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Twelve hours after Virginias two Democratic senators, Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine, voted to confirm Michael Pompeo, President Trumps nominee to run the CIA, the protests began.

On Tuesday morning, more than 100 protesters gathered outside Warners constituent offices in the Virginia suburbs of Washington. Amanda Lynch, a mother and writer near Manassas, took two of her sons to Kaines office there, where they played with pocket Constitutions, and she pledged to return every week.

I was disappointed by Pompeo, and Im not going to pretend otherwise, said Lynch, 34. Hes defended the use of torture even though its been proven that it doesnt work. Im disappointed in the selection of [education secretary nominee] Betsy DeVos. Apart from Gen. [James] Mattis, its hard for me to feel anything but perturbed by these Cabinet choices.

Senators have confirmed four of Trumps Cabinet nominees and voted a few more out of committee. Republicans have criticized Democrats for slowing down Pompeos nomination, delaying several others and voting in a bloc against secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson at the committee level on Monday.

But none of it has earned them many points with a fast-growing liberal protest movement that is asking Democratic senators to wage a blockade on nominees they have deemed unacceptable.

They need to do anything they can to defeat or delay the seating of Senator Sessions, Mr. Tillerson and Mr. Price, said Maggie Godbold, 62, a retiree and Democratic activist from Fairfax County, Va., who helped organize the protest at Warners office, one of 200 across the country Tuesday. Theyre unqualified.

The senators, however, appear unwilling to do what their base is asking. On Tuesday, the full Senate voted 96 to 4 to confirm Nikki Haley, Trumps nominee to be ambassador to the United Nations. Earlier in the day, they voted Haley and three other nominees out of committee Ben Carson to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development; Wilbur Ross to serve as commerce secretary; and Elaine Chao to lead the Transportation Department. That followed full Senate votes for Pompeo on Monday and for Defense Secretary James Mattis and Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly on Friday.

There are clearly going to be some Trump nominees that give me pause, but there are some Im going to be supporting, Warner said in an interview on Capitol Hill Tuesday. I argued strenuously, both as a governor and under President Obama, that you give the president, or the governor, the chance to put his team in place.

[Nikki Haley confirmed as new U.S. envoy to the United Nations]

The reality, too, is that thwarting Trumps nominees is a goal that is largely out of reach for Democrats, thanks to their own partys 2013 reform of filibuster rules, continued by Republicans ever since; it now takes just 51 votes to confirm a nominee for office lower than the Supreme Court.

Democrats, with no leverage, are left fighting nominees without really hoping to stop them.

Were getting lots of calls on lots of the nominees, said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a liberal from a safe seat who voted to confirm Pompeo. They want us to fight, but elections have consequences. We dont have the votes in many instances, so in order to stop any nominee, we need three profiles in courage on the Republican side. Those are just the facts. And people understand that but I think theres nothing to be satisfied about, and theres lots to be concerned about.

Thats one reason Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has continued to tout his caucuss decision to continue delaying votes on nominees even if blocking any of them is unlikely.

Schumer said the Senate would move with relative speed on nominees who are not controversial.

Raising his voice and gesticulating more than usual at a weekly briefing with reporters, Schumer insisted: Were going to vet these nominees thoroughly. Were not being dilatory, but were not going to just rush them through. These are all very important nominees. And to have a few days discussion on them? That makes sense. Theyre going to be in power for up to four years with tremendous say on what affects Americans.

Cue the Republican outrage.

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said Tuesday that party-line votes on things like secretary of state were breaking the comity of the Senate. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, successfully guided Tillerson to a confirmation vote, then bemoaned how no Democrats joined him.

All of a sudden, because the election outcome is what it is, its like everything has changed, Corker said. I just want us to get back into the middle of the road and get back to realizing the importance of these positions.

The delays are noteworthy when compared with past administrations; George W. Bush and Barack Obama entered their first day in office with at least seven nominees confirmed. The relative sluggishness of the Trump teams confirmations, in contrast, has led to dozens of critical national security, financial, public health and other domestic policy positions sitting vacant, with most federal agencies temporarily under the management of career civil service managers or holdovers from the Obama administration who could sit in place for months to come.

The modest progress on Pompeo and Tillerson came as top congressional leaders met with Trump at the White House on Monday night for a social gathering that included talk of persuading Democrats to move along quickly with votes on some of the presidents top picks. On Tuesday, Senate leaders met with him again at the White House to discuss his Supreme Court nominee which Trump said will be announced next week.

