https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/comment/2021/10/28/is-the-us-supreme-court-too-hardline-for-america/

A majority on the bench reflects a religious extremism that’s out of sync with most Americans’ views.

Religion is one of the most polarising factors dividing US society today. During the presidency of Donald Trump, the evangelical Christian right gained unprecedented power in the Republican Party and finally acquired significant influence over US foreign policy.

A new five-vote, hardline conservative majority on the Supreme Court bench also reflects a religious conservatism that is historically remarkable and profoundly out of sync with the views of most Americans on social issues. The Supreme Court’s new term began this month, and it may reveal a huge divergence of values between the public and the highest court in the land.

In coming months, the court and its five-vote religiously inflected majority are set to rule on reproductive freedom, gun control, various religious issues and much more. If these justices give way to their reactionary impulses, it could produce the biggest rift between the public and the judiciary in decades, and exacerbate an already growing crisis of confidence in the court’s integrity.

It’s not just a question of conservatism or Republican Party affiliation. Chief Justice John Roberts qualifies on both those scores, but he is not really part of the emerging religious majority.

Occasionally, he joins the others but there is every reason to expect that Mr Roberts will increasingly find himself confronting extreme rulings by the other five Republican-appointed justices that cast aside precedent, read the constitution in their own creative and activist manner, and do as much as possible to impose a fundamentalist social vision on the country.

But they do not need him, as the five judges in question – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch – have already demonstrated on more than one occasion. That was especially glaring when this group, in effect, recently allowed a law, which will all but eliminate access to abortion in the state of Texas, to be implemented, rather than stayed, while its strange and probably unconstitutional enforcement mechanisms are litigated.

What’s particularly remarkable about the five judges is that their control of the court is the result of decades of intense political labour by evangelical Protestant Christians. Yet, all five of their champions are passionate Catholics (though Mr Gorsuch now attends a Protestant church).

Indeed, this is all the more ironic because Catholics are, for the most part, overshadowed by evangelicals and other Protestants in Republican ranks, and there is a significant attachment to the Democratic Party by many American Catholics, including President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and many others.

One of the reasons that there are Catholic figures at the spear of right-wing judicial politics is that conservative Catholic educational and legal institutions have taught, nurtured and promoted a formidable cadre of activist judges and lawyers in a much more focused way than their evangelical Protestant counterparts have.

The two groups join most passionately over the issue of banning abortion, which is very likely to be significantly, for the first time since the early 1970s, advanced by this bloc in coming months.

This is the most quintessentially religious issue in US politics. Most Americans support access to abortion within limits, but it is an article of faith among many religious conservatives that virtually all abortion at any stage is unacceptable because, they insist, human life begins at conception.

In the early 1970s, one of the largest evangelical denominations, the Southern Baptists, were generally supportive of abortion rights. But when the evangelicals became politically active around 1979, the “pro-life” movement was quickly identified as a powerful mobilising force, and categorical fundamentalist opposition to abortion became an unshakable tenet of its doctrines and agenda.

Overturning Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court case that defined current laws on abortion in the US, which is likely in some form in coming months, will represent the ultimate triumph of evangelical politics. Yet, because Protestant fundamentalists lack a large pool of lawyers, judges and academics on which to draw, they have effectively been forced to rely on a group of like-minded Catholic activists.

Recent polls demonstrate that public trust in the Supreme Court has become remarkably low.

Part of that is rooted in the decision that effectively decided the outcome of the deadlocked 2000 presidential election in favour of George W Bush, a Republican, against Al Gore, his Democratic opponent. That the court split precisely along party lines, and both sides appeared to adopt positions contrary to their normal stances, spurred tremendous, and entirely justified, cynicism about the idea that the judicial branch of the US government is less political than the other two branches.

Now a conservative religious majority seems set to begin restructuring core aspects of American society, and undoing long-standing rights and practices according to their own hardcore doctrines. It is reasonable to expect the court’s reputation to nosedive, except among a delighted minority that shares those views.

Several justices have recently insisted that they do not take ideology or party affiliation into consideration. Yet, most Americans know they typically do. Worse, it’s no longer just about party or ideology, but essentially about religious zealotry.

No one sensible is going to be persuaded that these judges’ “judicial philosophy” just so happens to produce results that conveniently coincide with deep-seated religious beliefs and that delight their political patrons. What’s the difference, anyway?

If these justices don’t exercise considerable, and improbable, restraint, eventually the American majority may decide to use their constitutional prerogatives to restructure or otherwise constrain the court.

