Progressives (Liberals)

Trump seems unaware of his plan to end criminalization of homosexuality
By Steve Benen 02/21/19 09:20AM
U.S. officials told NBC News this week that the Trump administration is launching "a global campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality in dozens of nations where it's still illegal to be gay." The effort will be led by Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, who is also the highest-profile openly gay person in the administration.

Wouldn't a progressive goal like this face pushback from the White House's far-right base? Grenell told NBC News that the initiative has broad, bipartisan support. Asked specifically whether Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Trump himself were on board with his efforts, Grenell added that "decriminalizing homosexuality is something that people absolutely agree is a policy that we have to move forward on."

It was against this backdrop that the president fielded a question on the subject during a brief Q&A with reporters in the Oval Office yesterday.

Quote:

Q: Mr. President, on your push to decriminalize homosexuality, are you doing that? And why?

TRUMP: Say it?

Q: Your push to decriminalize homosexuality around the world.

TRUMP: I don't know which report you're talking about. We have many reports. Anybody else?

Occasionally, the president will try to be coy on a subject he's reluctant to talk about, but watching the clip, Trump seemed genuinely confused. He didn't appear to have any idea what the reporter was referring to...

The finely tuned machine is hummmmming along at perfect pitch

Quote:

Trump seems unaware of his plan to end criminalization of homosexuality
By Steve Benen 02/21/19 09:20AM
U.S. officials told NBC News this week that the Trump administration is launching "a global campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality in dozens of nations where it's still illegal to be gay." The effort will be led by Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, who is also the highest-profile openly gay person in the administration.

Wouldn't a progressive goal like this face pushback from the White House's far-right base? Grenell told NBC News that the initiative has broad, bipartisan support. Asked specifically whether Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Trump himself were on board with his efforts, Grenell added that "decriminalizing homosexuality is something that people absolutely agree is a policy that we have to move forward on."

...

This is, of course, dishonest top to bottom.

@edgar and others who are able to read above a Grade 4 level...

Paul Waldman has a very smart column up today that relates to the use of the term "socialism", particularly as to how the media can and frequently do act like freaking idiots.

Quote:

The Democrats running for president are beginning a meaty, substantive debate on how to address the most pressing problems the country faces, including climate change and reforming the health-care system.
President Trump, on the other hand, would like to use his bully pulpit to throw a cloak of deception and distraction over that debate, to paint Democrats in the worst possible light and, in the process, make sure voters are as ill-informed as possible.

And some in the news media seem eager to abet Trump in his effort.
…..

as Rosanne Barr just did about OAC.

Quote:

I haven't noticed anybody getting upset on the liberal side just because Bernie is old, male and white.

I think you are missing something quite significant here, edgar. I have no significant disagreements with Sanders in terms of his political ideas. But it is precisely because of those elements that I'd be likely to support other candidates over him.

reserved for use by narrow-minded, intolerant, self-appointed left wing critics, such as yourself.

The media paints these pictures of a doddering white man

Rep. Ilhan Omar Traveled With Pro-Communist, Anti-American Peace Group

How the hell do you claim to know this?

But it was not his first brush with criticism from the LGBT community. A self-described “Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order,” the former member of Congress was a prominent conservative figure in battles over marriage equality and equal rights in the last decade.
He said gay couples signaled ‘societal collapse’

A rather condescending opening, don't you think?

I suspect that Bernie will get over the with drawl of your "support"

inference that gay behavior is acceptable.

The upcoming presidential election is starting to look as though it will feature something extraordinary, even revolutionary: a genuine debate about whether American capitalism needs an overhaul. The only surprising thing may be that it took a decade after the worst financial crisis in 80 years for us to get deep into this discussion.

It isn’t just happening in the presidential race, but that’s also where this kind of debate can play out in the most high-profile, attention-grabbing way. With everyone thinking about 2020, a proposal such as the Green New Deal immediately gets tossed into the presidential campaign, with candidates forced to take positions on it and their own proposals compared with it. And though not all of the Democratic candidates were prepared to get down to the fundamental question of what sort of capitalism we ought to have, they may have no choice.

You can call it a result of the Democratic Party “moving left,” but that may be too simplistic a way to think about it. It’s also about a new refusal among liberals to accept that the system as it exists now is how it has to be.

To those who think the status quo is just fine, the idea that the political debate might get down to that kind of foundational level is an extraordinary threat, and they're reacting with horror...

Bernie Sanders’s most prominent message is economic, organized around a critique of capitalist inequality, an indictment of the ultrawealthy and a call for expansive new social programs. It helped propel him to a strong second in the 2016 Democratic primary campaign and has returned as the marquee message for his 2020 campaign, which he announced on Tuesday with a promise to “complete the revolution.”

