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Less than a year ago, Republicans and Democrats came together to support the RENANCER Act to limit the catastrophic dictatorship of Nicaragua under the regime of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo. In Nicaragua, businesses are extorted by mafia-like police officers, Catholic leaders are persecuted for supporting democracy, residents (even Americans) are detained and sentenced for decades, and civil society organizations have been shuttered. This family dynasty has criminalized democracy, ensuring that freedom of expression, political participation, movement and beliefs are legally eliminated. Nicaraguas president and family have turned Nicaragua into a rogue state.

The Ortega-Murillo regime has eliminated all forms of political and social pluralism. The termination of nearly 2,000 non-profit organizations, of which 600 were regularly active was another act against freedom of association. These organizations were working on much needed social development projects, half of which were based on education. The material losses in a country where children have few opportunities, and the average education is below fourth grade amount to at least $200 million USD a year (excluding the expulsion of 56 international non-profits) affecting nearly 1 million beneficiaries. However, the impact is not only material, but ideological. The regime, in particular Ortegas wife, has redefined the rules of education, subordinated learning to the dynastys creed of obedience, banned books and literature as sacrilege, even claiming that deviating from the regime constitutes exclusion from public services (including access to health) and a criminal act of conspiracy against the state.

Nicaragua has also strengthened its military alliance with Russia and Iran in ways that reminisce of the Cold War, including an offensive if not insulting barrage of attacks on the United States.

The consequences are dire for Nicaraguans, Central Americans and, through desperate immigration, the United States. Nicaraguans do not accept the status quo: According to public opinion polls, political prisoners are the most popular individuals in Nicaragua, while Ortega and Murillo are unpopular, even feared and despised.

But those who can afford it, vote with their feet and migrate: Since 2018, at least 200,000 people have escaped Nicaragua (thats conservatively 5 percent of its population), especially after the electoral fraud in November 2021. The majority of those people have come to the United States.

The Biden administration has witnessed firsthand the attacks on the press, religious authorities, electoral independence, academic freedom, and pluralism, as well as attacks on the United States. Ortega has accused the United States of conspiring against the regime.

The U.S. response has included sanctions to 22 mid-level government officials and less than 100 tweets condemning the repression. Foreign policy official stress their commitment to take more steps, pulling resources from their policy toolbox and for good reason.

At first, the U.S. response to the magnitude of this tragedy seems disproportionately minimal to the damage and to national interest. The NICA Act from 2018 and RENACER Act passed in 2021 are important tools containing at least eight steps to put pressure on the regimes impunity.

RENACER Act calls for a review of Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), for multilateral engagement, for sanctions against those violating human rights and participating in corruption, to restrict funding to international financial institutions. It also calls for assessing Russias military alliance with Nicaragua.

Nicaragua has broken from CAFTA in several respects: It has violated labor and environmental rights, as well as restricted market financial access. The government also continues to receive disbursements from loans provided by the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank, half of them to finance infrastructure and public works that feed into clientelism and economic favors. Multilaterally, it has broken from membership in the Organization of American States and the Democratic Charter.

The Biden administrations toolbox includes provisions, such as sanctions to an extended number of members of the Ortega regimes repressive circle of power: those persecuting priests, women, children, academics, journalists, youth, the elderly.

The U.S. is within its rights to impose penalties to the Nicaraguan state for not answering to its labor rights violations and to argue at the Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank to suspend disbursements to the government, vote, not abstain, against loans to the regime. The U.S. can secure the region with a stronger military security alliance, urgently to defend the Democratic Charter and the Inter-American Human Rights Charter, as well as form a multilateral taskforce in support of democracy. Other neighboring countries are using Nicaraguas impunity as example of how far they can go without international pressure.

This is a joint responsibility for Republicans and Democrats, as it is the consequences of living close to a pariah state, the results of which are disrupting, destabilizing and go against the values we claim to support. It is morally and politically indefensible that more prisoners, migrants and vulnerable people in Nicaragua have to face the regimes impunity before U.S. responds accordingly.

Manuel Orozco is a senior fellow and the director of the Migration, Remittances and Development Program atthe Inter-American Dialogue, a U.S.-based policy think tank. He also serves as a senior fellow at Harvard Universitys Center for International Development and as a senior adviser with the International Fund for Agricultural Development.He works directly with migrant organizations and nationalities in several countries and provides advice on diaspora engagement and financial independence.