But the Democratic Partys base expects senators to move nominees along as slowly as possible.

This is not the first time a restive left has demanded resistance and blamed Democrats when little arose. In 2005, the active and angry Democratic Netroots shamed senators who voted to confirm George W. Bushs nominees, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. Barack Obama, then a freshman senator, wrote a diary on the liberal Daily Kos blog explaining why he and other self-identified progressives had not filibustered every nominee they could.

How can we ask Republican senators to resist pressure from their right wing and vote against flawed appointees like John Bolton if we engage in similar rhetoric against Democrats who dissent from our own party line? Obama wrote.

A final vote on Tillerson, the former CEO of ExxonMobil whom Democrats have labeled as part of Trumps Swamp Cabinet, wont occur until Tuesday at the earliest. Other nominees, including Carson and Chao the wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) remain in limbo. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee also scrapped plans on Tuesday to hold votes to recommend former Texas governor Rick Perry to lead the Energy Department and Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) to lead the Interior Department. Aides said that a miscommunication between the parties forced the panel to reschedule to a later date further delaying the formation of Trumps government.

Well, in a more fulsome way, move into approving Cabinet appointments, both controversial and noncontroversial, beginning next week, McConnell told reporters.

Schumer cited Carson as a nominee who has split Democrats, saying Tuesday that he had fresh concerns about the former brain surgeons nomination to lead HUD because of Trumps decision last week to sign an executive order that overhauled federal housing policy.

Carson had been unanimously approved by the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday including by liberal leaders such as Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Under pressure from supporters on social media to explain her vote, Warrens office said in a statement that she was backing Carson despite his inexperience with federal housing policy because of commitments he made at his hearing to work with her to expand fair housing rights to all Americans and to combat unacceptable lead levels in public housing.

Other Trump nominees sat for confirmation hearings on Tuesday, including Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), tapped to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Amid several questions about his personal finances and disclosures to the Senate Finance Committee, Price would not commit during his confirmation hearing that no Americans will be worse off under Trumps executive order to ease rules under the Affordable Care Act.

Price also declined to confirm whether Trump is indeed nearly finished with a plan to replace the health-care law.

Republicans defended Price, broadly criticizing Democrats for undermining the Senate by continuing to attack Prices views and ethics instead of embracing his qualifications for the job.

Meanwhile, Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), Trumps choice to lead the Office of Management and Budget, defended his support of cuts to popular entitlement programs that Trump has vowed to keep intact.

During his hearing with the Senate Budget Committee, Mulvaney also faced questions about the Trump administrations claims that turnout for the new presidents inauguration was larger than previous swearing-in ceremonies.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) brandished side-by-side images of the Mall from Obamas 2009 inauguration and Trumps on Friday.

Im not really sure how this ties to OMB, Mulvaney said before conceding that images from Obamas inauguration showed a bigger crowd.

Merkley explained that he raised the issue because budgets often contain buried deceptions. ... This is an example of where the presidents team, on something very simple and straightforward, wants to embrace a fantasy rather than a reality.

Mulvaney assured the committee that he is deadly serious about giving you hard numbers I intend to follow through on that.

In the coming days, progressive groups are planning to organize more rallies, building on Saturdays Womens March on Washington as well as the political unpopularity of Trump. Tuesdays protests in Virginia were part of a National Day of Action against the Swamp Cabinet, organized by the progressive group MoveOn. They supplemented the ongoing Trump Tuesdays that other progressive groups are organizing to keep protesters in the field and attention on the Trump administration.

The millions of people that took to the streets on Saturday are not going to give up because Ben Carson will be confirmed to run HUD, said Ben Wikler, the Washington director of MoveOn. People want to see evidence that Democrats will stand up and fight, but they increasingly get that they cant stop everything. Democrats are just going to have to get used to their constituents being angry if they dont use every tool at their disposal.

Paul Kane contributed to this report.

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Liberals press Democrats to thwart Trump nominations, but to little effect - Washington Post

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Among the philosophically inclined, a common criticism of conservatism is that it's an incoherent and contradictory political philosophy: What is the link between, say, free-market economics and social conservatism? And doesn't the free market undermine traditional institutions?

