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"The "globalization" the left opposes is something altogether different: the domination of multilateral decision-making by powerful financial interests. That's worth opposing." (Photo: Number 10/flickr/cc)
The once-proud political project known as "centrism" is collapsing around the globe, despite increasingly desperate attempts by billionaire backers to revive it.
The center-right's implosion can be seen in the weakened state of Theresa May's Conservatives in Great Britain, the recent setback for Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, and the withering of the GOP's Mitt Romney wing.
But what about the center-left, the "New Labour"/"New Democrat" phenomenon that once seemed to offer so much hope? Can it survive? More importantly, should it?
Political scientist Sheri Berman recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times that made the case for Western Europe's failing social democrats. "Across Europe, social democratic or center-left parties are in decline," Professor Berman writes, adding:
"In elections this year in France and the Netherlands, the socialist and labor parties did so poorly that many question their future existence... Even if you don't support the left, this should be cause for concern. Social democratic parties were crucial to rebuilding democracy in Western Europe after 1945. They remain essential to democracy on the Continent today."
Professor Berman correctly diagnoses one aspect of what ails these parties, noting that center-left politicians like Britain's Tony Blair and Germany's Gerhard Schroder "celebrated the (free) market's upsides while ignoring its downsides."
It's worth lingering for a moment on those downsides: Economic inequality continued to skyrocket under Blair in Great Britain and Schroder in Germany, and Bill Clinton in the United States. The global economy was gravely damaged by the financial crisis of 2008, as Professor Berman notes, but that near-catastrophe wasn't caused by impersonal forces. It was the result of widespread banker fraud, made possible by the active collaboration of politicians from both parties.
The center-left rarely even chastised, much less prosecuted, bankers for their criminality in the runup to the economic crisis, whose devastation is still felt around the globe. Instead, it left them in charge of their institutions and in possession of their freedom and their ill-gotten gains.
When faced with the global economic disaster these bankers caused, Blair didn't name names. Instead he said things like this: "Look upon this crisis not as an occasion to regress in policy or attitude of mind; but as a chance to renew, as an opportunity to open a new chapter in humanity's progress to a better future for all."
The political program Professor Berman eulogizes didn't just fail to "offer a fundamental critique of capitalism." It provided capitalism's worst excesses with ideological cover. Instead of hewing to well-understood professions of left-leaning values like "equality," it offered cliches about "equality of opportunity" that were indistinguishable from those of its center-right opponents.
Worse, when confronted with the economic damage that bankers caused, the European center-left turned against its supposed constituency by bailing out the banks and imposing strict austerity measures on working people.
The U.K. Labour Party, like its European and American counterparts, became obsessed with proving its "fiscal responsibility" -- so much so that it was considered a major gaffe when party leader Ed Miliband failed to mention the deficit in an address. "No one should doubt our seriousness about tackling the deficit," he said by way of apology.
Democrats under Clinton and Obama shared the European center-left's deficit obsession, but were forced to back away from it somewhat under political pressure. European social democrats stuck to the austerity program and lost even more support than Democrats did from their core voters.
Then there's foreign policy. Blair misled his country into war in Iraq -- a deception which most Britons still find literally unforgivable, according to a 2016 poll -- while centrist Democrats largely voted to support it here in the United States. That hurt both parties. One study showed that Donald Trump, who cynically ran as an anti-war candidate, gained a statistically significant level of additional support from communities with high military casualties.
The study shows that, without those votes, the election might have gone the other way.
Professor Berman's characterization of left leaders like Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn and the movement they represent will be unrecognizable to anyone familiar with them.
Her characterization of them as "an anti-globalization far left," without defining that label, repeats a canard that's been articulated many times by figures like Blair and Clinton. In a 2009 speech, in the wake of the global financial crisis, Blair put it this way (in a speech that, oddly, recently disappeared from his foundation's website):
"There is a myth that globalization is the result of a policy driven by Governments; and can be altered or even reversed by Governments. It isn't. It is driven by people. Globalization is not just an economic fact. It is about the internet, its power to communicate, influence and shape a world whose frontiers are coming down. It's about mass travel, migration, modern media. It is not simply an economic fact; it is in part an attitude of mind. It is where young people choose to be."
Strip away the Soylent Green-esque language - "It's people! Globalization is people!" -- and this is nothing but airy-fairy gibberish. After all, who on the left is against migration, media, or some vaguely defined "attitude of mind"?
Barring an extraterrestrial electromagnetic pulse of unprecedented scale, the internet and modern media will carry on. The question Blair and his colleagues elide is this: The global trade deals they promoted have increased inequality, weakened labor rights, and ceded sovereign authority to an arbitration system that is heavily stacked in favor of the enormously wealthy.
