Tag: american politics
Biden Shows Resolve — And Restraint

Defending Ukraine, Biden Shows Resolve — And Restraint

Restraint is a useful but often unsatisfying virtue, and in the case of Ukraine, there are plenty of people who think that it's not a virtue at all. Fortunately, American policy is being set by Joe Biden, who has a sober understanding of the perils of overreach.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine spurred all sorts of extravagant demands for U.S. action. Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), urged the president "to send not just arms but troops to the aid in defense of Ukraine." Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS)., was one of several GOP members of Congress to say the U.S. should establish a no-fly zone in Ukraine — which could mean shooting down Russian warplanes.

Biden dismissed these options, even as he extended economic aid, weapons and moral support to the besieged Ukrainian government. But prudence invites charges of weakness. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., says Biden is "scared of Putin."

On Monday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), took to Twitter to accuse Biden of "a betrayal of #Ukraine and democracy itself." His offense? Declining to provide Ukraine with missiles that can hit targets as far as 185 miles away.

"We're not going to send to Ukraine rocket systems that strike into Russia," Biden said flatly. The obvious reason is that such missile attacks would drastically raise the stakes for Vladimir Putin — who, let us not forget, has the world's largest arsenal of nuclear weapons. Biden is not about to outsource our fate to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Another idea is to deploy U.S. Navy ships to break the Russian blockade of Odessa, which has deprived the world of Ukrainian grain. But Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointed out that this option could lead to direct combat with Russia.

"Right now, the sea lanes are blocked by mines and the Russian navy," he said Tuesday. "It would be a high-risk military operation that would require significant levels of effort."

But the concept of "high risk" doesn't register with inveterate hawks who think every problem can be solved by the application of America's armed might — a theory decisively refuted in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other places.

Such disasters instilled in Biden a healthy skepticism about military intervention. But that skepticism has also moved him to look for alternatives in dealing with foreign crises.

As it has from the start, his administration is trying to ensure that Ukraine can stave off the Russian invasion — without provoking Putin to escalate and without embroiling the U.S. in the war.

Biden hasn't tried to dictate what Zelensky should aspire to achieve or what he should be willing to accept. In an op-ed in Wednesday's New York Times, he said he "will not pressure the Ukrainian government — in private or public — to make any territorial concessions."

At the same time, he's made it plain that the U.S. commitment has strict limits. Biden's op-ed didn't fantasize about a complete victory that would evict Russia from every inch of Ukrainian soil. His goal, he wrote, is to help Ukraine achieve "the strongest possible position at the negotiating table." Left unspoken is that any negotiations are bound to require territorial concessions.

Biden's administration has adopted a variety of stern measures to punish and weaken Putin and deter him from broader aggression, most recently signing a package of military, economic and humanitarian aid costing $40 billion.

Biden moved 12,000 troops into NATO countries bordering on Russia, including Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Romania. He welcomed the request from Sweden and Finland to join the alliance.

He imposed a ban on Russian oil and gas imports — a step that prodded the European Union, which is far more dependent on them, to approve its own ban.

He adopted severe economic sanctions to deprive Russia of the money to fight the war. The decision led a host of big Western corporations, from McDonald's to Apple to ExxonMobil, to stop doing business in Russia. All this has been a marvel of Western cooperation and resolve.

It has also had tangible results. Russian exports and imports have plunged. Inflation hit nearly 18% in April. The Russian army has found itself repeatedly stopped or pushed back, and as many as 15,000 of its soldiers have been killed.

Biden understood the importance of responding forcefully to an unprovoked act of aggression. But he also knows that pushing too far can lead to disaster.

Follow Steve Chapman on Twitter @SteveChapman13 or at https://www.facebook.com/stevechapman13. To find out more about Steve Chapman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Obama Won’t Meet Netanyahu During Israeli Leader’s March Visit

Obama Won’t Meet Netanyahu During Israeli Leader’s March Visit

By Joe Sobczyk and Margaret Talev, Bloomberg News (TNS)

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won’t meet when the Israeli leader is in Washington to address a pro-Israel group and speak to Congress because of the looming elections in Israel, the White House said.

