Tell Your Senator to Reject S. 139

More here:
House Fails to Protect Americans from Unconstitutional NSA ...

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that Turkeys military incursion in northern Syrias Idlib province would crush Kurdish militia forces that control the neighboring region of Afrin.

The Kurdish YPG militia said Turkish forces inside Syria fired shells into Afrin on Saturday, but no one was wounded.

Turkish troops entered Idlib three months ago after an agreement with Russia and Iran for the three countries to try to reduce fighting between pro-Syrian government forces and rebel fighters in the largest remaining insurgent-held part of Syria.

But the few observation posts which the Turkish army says it has established are close to the dividing line between Arab rebel-held land and the Kurdish-controlled region of Afrin.

If the terrorists in Afrin dont surrender we will tear them down, Erdogan told a congress of his ruling AK Party in the eastern Turkish city of Elazig.

The Kurdish YPG militia said Turkish forces stationed in Syria shelled several Kurdish villages in the Afrin region on Saturday, without causing casualties.

Rojhat Roj, the YPG spokesman in Afrin, told Reuters the shelling was carried out by Turkish forces in Dar Taizaah and Qalat Seman - areas where he said Turkish forces had deployed as part of the agreement with Russia and Iran.

From our side, there is no shelling at present, he added.

Erdogan has said the Kurdish YPG militia is trying to establish a terror corridor on Turkeys southern border, linking Afrin with a large Kurdish-controlled area to the east.

In 2016 Turkey launched its Euphrates Shield military offensive in northern Syria to push back Islamic State from the border and drive a wedge between the Kurdish controlled regions.

With the Euphrates Shield operation we cut the terror corridor right in the middle. We hit them one night suddenly. With the dlib operation, we are collapsing the western wing, Erdogan said, referring to Afrin.

He also said Turkey could drive YPG forces out of Manbij. The mainly Arab town lies west of the Euphrates, and Turkey has long demanded that Kurdish fighters pull back east of the river.

In Manbij, if they break the promises, we will take the matter in our own hands until there are no terrorists left. They will see what well do in about a week, Erdogan said.

Turkey was a major supporter of rebels fighting to overthrow Syrias President Bashar al-Assad, but is alarmed by the strength of Kurdish forces - which Ankara says are linked to Kurdish militants fighting in southeast Turkey.

It has criticized the United States for arming YPG and Arab fighters in the Syrian Democratic Forces, which drove Islamic State out of Raqqa and other parts of Syria.

The U.S. sent 4,900 trucks of weapons in Syria. We know this. This is not what allies do, Erdogan said. We know they sent 2,000 planes full of weapons.

Reporting by Irem Koca in Istanbul and Tom Perry in Beirut; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Alexander Smith

See more here:
Erdogan says Turkey will crush Kurdish militia in Afrin | Reuters

It exists at the intersection of two popular racial myths. First is the idea of the model minority, in which Asian-Americans are painted as all hard-working, high-achieving and sufficiently well-behaved to assimilate. If Asians are the model minority if that is how nonwhites can find acceptance in white America then perhaps that opens the door to acceptance from white supremacists.

The second myth is that of the subservient, hypersexual Asian woman. The white-supremacist fetish combines those ideas and highlights a tension within the project of white supremacism as America grows more diverse a reality that white nationalists condemn as white genocide. The new, ugly truth? Maintaining white power may require some compromises on white purity.

Was Tila Tequila at that white supremacist dinner just attempting, in some twisted way, to assimilate? Or to rebel against what was expected of her? I cringe at her antics, at her trying to be just one of the white-supremacist bros.

But the photo also conjured up my memories of being a 14-year-old Asian girl in an overwhelmingly white school who wanted to be interesting, self-possessed and liked. Instinctively, I knew it meant distancing myself from the other Asian kids, especially the nerdy and studious ones. I knew I had succeeded when a friend remarked that I wasnt really Asian, I was white, because youre cool.