Unfortunately for his 2020 campaign, Sanders is less distinct on economic policy than he was in 2016. His rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination have either embraced broad ideas like Medicare for all or unveiled their own: Elizabeth Warren’s universal child care proposal; Cory Booker’s plan to drastically reduce housing costs; Kamala Harris’s LIFT Act, which would build on the earned-income tax credit and create a new monthly cash payment for most middle-class households.

But Sanders isn’t without an advantage. If in 2016 his foreign-policy thinking was underbaked, then in 2019 he stands as one of the few candidates with a fully formed vision for American foreign policy. It’s one that ties his domestic focus on political and economic justice to a larger project of international cooperation and solidarity, anti-authoritarianism and promotion of democratic values. It’s a vision that rests on the conviction that progressive politics must continue past the water’s edge.

Sanders articulated the substance of his foreign policy views in two speeches: one in 2017 at Missouri’s Westminster College — speaking from the stage where Winston Churchill delivered his “Iron Curtain” speech — and one last October at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

In his Johns Hopkins address, Sanders offered a big-picture reading of this moment in international relations. For him, the ideological struggle of the 21st century doesn’t pit a liberal, democratic America against illiberal, authoritarian opponents, but instead pits liberal, democratic peoples everywhere against illiberalism at home and abroad. It’s a “worldwide movement toward authoritarianism, oligarchy and kleptocracy” against one toward “strengthening democracy, egalitarianism, and economic, social, racial and environmental justice.” In this conception of the world, President Trump is just one of many “demagogues who exploit people’s fears, prejudices and grievances to gain and hold on to power.”

These movements don’t emerge out of nothing. Sanders contends that they are fueled by the enormous disparities of wealth and opportunity that define global capitalism. This is the subject of his Westminster College speech — an attempt to link domestic economic issues to relations among states. “This planet will not be secure or peaceful when so few have so much, and so many have so little — and when we advance day after day into an oligarchic form of society where a small number of extraordinarily powerful special interests exert enormous influence over the economic and political life of the world,” Sanders said, adding later that “inequality, corruption, oligarchy and authoritarianism are inseparable.”

As for culprits, Sanders has a list. His Johns Hopkins address lists Vladimir Putin of Russia, Viktor Orban of Hungary, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia as part of this global nexus of corruption and autocracy. He also singles out American billionaires like Robert Mercer and Sheldon Adelson for “promoting a shared agenda of intolerance and bigotry” as part of a “common front” of authoritarianism. And while Sanders was silent on Venezuela in these speeches, he has criticized the government of Nicolás Maduro in other venues, attacking its authoritarianism and suppression of democracy while rejecting intervention by the United States.

If these are the conditions of international relations, then the aim of American foreign policy should be to stand against this rising tide of illiberalism and oligarchy. For Sanders, the United States must create a global order that can constrain authoritarian states and bring democratic accountability to global capitalism. It must also embrace the cooperation necessary for tackling climate change and other transnational challenges, building “partnerships not just between governments, but between peoples” and recognizing that “our safety and welfare is bound up with the safety and welfare of others around the world.”

For this project to succeed, however, Americans must also strive for fairness and equality in their own country. “If we are going to expound the virtues of democracy and justice abroad, and be taken seriously, we need to practice those values here at home,” Sanders says.

It’s a robust vision — an expansion of Sanders’s cry for “political revolution.” He even uses similar terms, closing his Johns Hopkins speech with a call for “an international movement that mobilizes behind a vision of shared prosperity, security and dignity for all people.” There are, however, some missing parts. It’s unclear how a President Sanders would approach tense relations with China or deal with democratic decline in Eastern European countries like Poland. And Sanders isn’t alone in thinking and talking about these issues — Elizabeth Warren has also laid out a foreign policy framework, with a similar focus on protecting democracy and curtailing global corruption, and considerable detail on how to get it done.

But Warren has centered her presidential campaign on changing the rules of the American economy. And while Sanders can easily compete here, his bona fides from his 2016 campaign may not be enough to differentiate himself with voters who might not care that he was first on these issues.

What separates him from the pack in this race are his forceful and well-defined foreign policy views — his synthesis of domestic and international concerns. Rather than fight on old, now-crowded ground, he can move to new territory, opening vital conversations about America’s role in the world. He can bring a new set of progressive ideas to the Democratic mainstream and force his opponents to debate them on his terms. In doing so, Sanders could establish himself as the leading candidate for progressive Democrats who want to rebuild the nation’s reputation and influence as much as its economy.