People aren't against globalization as Blair defines it. They're against trade deals that hurt them economically in order to benefit powerful interests. The "globalization" the left opposes is something altogether different: the domination of multilateral decision-making by powerful financial interests. That's worth opposing.
Berman continues says the parties of the newly-risen left "generally offer an impractical mishmash of attacks on the wealthy, protectionism, increased welfare spending and high taxes." Impractical? Those "attacks on the wealthy" and "high taxes" propose taxation rates that fall well below 1950s and 1960s-era levels.
Their "protectionism" would replace bad trade deals with better ones. These leaders are, if anything, overly conciliatory toward the "deficit" crowd, because they insist on offering "pay-fors" for their increased welfare spending.
"These policies may appeal to the angry and frustrated," Berman writes, "but they turn off voters looking for viable policy and a progressive, rather than utopian, view of the future." Leaving aside the question of viability, I would like to see some numbers to support that claim. There is growing support for bigger government and an improved social safety net in the US, while Corbyn's proposals poll very well in Britain.
As for "the angry and frustrated" -- yes, voters are both of those things. Why shouldn't they be? For too long, the center-left ignored their needs in order to pursue the notion that government could be run by insiders from both parties, through that quiet process of back-room negotiation known as "bipartisanship." Kenan Malik, also writing in the New York Times, accurately characterized the British and European center-left of recent decades:
"With the dismantling of the postwar political system has gone, too, the old division between social democracy and conservatism. The new fault line -- not just in British politics but throughout Europe -- is between an elite, technocratic managerialism, governing through structures that often bypass democratic processes, and a growing mass of people who feel alienated and politically voiceless."
The same could be said of its counterpart in the United States. The consensus rule of political insiders across the globe, from center-left to center-right, has not responded to voters' needs or wishes. As a result, it is falling. That's not tragedy; it's democracy. Europe's center-left became complacent and complicit: complacent in its power, and complicit in its relationship to corporate power.
Professor Berman worries that, without, "populism will flourish and democracy will decay." But the left's populism is answering the unmet needs of people in Western Europe and the United States. That's not decay; it's progress.
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
Richard (RJ) Eskow is a journalist who has written for a number of major publications. His weekly program, The Zero Hour, can be found on cable television, radio, Spotify, and podcast media.
The once-proud political project known as "centrism" is collapsing around the globe, despite increasingly desperate attempts by billionaire backers to revive it.
The center-right's implosion can be seen in the weakened state of Theresa May's Conservatives in Great Britain, the recent setback for Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, and the withering of the GOP's Mitt Romney wing.
But what about the center-left, the "New Labour"/"New Democrat" phenomenon that once seemed to offer so much hope? Can it survive? More importantly, should it?
Political scientist Sheri Berman recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times that made the case for Western Europe's failing social democrats. "Across Europe, social democratic or center-left parties are in decline," Professor Berman writes, adding:
"In elections this year in France and the Netherlands, the socialist and labor parties did so poorly that many question their future existence... Even if you don't support the left, this should be cause for concern. Social democratic parties were crucial to rebuilding democracy in Western Europe after 1945. They remain essential to democracy on the Continent today."
Professor Berman correctly diagnoses one aspect of what ails these parties, noting that center-left politicians like Britain's Tony Blair and Germany's Gerhard Schroder "celebrated the (free) market's upsides while ignoring its downsides."
It's worth lingering for a moment on those downsides: Economic inequality continued to skyrocket under Blair in Great Britain and Schroder in Germany, and Bill Clinton in the United States. The global economy was gravely damaged by the financial crisis of 2008, as Professor Berman notes, but that near-catastrophe wasn't caused by impersonal forces. It was the result of widespread banker fraud, made possible by the active collaboration of politicians from both parties.
The center-left rarely even chastised, much less prosecuted, bankers for their criminality in the runup to the economic crisis, whose devastation is still felt around the globe. Instead, it left them in charge of their institutions and in possession of their freedom and their ill-gotten gains.
When faced with the global economic disaster these bankers caused, Blair didn't name names. Instead he said things like this: "Look upon this crisis not as an occasion to regress in policy or attitude of mind; but as a chance to renew, as an opportunity to open a new chapter in humanity's progress to a better future for all."
The political program Professor Berman eulogizes didn't just fail to "offer a fundamental critique of capitalism." It provided capitalism's worst excesses with ideological cover. Instead of hewing to well-understood professions of left-leaning values like "equality," it offered cliches about "equality of opportunity" that were indistinguishable from those of its center-right opponents.
Worse, when confronted with the economic damage that bankers caused, the European center-left turned against its supposed constituency by bailing out the banks and imposing strict austerity measures on working people.
The U.K. Labour Party, like its European and American counterparts, became obsessed with proving its "fiscal responsibility" -- so much so that it was considered a major gaffe when party leader Ed Miliband failed to mention the deficit in an address. "No one should doubt our seriousness about tackling the deficit," he said by way of apology.