As I skipped classes to smoke in the courtyard, read Baudelaire to seem the interesting kind of smart and attempted to distance myself from the stereotypes, I didnt know that the idea I wanted to run from of Asians as civilized, advanced and highly intelligent had roots in white supremacy. But between the white supremacist Chris Cantwells tattoo of a Japanese character and the Charleston shooter Dylann Roofs speculations that Asians could be great allies of the white race, there are echoes of historys most infamous white nationalist.

I have never regarded the Chinese or the Japanese as being inferior to ourselves, Adolf Hitler said in 1945. They belong to ancient civilizations, and I admit freely that their past history is superior to our own.

In the United States, the model-minority myth grew from Asian-Americans mid-20th-century efforts to win civil rights, as the scholar Ellen D. Wu recounts in The Color of Success. Previously, Asian-Americans, many with humble roots in rural China, were considered degenerate, subject to lynchings, and forced to live in segregated neighborhoods and attend segregated schools under a regime of discriminatory laws and practices she has called a cousin to Jim Crow.

But, according to Professor Wus research, Chinese-Americans promoted themselves as hard-working, obedient, family-oriented and able to easily assimilate into American life traits that are not uncommon in poor immigrant communities, where many have made enormous sacrifices to move to a foreign place.

By the height of the civil rights movement, America was already giving preferential treatment to educated, professional Asian immigrants, reinforcing the idea of Asians as pliable and studious. White politicians co-opted the myth, pointing to Asian-Americans as proof that the right kind of minority group could achieve the American dream.

Professor Wu found that just months before the release of the 1965 Moynihan Report, the widely influential policy paper that attributed black poverty to a degenerate black culture, its author, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, spoke at a gathering of intellectuals and policymakers about how Japanese- and Chinese-Americans, considered colored just 25 years earlier, were rather astonishing. Am I wrong that they have ceased to be colored? he asked.

In reality, Asians are rarely considered white, and the model-minority myth obscures the vast differences among Asian-Americans. Whats more, the myth helped to strengthen Americas white liberal order, which claims to uphold diversity while also being anti-black. It legitimizes white Americas power to determine who is good and to offer basic dignity and equal rights.

The model-minority myth exists alongside another dangerous and limiting idea one that is consistent with the alt-rights misogyny and core anti-feminist values. The main problem with white women, as many alt-right Asian fetishists have noted, is theyve become too feminist. By contrast, Asian women are seen as naturally inclined to serve men sexually and are also thought of as slim, light-skinned and small, in adherence to Western norms of femininity.

These stereotypes have roots in Americas postwar military incursions into Asia. In Japan, a network of brothels permitted by American officials opened as United States troops began arriving in August 1945. The brothels employed tens of thousands of women until Gen. Douglas MacArthur declared them off limits in 1946.

In South Korea, an estimated 300,000 women were working in the sex trade by 1958 (after the end of the Korean War), with more than half employed in the camptowns around the American bases. Vietnams sex industry, centered largely on American bars, thrived during the Vietnam War. And the stereotype of docile Asian women persists. Nowhere is this more explicit than in sex ads and online pornography.

Tila Tequila Playboy model, reality show star, aspiring rapper and one of a handful of female Asian-American celebrities is often seen through this trope. Does she resent being typecast as the hot, horny Asian as much as I resented being seen as a model minority?

Yet after I was called white at age 14, it felt, paradoxically, like a compliment to be nicknamed Geisha Girl by another friend, a well-meaning gay white boy. This was not because I was delicate. But the nickname became our inside joke, and it symbolized the kind of femininity that attracted the boys I liked, but that I have never really possessed. Being in on the joke meant I was accepted. Since then, I have acted out in all manner of ways to dispel the model minority image. Still, I have never fully extinguished the belief that racking up an impressive lineup of achievements is the only way to gain respect.

The stereotypes that feed the Asian-woman fetish are not exclusive to the far right. They exist across the political spectrum and infect every aspect of life not just the bedroom and manifest themselves in figures as distant from America as the blond-haired, blue-eyed heroes and hypersexualized heroines of Japanese anime.