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Nicaraguas dictatorship is criminalizing democracy and fueling migration to the US - The Hill

(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune) Carvel Harward reads a copy of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" at the Smith Branch of the County Library. The public was invited to bring their favorite banned book to the Smith branch and participate in a Facebook live event where they would all read from their banned books, simultaneously, for approximately three minutes in celebration of our intellectual freedom, Sunday, September 24, 2017.

| Sep. 16, 2022, 7:00 p.m.

As Utah authors and illustrators of books for young readers, we condemn the efforts to suppress, demonize and ban books from our states schools and libraries.

These attempts overwhelmingly target books by and about LGBTQ people and by and about Black people, Indigenous people and people of color. Historically, these groups have been far underrepresented in books. Over the past decade, the childrens book community has made great strides in finally publishing more books that reflect our actual population. This is a positive achievement and one to be celebrated, not banned.

A parent has a right to decide which books their own children may read, but no parent or community member should have that right over everyones children. Access to books and information is foundational to a healthy democracy, economic growth, and a more compassionate society.

Reading books is a deeply empathetic exercise. When kids read books about someone different from them, they learn to see others as fully human. Recognizing the humanity in others creates a community of compassion and prevents hatred, cruelty, bullying, and bigotry.

Reading books is also a deeply validating experience. When kids who are minorities in their communities read books about characters like them, they feel validated and seen. They receive the message: You matter.

Attempts to ban books about underrepresented kids sends them the message: You shouldnt exist, your story doesnt matter, and we dont want our kids to empathize with you. This is a dangerous message, and the consequences can be grave.

In Utah, suicide is the leading cause of death for 10-24 year olds, and our hearts break for our vulnerable youth. More than ever, they need us to show them unequivocally: you matter, we love you, and we want you here. All of you.

Our best hope for a positive future is one free from fear and prejudice, where all of us work together, support each other, and create a community of diverse individuals who find common ground. Sharing our stories is one of the best ways to create that common ground.

We stand with our amazing educators, teachers, and librarians and all who seek to better the lives of our kids by teaching them and offering them books to broaden their minds and perspectives and prepare them to live bravely and compassionately in this world.

We ask our Utah school districts, library boards, state and local governments, and all those in power to reject these divisive, hate-mongering attempts to limit whose stories are worth telling. Uphold the values of freedom and equality we are all promised.

Shannon Hale

Ally Condie

Ann Dee Ellis

Yamile Saied Mndez

Lindsey Leavitt

Brandon Sanderson

Dean Hale

RuthAnne Oakey-Frost

Mette Harrison

Tiana Smith

Erin Stewart

Amy Newbold

Bree Despain

Ilima Todd

Charlie Homberg

Shelly Brown

Lehua Parker

Kathryn Purdie

Julie Olson

Star Peterson

Jessica Day George

Nathan Hale

Wendy Toliver

Kate Birch

Heather Clark

Kaela Rivera

Sabine Berlin

Erin Summerill

Bobbie Pyron

Christian McKay Heidicker

Jennifer Adams

Sara Zarr

Sharlee Glenn

Jennifer Jenkins

Kristyn Crow

Jennifer Nielsen

Elaine Vickers

Rosalyn Eves

Valynne E. Maetani

Emily Wing Smith

J. Scott Savage

Brodi Ashton

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Commentary: Access to books and information is basic to a healthy democracy - Salt Lake Tribune

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. People can become involved in politics in a number of ways. They can vote, volunteer in campaigns, or even run for office themselves. But when it comes to improving the state of the U.S. democracy, what can the average citizen do?

Christopher Beem, managing director of the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State, attempted to answer that question in his upcoming book, "The Seven Democratic Virtues: What You Can Do to Overcome Tribalism and Save Our Democracy."

The book describes the characteristics and practices such as humility, courage, and charity that Beem said can help people become better democratic citizens. According to Beem, the book was inspired by a question he was often asked when people learned about his area of study.

Many people would ask me what the average citizen can do to defend our democracy, and its a good question that deserves a serious answer, Beem said. People might not be able to change the way the news is reported or overcome the power of lobbyists and campaign donations. But we can step up and analyze our own behavior and make small changes to the way we think and act to help stand up for our democracy.

According to Beem, one of the greatest current threats to democracy in the U.S. is tribalism, the tendency for people to form groups, cooperate within them, and distrust and disparage those outside the group. He argued that tribalism is a basic neurological tendency for people to be drawn to others similar to themselves, and that it affects almost everyone.

Beem said that while democracies are generally vulnerable to tribalism for example, the two-party system in the U.S. tends to split people into one team or the other the problem has reached new heights in the U.S. in recent years.