Mr Roberts may advocate restraint. But, thus far, it doesn’t seem the other five Republican appointees have much regard for what their supporters appear to view as his insufficiently pious outlook.

https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/comment/2021/10/19/can-the-us-democratic-system-pass-the-big-test-up-ahead/

Failing to punish, or even seriously investigate and expose, the attack on constitutional order invites another effort.

Democratic institutions don’t amount to much if they can’t defend themselves against concerted and co-ordinated attacks from within. Otherwise, they are just temporary, and remarkably weak, conventions, begging to be dismantled by the first effective politician with the temerity and ruthlessness to try.

The US democratic system is being tested in precisely that way for the first time since the Civil War.

In recent weeks, it has become all-too clear that, following the last election, former president Donald Trump, many of his close associates and much of the Republican Party, engaged in an unprecedented, extra-constitutional and often probably illegal, campaign to overturn the result, and thereby obliterate the American constitutional process.

This means, ominously, that large parts of the US political establishment on the right are now demonstrably comfortable with dispensing with the constitutional order and the rule of law in order to grab and hold on to political power.

That is not exactly news, although the extent of the attack on US democracy immediately following the election has become far more detailed and grim in recent weeks as new evidence has emerged.

Numerous reports confirm that only the threat of mass resignations by senior officials restrained Mr Trump from using the Justice Department to “overturn,” as he put it, the election, Emerging details flesh out a picture of an unrelenting campaign by Mr Trump and his allies to overrule the will of the voters. It is becoming terrifyingly evident that these coup-plotters and would-be autocrats are poised to get away with it.

Such an outcome would only reaffirm the validity and appeal of such an extra-constitutional strategy. It would encourage, if not guarantee, a second effort – a more organised and effective one – to sweep aside the US democratic system.

As things stand, those responsible for this assault have sustained no consequences and, in many cases, have been richly rewarded.

Mr Trump remains unchallenged in his control of the Republican Party, and received vast contributions. He is not just unscathed. On the right, he is supreme.

Barely a handful of Republicans continue to hold him responsible for the attack on the election outcome and theJanuary 6 failed attempt to violently stop Congress from confirming Joe Biden’s victory.

But most Republican leaders act as if that never happened or doesn’t matter.

Charles Grassley, who at 88 is the oldest member of the Senate – there since 1981, no less and seeking yet another term – last week fawned before Mr Trump’s endorsement, declaring: “If I didn’t accept the endorsement of a person who has 91 per cent of the Republican voters in Iowa, I wouldn’t be too smart. I’m smart enough to accept that endorsement.”

Mr Grassley has been very critical of Mr Trump in the past, but his statement makes perfect sense, assuming the only thing that matters to him is to win over Republican voters in Iowa and to stay in the Senate for another term, until he is a sprightly 95-years-old. The idea that anything else could possibly be relevant does not appear to have occurred to him as intelligent or rational.

This same logic has guided the traditional conservative leadership of the Republican Party, headed by Senator Mitch McConnell, virtually all of which has succumbed to Mr Trump purely because of his sway over their voters.

Apparently, the only thing of concern to them is that they may not win without his support and therefore they will bow to him. They do not appear to possess any values other than personal advantage.

Yet if, as Mr Trump maintains, Mr Biden was only elected because of the biggest political fraud of all time, then the entire US system would be a heinous confidence trick. Calling this sentiment unpatriotic would be a huge understatement.

Not only did Mr Trump and his allies seek to get Congress to block confirmation of the votes, and state legislatures and officials to overturn local outcomes, and the Justice Department to falsely denounce them as fraudulent, when all else failed they unleashed the January 6 physical attack on Congress.

Yet nine months after the attack, and almost a year after the effort to overturn the election began, the House of Representatives is still just starting to try to uncover what happened. Its investigative committee has issued subpoenas to compel testimony from former Trump officials and other coup plotters.

That is good. But there is every reason to fear it will all be in vain.

American courts are notoriously slow and invariably play into the hands of obstructionists. Mr Trump has “ordered” everyone subpoenaed not to cooperate.

There will be a test case: Steve Bannon, former Trump campaign chief and White House strategist – who was later pardoned by the former president for allegedly embezzling $1 million from credulous contributors to a shameless “build the wall” scam – has therefore refused to co-operate. That provides a low-hanging fruit for the House.

Mr Trump is claiming all subpoenaed individuals must refuse to co-operate because he is invoking “executive privilege,” a convention that holds that presidents need frank and open advice from their aides, which therefore need to be shielded from investigation. But courts have held this privilege from testimony and investigation does not apply to criminal matters.

Moreover, Mr Trump says he is invoking the privilege after he has left the presidency, which has never been attempted, and Mr Biden has declined it. Worst, Mr Bannon had not worked for the White House for years before the coup effort.