What so many people view as inconsistency is actually a major reason I enjoy being a conservative: We're a disputatious bunch. You can find conservatives on either side of practically every major disagreement. There are pro- and anti-immigration conservatives; pro-marijuana and anti-legalization conservatives; pro- and anti-same-sex marriage conservatives; and so on. Maybe sometimes this makes us a circular firing squad. But at any rate, it makes being an intellectual conservative great fun.

Viewed from the outside, the world of progressive left thought seems much more uniform and, frankly, dreary. Not that there aren't camps or disputes between more establishmentarian, "neoliberal" progressives and more straightforwardly socialist progressives, for example. But even then, most of the disputes seem to be more about means rather than ends. For example, Jonathan Chait, a writer at New York magazine, is somewhat infamous for being a punching bag for more progressive lefties. But there's little doubt that Chait would like America to look pretty much like what Bernie bros want it to look like: basically Sweden. They just disagree about how to get there, and which fights it is important to prioritize and pick first.

Here, the contrast with my own country of France is pretty striking.

Take an idea that's buzzy among progressives on both sides of the Atlantic: universal basic income. In the primary election for France's Socialist Party, which just had its first round, the debate about basic income was promoted by the most left-wing candidate, Benot Hamon. In the U.S., I don't think I've ever seen a progressive writer dispute this issue on its merits; if they ever do debate it, their argument has to do with feasibility, either technical or political.

By contrast, Hamon's unimpeachably socialist opponents attacked him for his proposal on much more profound grounds. Arnaud Montebourg, his equally left-wing opponent, expressed outrage along the following lines: A basic income (financed, in Hamon's plan, by a tax on robots) presents basically a surrender to the late-capitalist vision of a technological capitalism that just leaves less-skilled workers jobless. Reminding his opponent that socialists are supposed to be the party of workers, Montebourg instead pushed a vision of robust public investment and trade barriers that would provide well-paying jobs to everyone, making the issue of the basic income moot. Put aside the merits of who's right; the point is that there is a greater diversity of views on display here, and they are animated not by technocratic questions but by profound philosophical differences. What's more, Montebourg's criticism was not a form of "triangulation" but was indeed framed in left-wing philosophical premises.

The same approach applies to social issues. The French philosopher Sylviane Agacinski is pretty close to a doyenne of French feminism. And yet she's comfortable being idiosyncratic. In a recent interview with the French right-of-center daily Le Figaro, while endorsing same-sex marriage, she expressed reservations about same-sex adoptions and mused about the right of children to be brought up by parents of both sexes. She criticized surrogacy for submitting women's bodies to the marketplace. On campus and school rules meant to deter harassment and sexual assault, she mused, in what will probably strike readers as a delightfully French train of thought: "It would be really sad to go on a witchhunt against seduction under the pretext of fighting harassment. The two have nothing to do with each other: In one case, one tries to spark the other's desire, while in the other one ignores and offends it."

There's little doubt that taking any of those positions, let alone all of them, would have an American feminist philosopher angrily protested, denounced, and written off the movement. To be sure, many disagreed with Agacinski publicly, which is the point: The French left, by contrast to the American left, has intramural debates, and they are not just debates about means, but philosophical debates. On the American left, I can only think of one similar bomb thrower: Camille Paglia, and she's distinguished by precisely how lonely she is in this role, and how little the vast mainstream progressive left listens to her.

Perhaps one reason why you don't see this sort of debate within the American progressive left is simply that the American progressive left doesn't care much about culture at all. As my colleague Damon Linker pointed out, there's much more interest in the intellectual life on the right than on the left. In France, having at least a veneer of high culture is still mostly a requirement for entry into the battlefield of ideas. But too many on the American progressive left see philosophy and history as holding little interest since the only lesson of the past is that it must be transcended.

And, hey, you know, maybe that's right. But it makes being a liberal sound just so boring. If you're looking for me, I'll be over there with my Leo Strauss and my Aquinas, throwing bombs at my comrades.

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What American liberals could really learn from the French - The Week Magazine

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Wednesday, January 25, 2017, 5:00 AM

P resident Trump appears to be taking steps to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; the White House confirmed this past weekend that it is in the early stages of preparing for relocation. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat seemed confident enough to announce assurances that the embassy move is done seamlessly and efficiently.

I applaud the President and believe those who share my progressive credentials should as well.