It has swamped the banks of our democratic life and turned us into two ever-more-hostile camps, Beem wrote in the books introduction. In this moment, the other side is no longer an opponent but an existential threat; norms of behaviors are for suckers; politics has become a zero-sum game. As more partisans politicians and citizens alike reflect this attitude, the rhetoric ratchets up, leading to ever more distrust, antagonism, and even enmity.

However, Beem said there is still opportunity for people to step up and be part of the solution: changing the way they think about democratic citizenship.

To organize the list of virtues that would help citizens live together and thrive within a democracy, Beem broke them down into three categories: democratic thinking, democratic acting, and democratic belief.

According to Beem, intellectual or thinking virtues help us understand what is good and just, and the three thinking democratic virtues are humility, honesty and consistency. While humility is about understanding that everyone has biases that are hard to overcome, honesty is about recognizing that those biases can lead us to believe falsehoods.

Consistency is how we can try to overcome those biases, Beem said. For example, if you think a certain behavior is acceptable when its done by someone on your side, would you feel the same way if it was somebody on the other side? Of course, every circumstance is different and there could be exceptions. But at minimum, having that kind of discussion helps move us beyond our biases. Thats democratic thinking.

Next, Beem described the moral or acting virtues, which help us improve our actions courage and temperance. Courage is the ability to challenge the beliefs and actions of members of your own group, not just those of other groups. Temperance, meanwhile, is the ability to keep anger toward others from morphing into hate.

Finally, Beem listed the final virtues of charity and faith. While charity is the process of giving each other the benefit of the doubt and trusting that everyone has a common, shared commitment to democracy, faith is the belief that democracy can ultimately prevail.

Faith is the idea that you can be a witness for what you understand to be true, and you can have faith that your fellow citizens will respect your voice and actions, listen to what you have to say, and actually be moved, Beem said. Thats not to say that happens all the time, or even the majority of the time, but that it can and has happened.

Ultimately, Beem said he hopes people walk away from reading the book feeling more empowered than when they started.

If youre unhappy with the state of the country, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed or even despair, Beem said. I hope people can find things they can do to feel like theyre making a difference. In President [Joe] Bidens inaugural address, he talked about times that America has been in crisis before, and that it took enough people standing up and doing the right thing to find a solution. And I think that's right, that if you have enough people, you can change the culture. And by doing that, you can change our politics.

"The Seven Democratic Virtues: What You Can Do to Overcome Tribalism and Save Our Democracy" will be published Aug. 30, by Penn State University Press. Beem will be teaching a one-credit class organized around the book in Spring 2023.

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What are the seven virtues of a healthy democracy? - Pennsylvania State University

Is the United States a democracy?

According to a strict definition of the term, the answer is no. Citizens dont vote on proposed legislation, with the exception of infrequent ballot initiatives and perhaps in some small New England towns. We vote for people to represent us when they vote on legislation. That makes America a republic or, and I concede this point, a representative democracy.

So most of us would answer the question in the affirmative. We are as much a democracy as any other nation in the world, even if imperfect in our application of the textbook definition.

That said, why do so many of our politicians charge their opponents with being threats to democracy? We heard this for years, as many Democrats and not a few Republicans claimed that the election of Donald Trump was such a threat. The inconvenient fact that he won the 2016 election because he received more Electoral College votes than did Hilary Clinton simply moved their target to our faulty Constitution.

The operating principle here appears to be: Democracy is under threat whenever our side loses an election.

And give Donald Trump credit, something I am generally loath to do, for simply turning that argument back on his opponents by claiming election fraud to explain why he lost in 2020. They may be strange bedfellows, but they are fellow travelers in their lack of allegiance to our constitutional structures.

What is the single most important characteristic of a democratic form of government? Surely it is the expression of the will of the people at the ballot box. Democracy, in its simplest sense, is about voting. We either trust our fellow citizens or we dont. Hurling irresponsible charges of illegitimacy whenever the wrong candidate wins does not advance a democratic polity. Rather, such reckless hyperbole erodes its very foundation.

There is a reason we are not a pure democracy, and not simply that it would be ponderously inefficient for a nation of our size. The Founding Fathers recognized the need for checks and balances to guard against a tyranny of the majority. Hence, they established different election procedures for the President, the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Most critically, they assured that our judiciary would be independent of and removed from political pressure. Disagreeing with the Supreme Courts decisions is ones right under the First Amendment; it does not make the Court illegitimate nor does it justify political attacks bent on reducing or removing its independence. Threatening individual justices or the Court as a whole is the true threat to our democracy. Conservatives didnt understand that in the previous decade and Progressives dont understand it now.