Netanyahu plans to speak at the annual American Israeli Public Affairs Committee during the first week in March and will address Congress on March 3, the Israeli government said Thursday. Elections in Israel are set for March 17.

“As a matter of long-standing practice and principle, we do not see heads of state or candidates in close proximity to their elections, so as to avoid the appearance of influencing a democratic election in a foreign country,” Bernadette Meehan, spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, said in an e-mail.

Netanyahu’s planned U.S. visit puts him in the middle of a roiling debate in Congress over imposing additional sanctions on Iran amid negotiations on the Islamic State’s nuclear program.

A day after Obama warned Congress that passing legislation on new penalties risked scuttling the talks and raising the prospect of war, House Speaker John Boehner announced that he had invited Netanyahu to address Congress “on the grave threats radical Islam and Iran pose to our security and way of life.”

Republicans, who control both houses of Congress, and some Democrats, are pressing to set new sanctions on Iran that would take effect if there is no deal on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program in talks with world powers by a June 30 deadline.

Boehner didn’t consult with the White House on the invitation. Obama’s spokesman, Josh Earnest, called it a departure from protocol in dealing with a foreign leader and a State Department spokeswoman called the episode “bizarre.”

Photo: President Barack Obama meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office. (Pete Souza via Wikimedia Commons)

Republicans Criticize Obama’s State Of The Union As Partisan

Republicans Criticize Obama’s State Of The Union As Partisan

By Michael A. Memoli and Lisa Mascaro, Tribune Washington Bureau (TNS)

WASHINGTON — Lacking the presidential bully pulpit but boasting the largest congressional majority in generations, top Republicans accused President Barack Obama of loading his State of the Union address with partisan priorities instead of demonstrating the leadership needed to move shared priorities like tax reform and trade through Congress.

GOP leaders tapped one of their newest faces to give their official prime-time response to the president’s address. Rather than respond directly to the president’s speech, though, Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa began what she called a conversation with the nation about her party’s agenda, framing it as aimed at boosting the middle-class families like the one she grew up in.

“We heard the message you sent in November — loud and clear. And now we’re getting to work to change the direction Washington has been taking our country,” she said.

Republicans have seemed determined since the election to shake the GOP’s image of catering to the nation’s wealthy elite. Ernst, calling herself a mother and soldier, recalled that while growing up she had to put plastic bread bags around her one good pair of shoes to keep them dry in the rain. These Americans “have been hurting” in the current economy, but “too often, Washington responded with the same stale mind-set that led to failed policies like Obamacare.”

“That’s why the new Republican majority you elected started by reforming Congress to make it function again. And now, we’re working hard to pass the kind of serious job creation ideas you deserve,” Ernst said.

In an unusual three-week buildup to the president’s annual address to Congress, the White House had released details of many new proposals. That gave Republicans a head start in developing their response. So the party sought to turn Obama’s post-midterm determination to focus on economic fairness against him, saying he was abandoning past pledges of cooperation.

“The American people have spoken,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told reporters before Obama’s speech. “I think they expect us to sort out the things that we can agree on and try to make some bipartisan progress.”

But instead, McConnell said, Obama has “indicated he’s not for much of anything the American people voted for last November.”

“I just say this with all due respect to him. He doesn’t set the agenda in the Senate. We’re going to try to do the things that we think will make America a better place,” he said.

In a morning address to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT) accused the president of advancing a tax plan that Hatch said “appears to be more about redistribution, with added complexity, and class warfare” instead of a serious proposal that could be the starting point for negotiations with the new Congress.

“(It) is unfortunate, because we’re going to need real leadership from the White House — not just liberal talking points — if tax reform is going to be successful,” Hatch said.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), chairman of the Financial Services Committee, also swatted back Obama’s tax proposals, particularly a new fee on Wall Street companies, as the kind of policy that will ultimately raise lending costs.

“If President Obama has his way, hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes will undeniably trickle down on to consumers. They’ll face fewer choices, higher costs and less economic freedom,” he said.

After Obama announced sweeping new policies to loosen trade and restore relations with Cuba, several Republicans who oppose that approach invited like-minded activists to attend the speech as their guests in the House chamber.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said he hopes the presence of Cuban activist Rosa Maria Paya, whose father promoted democracy in Cuba and was killed in a 2012 automobile accident that some have suggested was orchestrated by Cuban officials, will remind Obama of the Havana government’s abuses.