Moving the embassy to Israels capital is not some right-wing apocalyptic scheme designed to sink the possibility of Middle East peace, as suggested by some. In fact, not only has the move to Jerusalem enjoyed broad bipartisan support for decades, but it began as a liberal initiative. I should know, as I am honored to have played a small but meaningful role in its development.

The year was 1972, and George McGovern was the 500-to-1 long-shot liberal candidate campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination. As early supporters of his candidacy, my friend Hilly Gross and I were asked at a meeting of key advisers to help hammer out elements for a McGovern Middle East program.

White House may not move U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem

We drafted an outline of principles, one of which was that the United States should recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move its embassy there. Soon thereafter, McGovern enunciated this policy as his own.

That summer, Democrats nominated McGovern and adopted the following statement in the partys platform: The next Democratic administration should: recognize and support the established status of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, with free access to all its holy places provided to all faiths. As a symbol of this stand, the United States Embassy should be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

It was the first time an American political party adopted such a proposal. Soon thereafter, Republicans adopted it as well.

In 1995, during Bill Clintons presidency, the Jerusalem Embassy Act was passed to fund the relocation of the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and called for Jerusalem to remain an undivided city and for it to be recognized as the capital of Israel.

Israel approves 2,500 West Bank settler homes

The legislation included the ability of the President to waive the requirement of moving the embassy a waiver that has been exercised by Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. That, however, was envisioned as a safeguard available to the President in the event negotiations were at a particularly sensitive moment; it was never intended to be the default policy of the U.S., certainly not during a time when negotiations were not even taking place.

When Congress reconvened this past Jan. 3, a bill was introduced by Nevada Sen. Dean Heller along with Floridas Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz of Texas. The Jerusalem Embassy and Recognition Act would require the U.S. to act on the 1995 law and eliminate the waiver option.

19 photos view gallery

It should pass both houses of Congress and be signed into law.

Critics of relocating the embassy will argue that it will drive the Palestinians from the peace negotiations. Nothing could be further from the truth. The embassy would be placed in West Jerusalem, a part of the city that under any peace plan will remain part of Israel, as it has since the countrys birth in 1948.

Obama administration paid $221M to Palestinian Authority

Placing the embassy in West Jerusalem in no way prejudices final status negotiations over East Jerusalem, where both Israel and the Palestinians have made claims.

The real reason Palestinians object to an embassy move to any part of Jerusalem is that they still do not accept Israels existence as a Jewish state, which is what truly hinders prospects for peace.

How else to explain the consistent unwillingness by Palestinian leadership to negotiate with Israel even when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to freeze settlement construction for a year and release Palestinian prisoners? Or the continued refusal by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to recognize Israel? Or the rejected offers by Israeli prime ministers in both 2000 and 2007 to relinquish up to 97% of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority?

If moving the embassy to an undisputed section of Jerusalem is sufficient provocation to derail any chance for peace, we must be honest with ourselves and concede that such a chance was an illusion to begin with. Real peace requires reality to be recognized. Israels sovereignty over Jerusalem is part of that reality, and moving our embassy there confirms that fact.

Israeli Prime Minister accepts invitation to visit White House

As the 50th anniversary of Jerusalem becoming a united city draws near, now is the time that the United States should take this long overdue step of placing its embassy there.

Abrams is former attorney general of New York and a partner at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP. The opinions expressed here are his own.

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A Jerusalem embassy? Fear not, liberals - New York Daily News

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Pool took to Reddit after he was arrested in Washington,D.C. while covering anti-Trump protests. He was subsequentlyreleased without charges.

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Have you ever had word come down to report with a bias or to omit facts in order to push an agenda? one user asked him. Had an article edited or denied due to the information not swaying a certain way? Or have you heard of other who have?

Pool responded:

Yes I have.

Fusion told me and many other staff to side with the audience. Which they clarified as young people being liberal or left leaning so thats the angle we take regardless of the facts. It was not a fun time.

Most companies dont force journalists to be biased they just hire biased journalists in the first place.

He also added that money and politics, but usually money drive business decisions for media outlets, explaining that an article about violent trump supporters will get waaay more shares than a balanced piece about violence on both sides.

Pool joined Fusion in 2014 and is described on their website as director of media innovation at Fusion, and a mobile and technology specialist covering conflict, crisis, and internet culture on the ground and online. Pools reporting while working at VICE was covered by The Guardian, Reuters, The New York Times, NBC, FastCompany, and Al Jazeera English, according to his personal website.