This fun-house mirror asks me to be smarter, nicer, prettier and more accomplished than my white counterparts for the same amount of respect, then floods my dating app inbox with messages that reek of Asian fetish. Thankfully, Im not required to care or let it define me; for what its worth, I am even entitled to play up the stereotypes if I see something to be gained. Maybe this is where the Asian girlfriends of alt-right men stand. But none of us can escape the truth that the fun-house was built to justify systematic exploitation of everyone in this country who isnt white. Thats important context. Otherwise, Richard Spencers comments could almost sound nice.

There is something about the Asian girls, he once said to Mother Jones. They are cute. They are smart. They have a kind of thing going on.

See original here:
The Alt-Rights Asian Fetish - The New York Times

In Japan, Article 21 of the Japanese Constitution guarantees freedom of expression and prohibits formal censorship. What censorship does exist is often carried out through Article 175 of the Criminal Code of Japan. Historically the law has been interpreted in different waysrecently it has been interpreted to mean that all pornography must be at least partly censored; however, there have been very few arrests based on this law.[1]

As publishing became more popular in the Edo Period, the Tokugawa shogunate began to turn to censorship. Initial targets included Christianity, criticism of the shogunate, and information on the activities of the Tokugawa clan. With the Kansei Reforms, any material deemed to be disturbing the traditional way of life, as well as luxury publications came under scrutiny. Under the Temp Reforms, printing blocks of erotic literature, as well as the novels of Tamenaga Shunsui and Tanehiko Rytei were among those seized.

After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, which marked a major political shift in Japan, the government began heavy censorship of Western ideas, pornography and any political writings critical of the Emperor of Japan and government, wanting to control the spread of information. Censorship of materials increased from this point, often using ongoing wars to increase police powers and penalties. In 1928, the death penalty was added to the list of punishments deemed acceptable for certain violations. This continued, eventually to the Information and Propaganda Department (, Jhbu) being elevated to the Information Bureau (, Jh Kyoku) in 1940, which consolidated the previously separate information departments from the Army, Navy and Foreign Ministry under the aegis of the Home Ministry. The new Bureau had complete control over all news, advertising and public events. The following year revision of the National Mobilization Law (, Kokka Sdin H) eliminated freedom of the press entirely, doing things such as forcing papers in each prefecture to either merge into one paper or cease publication, with all articles by the paper having to be screened by government censors before they could be published.

After the surrender of Japan in 1945, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers abolished all forms of censorship and controls on Freedom of Speech, which was also integrated into Article 21 of the 1947 Constitution of Japan. However, press censorship remained a reality in the post-war era, especially in matters of pornography, and in political matters deemed subversive by the American government during the occupation of Japan.

According to Donald Keene:

Not only did Occupation censorship forbid criticism of the United States or other Allied nations, but the mention of censorship itself was forbidden. This means, as Donald Keene observes, that for some producers of texts "the Occupation censorship was even more exasperating than Japanese military censorship had been because it insisted that all traces of censorship be concealed. This meant that articles had to be rewritten in full, rather than merely submitting XXs for the offending phrases."

Due to the current interpretation of Article 175 of the Criminal Code of Japan, which forbids distributing "indecent" materials, it is believed that most pornography in Japan must be at least partially censored. The primary means is to put a digital mosaic over genitalia. There have, however, been very few arrests for violations of this law.[1]

The most recent trial based on this law, the first in 20 years, was the conviction of Suwa Yuuji in January 2004 for his hentai manga Misshitsu. He was originally fined 500,000 yen (about 4,900 USD) and avoided jail time by pleading guilty. When he appealed the case to the Supreme Court of Japan on arguments that the manga was not as indecent and explicit as much material on the Internet and that Article 175 violated the Japanese Constitution's protection of freedom of expression, the Court upheld the ruling and the fine was tripled to 1.5 million yen.[citation needed]

After Yuuji's conviction, a number of bookstores and chains removed their adults-only section. Their motivation has been attributed to chilling effect of the outcome.[3]

In July 2013, three people were arrested for selling "obscene images" with "insufficient censoring."[4][5] They later plead guilty in December 2013.[6]

Go here to read the rest:
Censorship in Japan - Wikipedia