The US is in uncharted legal and political territory, because no one has remotely tried to subvert the system like this in US history, and perhaps no one has imagined it either.

Whether the courts will help the House enforce its subpoenas remains to be seen. And if the Democrats lose control of the House in next year’s midterms, Republicans will certainly simply dissolve the Committees and end all such investigations because it involves their colleagues and leader.

That raises the prospect of no consequences for the culprits, except the aforementioned positive ones. If American institutions prove incapable of defending themselves against attacks from within, that invites a repetition of the assault, with far greater chances of success.

The cliche holds that “the Constitution isn’t a suicide pact”. More than nine months after the January 6 attack and the earlier campaign against the 2020 election, there is a growing fear it just might prove to be exactly that for American democratic institutions.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-10-14/iraq-tries-to-get-saudi-arabia-and-iran-to-negotiate-an-end-to-the-yemen-war?srnd=opinion&sref=tp95wk9l

Talks between the archrivals take place as the region experiences a de-escalation of conflict. Can it last?

Two archrivals in the Middle East seem to be making surprising progress in rebuilding relations. This could possibly help end the war in Yemen, and prove to be the most dramatic step in a wave of de-escalation in the region.

In 2020, negotiations between Saudi Arabia and Iran began quietly with three informal but substantial meetings involving senior security and intelligence officials from Riyadh and Tehran. A fourth round was reportedly held on September 21 at Baghdad international airport, with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi playing host to the head of Iran’s national Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, and the Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir. Afterwards, Saudi Arabia — the more cautious party — designated them official direct talks. 

The negotiations have focused on finding a formula for Riyadh to end its involvement in the Yemen war, which is largely being fought between Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and the Saudi-supported and internationally-recognized government. After intervening in the conflict in 2015, Saudi Arabia has been bogged down in a quagmire that its Yemeni allies are plainly not going to win.

For well over a year, Riyadh has been looking for a way out. Saudi Arabia needs the Houthis to commit to stopping rocket attacks on Saudi cities and cross-border raids. For its part, Iran has enjoyed bedeviling the Saudis in a conflict to which it attaches limited strategic importance. But it could still prove embarrassing. While Iran may make diplomatic commitments, it still has to prove it has real influence over the Houthis — at least enough to make them sit down for peace talks.

The limitations and doubts will be hard to overcome. However, the efforts are nevertheless welcome in the regional wave of de-escalation that began in the summer of 2020. Indeed, Baghdad’s participation is emblematic. Iraq is promoting the dialogue not just to cool down the neighborhood but also to secure its own domestic stability, which is riven by the politics of its Shiites and Sunnis, the dominant Muslim denominations in Iran and Saudi Arabia respectively.

Contributing to the talks are two important factors: Virtually all major regional powers — with the possible exception of Israel — are overextended and exhausted. Their military confrontations have passed the point of diminishing returns. The war in Libya is at a bloody stalemate. The genocidal Syrian regime is victorious. Islamic State is defeated. Meanwhile, Iraq has reached an equilibrium not unlike Lebanon’s — unsteady but predictable. In all these cases, and others, there is little further to be gained by outside parties seeking influence and regional clout. Further fighting by way of proxies is no longer strategically beneficial to them.

American allies like Saudi Arabia have become increasingly doubtful that Washington will buttress their security in the event of broader conflict. Meanwhile, U.S. adversaries like Iran have suffered significant weakening, particularly from ongoing economic crises, the COVID-19 pandemic as well as social and political unrest.

These conditions have encouraged diplomatic outreach among the regional powers. Predictable breakthroughs like the Abraham Accords between Israel, on one hand, and the United Arab Emirates and three other Arab countries, on the other, have been matched by genuinely surprising ones such as thaws between Egypt and Turkey and between the UAE and Qatar. Now, even Saudi-Iranian talks — inconceivable a couple of years ago — are becoming viable.

It remains to be seen whether the negotiations will really help end the war in Yemen or produce a restoration of Saudi-Iranian relations, which were severed in deep acrimony in January 2016. But already the temperatures are cooling, most notably among pro-Iranian militia groups in Iraq. Regional media on both sides have moderated the way they characterize each other.

If all this leads to a real, if limited, rapprochement between Tehran and Riyadh, that would be great news for a turbulent part of the world.

https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/comment/2021/10/04/bidens-fate-hangs-in-the-balance-of-these-two-bills/

Democrats must show Americans that at least one US party still knows how to compromise and hence to govern effectively.

Governance is about compromise, but politics is often an all-or nothing-exercise, unless national survival is at stake.

US President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party is trapped between the imperatives of governance and the temptations of politics and power, and thus between a remarkable accomplishment or total collapse. Yet in this case the American experiment may hang in the balance.