Democrats under Clinton and Obama shared the European center-left's deficit obsession, but were forced to back away from it somewhat under political pressure. European social democrats stuck to the austerity program and lost even more support than Democrats did from their core voters.
Then there's foreign policy. Blair misled his country into war in Iraq -- a deception which most Britons still find literally unforgivable, according to a 2016 poll -- while centrist Democrats largely voted to support it here in the United States. That hurt both parties. One study showed that Donald Trump, who cynically ran as an anti-war candidate, gained a statistically significant level of additional support from communities with high military casualties.
The study shows that, without those votes, the election might have gone the other way.
Professor Berman's characterization of left leaders like Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn and the movement they represent will be unrecognizable to anyone familiar with them.
Her characterization of them as "an anti-globalization far left," without defining that label, repeats a canard that's been articulated many times by figures like Blair and Clinton. In a 2009 speech, in the wake of the global financial crisis, Blair put it this way (in a speech that, oddly, recently disappeared from his foundation's website):
"There is a myth that globalization is the result of a policy driven by Governments; and can be altered or even reversed by Governments. It isn't. It is driven by people. Globalization is not just an economic fact. It is about the internet, its power to communicate, influence and shape a world whose frontiers are coming down. It's about mass travel, migration, modern media. It is not simply an economic fact; it is in part an attitude of mind. It is where young people choose to be."
Strip away the Soylent Green-esque language - "It's people! Globalization is people!" -- and this is nothing but airy-fairy gibberish. After all, who on the left is against migration, media, or some vaguely defined "attitude of mind"?
Barring an extraterrestrial electromagnetic pulse of unprecedented scale, the internet and modern media will carry on. The question Blair and his colleagues elide is this: The global trade deals they promoted have increased inequality, weakened labor rights, and ceded sovereign authority to an arbitration system that is heavily stacked in favor of the enormously wealthy.
People aren't against globalization as Blair defines it. They're against trade deals that hurt them economically in order to benefit powerful interests. The "globalization" the left opposes is something altogether different: the domination of multilateral decision-making by powerful financial interests. That's worth opposing.
Berman continues says the parties of the newly-risen left "generally offer an impractical mishmash of attacks on the wealthy, protectionism, increased welfare spending and high taxes." Impractical? Those "attacks on the wealthy" and "high taxes" propose taxation rates that fall well below 1950s and 1960s-era levels.
Their "protectionism" would replace bad trade deals with better ones. These leaders are, if anything, overly conciliatory toward the "deficit" crowd, because they insist on offering "pay-fors" for their increased welfare spending.
"These policies may appeal to the angry and frustrated," Berman writes, "but they turn off voters looking for viable policy and a progressive, rather than utopian, view of the future." Leaving aside the question of viability, I would like to see some numbers to support that claim. There is growing support for bigger government and an improved social safety net in the US, while Corbyn's proposals poll very well in Britain.
As for "the angry and frustrated" -- yes, voters are both of those things. Why shouldn't they be? For too long, the center-left ignored their needs in order to pursue the notion that government could be run by insiders from both parties, through that quiet process of back-room negotiation known as "bipartisanship." Kenan Malik, also writing in the New York Times, accurately characterized the British and European center-left of recent decades:
"With the dismantling of the postwar political system has gone, too, the old division between social democracy and conservatism. The new fault line -- not just in British politics but throughout Europe -- is between an elite, technocratic managerialism, governing through structures that often bypass democratic processes, and a growing mass of people who feel alienated and politically voiceless."
The same could be said of its counterpart in the United States. The consensus rule of political insiders across the globe, from center-left to center-right, has not responded to voters' needs or wishes. As a result, it is falling. That's not tragedy; it's democracy. Europe's center-left became complacent and complicit: complacent in its power, and complicit in its relationship to corporate power.
Professor Berman worries that, without, "populism will flourish and democracy will decay." But the left's populism is answering the unmet needs of people in Western Europe and the United States. That's not decay; it's progress.
Richard (RJ) Eskow is a journalist who has written for a number of major publications. His weekly program, The Zero Hour, can be found on cable television, radio, Spotify, and podcast media.
The once-proud political project known as "centrism" is collapsing around the globe, despite increasingly desperate attempts by billionaire backers to revive it.
The center-right's implosion can be seen in the weakened state of Theresa May's Conservatives in Great Britain, the recent setback for Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, and the withering of the GOP's Mitt Romney wing.
But what about the center-left, the "New Labour"/"New Democrat" phenomenon that once seemed to offer so much hope? Can it survive? More importantly, should it?