We have John Adams, among others, to thank for this balance of power. While not attending the Constitutional Convention of 1787 due to his foreign posting as ambassador to England, his influence was in the room. It was he who midwifed the Massachusetts constitution which served as a model for others. The more I read about the period, the more I appreciate Adams despite his curmudgeonry.

The question of how much democracy is good consumed much of the debate during the 1780s leading up to the 1787 convention. The existing state legislatures tended to be captured by temporary majorities of special interests that passed self-serving laws. James Madison, who served briefly in the Virginia legislature, was beside himself with the lack of altruism among his fellow representatives.

I have the historian Gordon Wood to thank for this new insight. His most recent book, Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution, is a travelog through the decades of the 1770s and 1780s as the great thinkers of the day wrestled with defining the role and structure of a government created to advance liberty. He made me realize that my understanding of the issues of the day was rather shallow.

Our system is one of majority rule, even when election results are not to our liking. At the same time the rights of all are protected from a tyranny of the majority. The Constitution draws the line past which the majority dare not go. That line of defense is our court system, as unpopular as it is with one side or the other. That unpopularity among the powerful attests to its fidelity in performing its constitutional function.

Our national discourse would benefit from a ratcheting down of the illegitimacy rhetoric. Democracy is about elections, about winners and losers. When the people speak through the ballot box, thats just pure and simple democracy as it is meant to work.

As long as I am referencing presidents low on my ranking scale, I must add Barack Obamas response to Republican criticism during the early years of his administration. I won. Get over it.

A better quote comes from a losing Democrat candidate in a California Senate primary election. The people have spokethe bs.

Mark Franke, M.B.A., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review and its book reviewer, is formerly an associate vice-chancellor at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.

Mark Franke, M.B.A., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review and its book reviewer, is formerly an associate vice-chancellor at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.

Excerpt from:
The Warts of Democracy | Opinion | shelbynews.com - Shelbynews

(Composite / Photos: GettyImages / Shutterstock)

Some personal news: Keep calm and carry on. Ill be taking some time off for a family wedding, new baby, French grandkids, and reunions. But well be back in fine fettle after Labor Day!

Happy Redacted Affidavit Friday.

Summer 2022 is ending with a bang. So, talk amongst yourselves:

Judge Orders Redacted Affidavit Used in Trump Search Warrant to Be Unsealed, Via NYT

Biden's Job Rating Rises to 44%, Highest in a Year, Via Gallup

Trump's social media app facing financial fallout, Via Fox (!) Business

J.D. Vance Appeared With Podcaster Who Once Said Feminists Need Rape, Via Mother Jones

Biden calls on 'mainstream' GOP to reject 'MAGA', Via Reuters

ICYMI, I talked with Marine combat veteran Elliot Ackerman on Wednesdays podcast about his new book, The Fifth Act: Americas End in Afghanistan.

We discussed the fall of Kabul and its aftermath, but Ackerman had a warning about threats to democracy in this country and the possibility that someday the military might become involved.

Heres a partial (edited) transcript of some of our conversation:

Elliot Ackerman: When you go from contested election to contested election, at each juncture, there's a game of brinksmanship that's going on with whether or not the military will have to come in and restore some type of order.

There was talk about them having to restore order after the January 6 riots, and there was National Guard I'm actually from Washington, D.C. there was National Guard all over Washington, D.C. in the wake of those riots.

Remember there was Tom Cottons New York Times op-ed, and President Trump talking about evoking the Insurrection Act in the summer of 2020. I mean, that was in a presidential election, but it shows how there is this temptation for our political class to start politicizing the U.S. military.

And that is very, very dangerous, because, although the military is seen as a non-political entity in the United States, that does not mean that those in uniform do not have their political biases, like every other American.

The only difference is there's a culture of omerta in the U.S. military. We don't speak it. But, that culture can break.

And, it seems as though our political leaders, from the right and the left, at every juncture, are eager to politicize the U.S. military. And it's something we should be very aware of and alarmed about as citizens.

My concern is that because so many citizens, again, don't speak the language, they aren't necessarily literate with what's going on inside the military.

They won't be able to see it until it's too late.

Charlie Sykes: [But in 2020,] the line held. And I think that reassured some people, because you had people like General Mark Milley, who issued public statements that there is no way the military is going to be involved. We had a letter signed by 11 former Secretaries of Defense saying, the military is not going to play any role whatsoever. So, at least in the existing top ranks of the military, they seem to understand the danger.

But, if I understand you correctly, you're saying, Don't become complacent about that, or assume that that necessarily reflects what might happen in the culture of the military going forward.

