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Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know.

 

In the category of:  The debate we all need to watch 

Elizabeth Warren versus John Delaney is not the drama we’ve been craving.

Most of the standout moments during the Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday night involved Sen. Bernie Sanders or Sen. Elizabeth Warren teeing off against someone nobody has heard of.

But these exchanges about decriminalizing illegal entry into the United States, replacing union health plans with a new government-run plan, providing public health benefits to unauthorized immigrants, and other topics that pit activist priorities against public opinion are critical to the 2020 primary.

The problem is that the candidates taking the more moderate stance on these issues relative to Warren and Sanders — Rep. Tim Ryan, former Rep. John Delaney, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock — are not even remotely central to the 2020 primary. But that’s not because moderates have become marginal in the Democratic Party. It’s because former Vice President Joe Biden, who sits at the top of the polls and broadly agrees with Ryan, Delaney, Hickenlooper, and Bullock — wasn’t on the stage. Biden won’t appear until Wednesday night, in the second night of the debate.

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In the category of:  The plauge

Will Spain Follow Europe’s Right-Wing Populist Trend?

The left’s failure last week to form a coalition reflects deep distrust between the Socialists and their rival, Unidas Podemos—and the right is elated.

Just look at the right-wingers; they are thrilled beyond belief,” Gabriel Rufián, a deputy for the Catalan Left Republican party (ERC), said in front of the Spanish Parliament on the morning of July 25. The parliament was preparing to vote on the investiture of Pedro Sánchez, leader of the Socialist Party, as prime minister. “If the right’d had to negotiate a coalition, they’d have already agreed on even their bonuses,” he said, referring to the illegal kickback schemes that, in the summer of 2018, led to the collapse of Mariano Rajoy’s conservative government. “The only question we have to ask ourselves is, How much time, how many months, how many years, will all of us, the entire left, spend regretting what is happening here today?… After today, it doesn’t matter who has the best explanation” for what went wrong, he said. “The only thing that the people will see is how the left loses out once again.”

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In the category of:  Dual occupancy

Israel backs West Bank homes for settlers and Palestinians

Israel has approved the construction of 6,000 new homes for Jewish settlers and 700 homes for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

The decision about new homes in settlements further extends the Israeli presence in the West Bank.

But it is Israel’s approval for Palestinian homes that is unusual.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank are seen as illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

It is not clear whether the Palestinian homes would be new constructions or merely legal approval for 700 already existing homes in what is known as “Area C” of the West Bank – where Palestinian villages often lie close to Israeli settlements, and where Israel has full control of the territory.

The Palestinian leadership dismissed the announcement, saying it rejected any Israeli construction or controls over Palestinian construction in the West Bank.

It said it was “evidence of the dark colonial mentality of the rules in Israel and which ignores all United Nations resolutions, international law and the signed agreements”.

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