Last week, Mr Biden took an enormous gamble on bitter negotiations within his own party by doubling down on a high-risk but high-reward gambit to secure two separate major spending packages before next year’s midterm elections.

He is sandwiched between approximately 50 leftist progressives in the House of Representatives and two right-leaning senators who are deeply at odds over how large public investment programmes should be.

Centrists wanted immediate passage of the “American Jobs Plan,” which was negotiated with Republicans and already passed the Senate. It would spend about $1 trillion over the next 10 years on “hard infrastructure” such as highways, bridges and internet access.

The Democratic majority in the House could pass this bill immediately, but from the outset, progressives insisted that this compromise legislation should only go forward in tandem with a separate “American Family Plan,” which proposes approximately $3.5-4.5 trillion in social spending – including an expansion of Medicaid, child and elder care support, universal prekindergarten and community college access, paid family and medical leave and other such human capital investments.

A sufficient number of Senate Republicans were willing to support the first bill to get it passed, but none support the second. That requires the backing of not only the Democratic majority in the House, but also every single Democrat in the Senate, including conservative-leaning senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

Any party that secures $1 trillion in infrastructure spending, which completely eluded former President Donald Trump, would logically pocket that gain and trumpet it as the massive achievement it clearly is in the coming midterms.

But because it does not include significant social spending, progressive Democrats have already derided this considerable accomplishment to the point that it is now perceived as some kind of defeat, and are holding it hostage to the bigger bill.

Clearly the progressives feel that if they vote for the smaller package they lose all leverage on the larger one. And they are also communicating considerable defeatism in their push to achieve everything all at once, indicating the fear that now may be the only moment when they can achieve their aims because of presumed impending election defeats.

They are also acting as if the Democrats now have a powerful hold on the government. That’s not at all true.

Mr Biden defeated Mr Trump by a very significant margin. But the Democrats’ House majority is so small that only three members need to defect on any measure for them to lose a vote. Meanwhile, the Senate is virtually tied, requiring Vice President Kamala Harris to cast a tie-breaking vote for the Democrats to win anything without Republican support.

Mr Manchin, who is considerably to the left of most of his extremely conservative constituents in West Virginia, the state most supportive of Mr Trump, put it accurately last week when he said: “I’ve never been a liberal in any way, shape or form,” and that if liberals want to achieve their goals, they “have to elect more liberals”.

And now it appears that Mr Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who agreed to postpone promised votes this week on the smaller bipartisan package, are now counting on securing something like a $2.1 trillion compromise package for the larger Democrats-only spending bill to thereby secure passage of both.

Mr Biden correctly says it doesn’t matter when the agreement is reached. And it may be that Americans and others have forgotten how protracted and messy actual major US legislation can be, since that hasn’t been attempted in at least a decade.

By stating, as Mr Biden did on Friday, that he agrees with progressives that the smaller bipartisan bill must not move forward without similar movement on the larger, Democrats-only one, he has foreclosed the option of seeking to postpone the larger bill until after the midterms.

That is certainly a response to the show of force and unity by the progressive left, but it is also something he has said many times before.

So now it is a matter of finding a dollar spending number that is small enough for the right-leaning two senators but large enough for the House progressives, all without losing Republican support for the hard infrastructure package.

Meanwhile, Mr Biden also has to find a way out of the looming debt default crisis, with or without the Republicans, before mid-October, to avoid a US and global financial crisis.

That should all be doable. After all, waiting in the wings are Mr Trump and a Republican Party plainly anxious to run against Mr Biden and the Democrats as utter “failures,” and to seize power by all means necessary.

It is possible that progressives are so bent on gaining control of the party, or that centrists are so comfortable with the status quo, that both or either wouldn’t mind sinking the Biden agenda.

But compromise seems more likely.

As Thomas Friedman of the New York Times recently explained, it is really a matter of national survival, given the threat posed by a second Trump term, and therefore of personal and political courage. “Progressives need to have the courage to accept less than they want,” and “moderates need to have the courage to give the progressives much more than the moderates prefer.” If not and “Trump Republicans retake the House and Senate and propel Trump back into the White House – there will be no chance later. Later will be too late for the country as we know it.”

Mr Biden is on the brink of an outstanding triumph if he can pass any version of these two bills and avoid a debt default. But if he can’t pass either bill, and/or a default takes place, he’s facing a remarkable meltdown.

Seldom has any US administration been so delicately poised between historic triumph and dramatic collapse.

And even more rarely has the country as a whole been so delicately poised between the continuation of its democratic tradition versus the ascension of a hyper-empowered and enraged authoritarian minority.