Ackerman: Absolutely. I mean, listen, our popular culture tends to fixate on these four-star generals, the most senior sliver of the U.S. military. But, the military is a massive organization with officers up and down the chain of command, who are not Mark Milley and might not do what Mark Milley says in the heat of the moment....

I'm really not trying to be alarmist, but we have such high levels of dysfunction domestically, and every time we kind of set up these scenarios where we're asking our military to play a role in domestic politics, we're really tempting the fates.

The analogy I use is that these contested elections remind me of a drunk driver.

A drunk driver will go to the bar, right, and they will get completely hammered drunk, and they'll drive home.

And, probably the first time they do that, like, they make it home, and they do it and they make it home the second time, the third time.

And then on the fourth or fifth time, they get hammered drunk and try to drive home.

That's when they wrap their car around a telephone pole.

When I look at our contested elections, it's like we're doing the equivalent as a nation of going to the bar getting just hammered drunk, and we try to drive home.

We've done it twice now, and we have sort of managed to make it home, but one of these days, if we keep doing this, we are going to wrap our proverbial car around a telephone pole.

And, it worries me. We have to stop engaging in these behaviors.

Two stories tell the tale:

Via NBC: In Arizona, Blake Masters backtracks on abortion and scrubs his campaign website.

NBC News took screenshots of the website before and after it was changed. Masters' website appeared to have been refreshed after NBC News reached out for clarification about his abortion stances.

"I am 100% pro-life," Masters' website read as of Thursday morning.

That language is now gone.

Another notable deletion: a line that detailed his support for "a federal personhood law (ideally a Constitutional amendment) that recognizes that unborn babies are human beings that may not be killed."

**

Meanwhile, in Michigan

Last week, the GOP candidate for governor said that rape victims find healing through having their rapists baby.

This week? Republican Tudor Dixon now trails Democratic incumbent, Gretchen Whitmer, by double digits.

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More smart stuff from Ruy Teixeira:

Democrats will surely be happy for anything that delivers a relatively good election result in the current terrible national environment. It did not appear to bother them in 2020, nor does it appear likely to bother them in 2022, that their partys character and coalition keep skewing toward white college graduates. Consciously or not, this is the track the party is currently onthe cultural left turn of the party makes no sense outside of that context.

Between 2012 and 2020, the Democratic advantage among nonwhite working class voters declined by 19 points, while the Democratic advantage increased among white college graduates by 16 points. Stay tuned for more of the same.

Meanwhile, via the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: New Student Debt Changes Will Cost Half a Trillion Dollars.

President Biden todayannounceda set of changes to student loans including cancellation of up to $20,000 for some borrowers that will cost between $440 billion and $600 billionover the next ten years, with a central estimate of roughly $500 billion.

Combined with todays announcement, the federal governments actions on student loans since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic have cost roughly $800 billion. Of that amount, roughly $750 billion is due to executive action and regulatory changes made by the Biden Administration.

Bonus via Axios: GOP ad blitz mocks Biden's student loan plan.

Republicans are confident that the president's plan will be politically problematic, and are backing up their spin with paid advertising.

The ad, which will be airing during upcoming college football and Major League Baseball games, features a waitress, mechanic and landscaper talking about working extra shifts to help theatre majors and business majors get out of debt.

A landscaper in the spot says: " Biden's right you should take my tax dollars to pay off your debts. My family will figure out how to get by with less. What's most important is we spare college graduates from any extra stress." A mechanic follows up: "Wanna be a struggling artist? College is on me."

Cathy Young, in todays Bulwark:

Some things seem straightforward: For instance, as long as Russia wages a barbaric war in Ukraine, cultural institutions in liberal democracies should not collaborate with or engage any state-run or state-affiliated Russian cultural entities, including private organizations with government connections. The same, I would argue, applies to pro-war, pro-regime figures such as Gergiev. While, generally speaking, art should not be politicized and artists should not be punished for their politics, some circumstancessuch as wars of aggression and unconscionable violations of human rights that amount to state-sponsored terrorallow for exceptions.

Other cases, however, are far more complicated.

Matt Johnson, in this mornings Bulwark:

After decades as one of the worlds most courageous champions of free expression, Rushdie is in critical condition because a would-be assassin obeyed the command of a long-dead religious dictator to kill him for writing a novel. One reason his life has been in danger for the past 33 years is the fact that so many people are afraid to do what he has done: stand up to religious totalitarians and fight for the universal right to free expression, especially for those who live under oppressive and intolerant regimes. The least we can do now is show a bit of courage on his behalf and stand by his side in the fight to come.

Read more:
The Military and the Fate of Democracy - by Charlie Sykes - The Bulwark