House Speaker John A. Boehner invited two other Cuban pro-democracy advocates, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez and Yris Tamara Perez Aguilera.

As in recent years, a prominent conservative political group organized the so-called tea party response to Obama’s speech separate from the official Republican response. Rep. Curt Clawson (R-FL), a relative newcomer and former college basketball player, delivered some of it in Spanish, saying to the Latino community that “the law must be followed,” but that “you are all welcome with us.”

But, returning to English, he said: “As we respect our immigration laws, we’ve also got to be fair to the more than 10 million Americans currently struggling to find good jobs…. To do this, we need to secure our borders first.”

Photo: U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) waits for the start of the State of The Union address by President Barack Obama on January 20, 2015, in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Pool/TNS)

Weekend Reader: ‘Machine Made: Tammany Hall And The Creation Of Modern American Politics’

Weekend Reader: ‘Machine Made: Tammany Hall And The Creation Of Modern American Politics’

Today the Weekend Reader presents Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics by Terry Golway, a journalist and historian whose career spans three decades writing for The New York Observer, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and American Heritage. Golway, who currently teaches at Kean University in New Jersey and is the author of several books on Irish and American history, offers enlightening insight into a crucial time in our politics — beginning with the fateful influx of Irish immigrants into New York. 

You can purchase the book here

The history of early twentieth-century New York is defined not by a political campaign or an election but by a fire, the terrible blaze that killed 146 workers, mostly young Jewish and Italian women, in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory on March 25, 1911. For Tammany, for the labor movement, for the burgeoning campaign for women’s rights—even, some argue, for the nation itself—the Triangle fire has been considered a critical turning point, the tragic inspiration for the creation of a new social contract that foreshadowed the New Deal, which was put in place by a man who served in the New York State Senate at the time of the fire, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The Triangle fire surely did represent a milestone for Tammany Hall, for two of its promising young members, Robert Wagner and Al Smith, led a state investigation that brought together professional reformers, including a young social worker and lobbyist named Frances Perkins, and pragmatic politicians in an alliance that would have seemed highly unlikely only a few years earlier. The leadership of Wagner and Smith—carried out with the blessing of [Tammany boss Charles] Murphy—seemed to represent a sudden, uncharacteristic, and perhaps even opportunistic change of priorities for Tammany. It wasn’t, but it certainly would have seemed so to New York newspaper readers, who had become accustomed to breathless accounts of Tammany’s evil intentions and Murphy’s Croker-like appetite for plunder and Tweed-like enjoyment of the good life at his favorite restaurant, Delmonico’s, where he held court in a private room decorated with heavy red rugs and mahogany furniture. Hearst’s newspapers portrayed Murphy in prison stripes, an overstuffed convict-in-waiting.

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In fact, Murphy and individual members of Tammany had been moving the organization toward the cause of reform—or, more to the point, to a new kind of reform shorn of its evangelical moralism—well before the Triangle fire. Tammany’s John Ahearn might have passed legislation to grant pensions to poor mothers in 1897 were it not for the opposition of reformers who opposed the distribution of cash indiscriminately to the poor. Tammany continued to turn left in the years immediately following the close call with Hearst’s Municipal Ownership League. Governor Hughes had more trouble with his fellow Republicans than he did with Murphy’s Tammany when he sought to create a public-service commission to regulate utilities in 1907. But Hughes, a prototypical reformer, blocked New York’s ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, which authorized a federal income tax. The amendment, widely viewed as one of the era’s most progressive achievements, passed the state legislature only after Tammany took control of Albany in 1911, over the fierce objections of some of the state’s most prominent residents, including John D. Rockefeller, members of the Morgan family, and Joseph Choate, corporate lawyer, former ambassador to Great Britain, and regular denouncer of Tammany Hall’s “mongrel” tickets. Robert Wagner framed the amendment as a truly progressive reform, arguing that the tax would “lighten the burdens of the poor.”