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Journalist Tim Pool: Fusion Told Me to Side with Young Liberals 'Regardless of the Facts' - Breitbart News

Defending a series of false statements by the official White House spokesman, a senior Trump administration adviser on Sunday suggested the official had been invoking alternative facts rather than untruths.

Meanwhile, Chris Wallace did his duty on Fox News Sunday. You talk about honesty, and say that this was about honesty, he told White House chief of staff Reince Priebus. Well, theres another issue, though, Reince, and thats the presidents honesty, because two things that he said yesterday were just flat wrong. Wallace showed photos comparing Trumps inaugural crowd to Barack Obamas in 2009, clearly proving that the latter was bigger.

That both the Journal and Fox News were willing to call out the administrations disinformation campaign is not only heartening, but vital. (Theyve done it before, but this weekend suggested the scrutiny will continue.) Trump, like conservatives more broadly, has convinced many Americans that mainstream outlets like The New York Times and CNN are effectively extensions of the Democratic Party. Yet, the Journal and Fox News, longtime conservative outlets overseen by Murdoch, are immune to such criticism, making them uniquely positioned to upholding truth under Trump. Thats why they deserve the support, not only of the media establishment, but liberals too.

Fox News was rightly criticized under President George W. Bush for being anything but fair and balanced. This criticism became a cottage industry on the left, producing Robert Greenwalds documentary Outfoxed, Keith Olbermanns scathing special comments on MSNBC, and Al Frankens brilliant book Lies (and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them): A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. (The Minnesota senators takedowns of Bill OReilly and Ann Coulter in his days as a satirist make his grilling of President Donald Trumps education secretary nominee Betsy DeVos look positively tame.)

Fox News hasnt gotten better since the Bush years. They otherized President Barack Obama, lionized the Tea Party, and largely promoted Donald Trumps candidacy (notwithstanding the occasional challenge from Megyn Kelly, Shepard Smith, and Chris Wallace). But these journalistic sins, and those of the Journal (mostly in its opinion section), pale in comparison to the daily output of Breitbart and the fringe pro-Trump, post-truth media outlets that have sprouted over the past year. As the biggest power players in conservative media, Fox News and the Journal can respond to this market challenge in one of two ways: Move away from reality to appeal to Breitbarts audience, or defend broadly accepted facts and evidencethat is, to defend journalism itself against an administration thats hostile to it.

At a time when only about 40 percent of Americans have a positive opinion of Trumpand most have an actively negative view, according to Fox Newss own pollingmany right-of-center news consumers will be receptive to fact-checks of the president, especially from these two outlets theyve long trusted. Viewers and readers might believe critical reporting of Trump from these sources that theyd otherwise reject from the Times or CNN. Plus, Fox News was the most-watched basic cable channel last year, averaging 2.4 million primetime viewers, and Fox Newss digital audience was 74,000 unique visitors in December, according to ComScore. The Journal reported 948,000 digital-only subscribers as of last August, and a print circulation of 1.3 million.

Theres a mountain of instances, collected over two decades, where Fox News has distorted truth or evaded it. Many of its pundits, like OReilly and Sean Hannity (one of Trumps leading non-Breitbart boosters), continue to do so. But Foxs news operation, like the Journals, is fundamentally committed to the truth. Both outlets reporters deal in facts. They issue corrections. They challenge misinformation. (And for the record, the Journal is far superior to Fox News in this regard.)

But adherence to facts only goes so far; these outlets opinion-makers matter, too. Hannity is a lost cause, but we can hope that OReilly and perhaps even Tucker Carlson are willing to take on the White House when the moment calls for it. The same is true for the Journals editorial board, which has already done so with a Sunday editorial criticizing Trumps CIA speech. This was not a presidential performance, they wrote. Such defensiveness about his victory and media coverage makes Mr. Trump look small and insecure.

Business pressures incentivize deference to Trump, but responsible journalism demands the opposite. This is the moment for Murdochs outlets to challenge every liberal stereotype about them. Fox News and the Journal are mainstream media, whether they like it or not, and they should stand up for the values that all mainstream outlets share. Theres no better moment to be truly fair and balanced.

Originally posted here:
Why Liberals Should Root for Fox News - New Republic