Under Murphy’s leadership in the second decade of the twentieth century, Tammany redefined reform as a pragmatic, lunch-bucket form of liberalism stripped of the Progressive Era’s moral pieties and evangelical roots. Liberated from the defensiveness that marked its rhetoric and actions during much of the nineteenth century, Tammany finally developed a forward-looking agenda that one historian described as “the creation of a quasi-welfare state.” Murphy’s allies supported and implemented sweeping new social legislation—from workers’ compensation to the beginnings of minimum-wage laws to stricter regulation of businesses, making New York a hothouse of progressive reform long before the New Deal.

Some observers simply could not reconcile these actions with their image of Tammany. Journalist M. A. Werner, in his often-cited history of Tammany, was so convinced of the organization’s evil that he could see nothing good coming of anyone connected to the organization. According to Werner, Big Tim Sullivan, the powerful Tammany leader who ruled the Bowery as a personal fiefdom, authored one of the nation’s first gun-control laws in 1911 not because he was appalled by the growth of gun violence but because he wanted to plant weapons on gangsters and pimps who refused to pay bribes to Tammany. Werner complained that Sullivan’s seemingly progressive law prevented “citizens from protecting themselves from thieves. . . . ” A century after its passage, Sullivan’s Law remains on the books in New York.

Other reformers were more open-minded, and came to understand what Tammany was trying to accomplish. Frances Perkins, who came of age politically in Albany during Murphy’s tenure and went on to become the first woman cabinet secretary in U.S. history, once said of Big Tim Sullivan and his cousin Christopher, “If I had been a man serving in the Senate with them, I’m sure I would have had a glass of beer with them and gotten them to tell me what times were like on the old Bowery.”

Perkins recognized in Murphy’s Tammany a change that her future boss, Franklin Roosevelt, did not perceive until years later. Tammany’s support for social-welfare and regulatory legislation in the early twentieth century was, she wrote, “a turning point” in changing “American political attitudes and policies toward social responsibility.” Jeremiah Mahoney, the son of Irish immigrants and law partner of Robert Wagner, was drawn to Tammany politics because he believed it could become a vehicle for pragmatic social and economic change. Mahoney said that he and other young protégés of Murphy “made the [Democratic] party a liberal progressive party, and we advocated the cause of the underprivileged [and] the cause of labor.”

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This new approach certainly was not perfect, as Perkins learned when Murphy at first blocked and then sought to thwart a bill that would have limited the workweek for women and children to fifty-four hours. The legislation never made it out of committee in 1911 because Murphy sought to protect allies who owned candy factories that employed many women and children. A year later, Murphy allowed the measure to come to a vote in the State Senate on the last day of the legislative session, but he saw to it that canneries—factories where vegetables and fruit were placed in cans, sealed, and shipped to stores—were exempt. He believed Perkins and her allies would never agree to the measure, but, after a long talk with Big Tim Sullivan, Perkins decided to accept what she could get—in essence sacrificing several thousand cannery workers for the sake of the four hundred thousand women who worked in other industries.

Sullivan explained why he supported the measure despite Murphy’s opposition. “My sister was a poor girl and she went out to work when she was young,” he told Perkins. “I feel kinda sorry for them poor girls . . . I’d like to do them a good turn.”

Sullivan and his cousin Christopher, also a legislator, left Albany before the vote, believing the deal was done. They were wrong, for Murphy ordered Wagner to kill the measure through parliamentary procedures, outraging other Tammany figures, including Thomas McManus, the bill’s sponsor in the Senate. When Perkins found out, she got word to the Sullivan cousins, who rushed back to the chamber in time to outmaneuver Wagner and cast the deciding votes in favor of the bill. McManus was the not-so-quiet hero of the episode, holding the floor with a long speech while the Sullivans rode to the rescue.

Perkins’s allies were furious with the compromise, but Perkins, learning quickly from tutors like Big Tim Sullivan, came to the realization that legislation did not pass simply because it was worthy, and that compromise was not necessarily corrupt. The lessons Sullivan imparted to Perkins were timely—Big Tim died a year later, in 1913, after months of mental instability. His body was found on a railroad track in the Bronx.

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Excerpted from Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics by Terry Golway. Copyright © 2014 by Terry Golway. With permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.