Political scientist Sheri Berman recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times that made the case for Western Europe's failing social democrats. "Across Europe, social democratic or center-left parties are in decline," Professor Berman writes, adding:
"In elections this year in France and the Netherlands, the socialist and labor parties did so poorly that many question their future existence... Even if you don't support the left, this should be cause for concern. Social democratic parties were crucial to rebuilding democracy in Western Europe after 1945. They remain essential to democracy on the Continent today."
Professor Berman correctly diagnoses one aspect of what ails these parties, noting that center-left politicians like Britain's Tony Blair and Germany's Gerhard Schroder "celebrated the (free) market's upsides while ignoring its downsides."
It's worth lingering for a moment on those downsides: Economic inequality continued to skyrocket under Blair in Great Britain and Schroder in Germany, and Bill Clinton in the United States. The global economy was gravely damaged by the financial crisis of 2008, as Professor Berman notes, but that near-catastrophe wasn't caused by impersonal forces. It was the result of widespread banker fraud, made possible by the active collaboration of politicians from both parties.
The center-left rarely even chastised, much less prosecuted, bankers for their criminality in the runup to the economic crisis, whose devastation is still felt around the globe. Instead, it left them in charge of their institutions and in possession of their freedom and their ill-gotten gains.
When faced with the global economic disaster these bankers caused, Blair didn't name names. Instead he said things like this: "Look upon this crisis not as an occasion to regress in policy or attitude of mind; but as a chance to renew, as an opportunity to open a new chapter in humanity's progress to a better future for all."
The political program Professor Berman eulogizes didn't just fail to "offer a fundamental critique of capitalism." It provided capitalism's worst excesses with ideological cover. Instead of hewing to well-understood professions of left-leaning values like "equality," it offered cliches about "equality of opportunity" that were indistinguishable from those of its center-right opponents.
Worse, when confronted with the economic damage that bankers caused, the European center-left turned against its supposed constituency by bailing out the banks and imposing strict austerity measures on working people.
The U.K. Labour Party, like its European and American counterparts, became obsessed with proving its "fiscal responsibility" -- so much so that it was considered a major gaffe when party leader Ed Miliband failed to mention the deficit in an address. "No one should doubt our seriousness about tackling the deficit," he said by way of apology.
Democrats under Clinton and Obama shared the European center-left's deficit obsession, but were forced to back away from it somewhat under political pressure. European social democrats stuck to the austerity program and lost even more support than Democrats did from their core voters.
Then there's foreign policy. Blair misled his country into war in Iraq -- a deception which most Britons still find literally unforgivable, according to a 2016 poll -- while centrist Democrats largely voted to support it here in the United States. That hurt both parties. One study showed that Donald Trump, who cynically ran as an anti-war candidate, gained a statistically significant level of additional support from communities with high military casualties.
The study shows that, without those votes, the election might have gone the other way.
Professor Berman's characterization of left leaders like Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn and the movement they represent will be unrecognizable to anyone familiar with them.
Her characterization of them as "an anti-globalization far left," without defining that label, repeats a canard that's been articulated many times by figures like Blair and Clinton. In a 2009 speech, in the wake of the global financial crisis, Blair put it this way (in a speech that, oddly, recently disappeared from his foundation's website):
"There is a myth that globalization is the result of a policy driven by Governments; and can be altered or even reversed by Governments. It isn't. It is driven by people. Globalization is not just an economic fact. It is about the internet, its power to communicate, influence and shape a world whose frontiers are coming down. It's about mass travel, migration, modern media. It is not simply an economic fact; it is in part an attitude of mind. It is where young people choose to be."
Strip away the Soylent Green-esque language - "It's people! Globalization is people!" -- and this is nothing but airy-fairy gibberish. After all, who on the left is against migration, media, or some vaguely defined "attitude of mind"?
Barring an extraterrestrial electromagnetic pulse of unprecedented scale, the internet and modern media will carry on. The question Blair and his colleagues elide is this: The global trade deals they promoted have increased inequality, weakened labor rights, and ceded sovereign authority to an arbitration system that is heavily stacked in favor of the enormously wealthy.
People aren't against globalization as Blair defines it. They're against trade deals that hurt them economically in order to benefit powerful interests. The "globalization" the left opposes is something altogether different: the domination of multilateral decision-making by powerful financial interests. That's worth opposing.
Berman continues says the parties of the newly-risen left "generally offer an impractical mishmash of attacks on the wealthy, protectionism, increased welfare spending and high taxes." Impractical? Those "attacks on the wealthy" and "high taxes" propose taxation rates that fall well below 1950s and 1960s-era levels.
Their "protectionism" would replace bad trade deals with better ones. These leaders are, if anything, overly conciliatory toward the "deficit" crowd, because they insist on offering "pay-fors" for their increased welfare spending.
"These policies may appeal to the angry and frustrated," Berman writes, "but they turn off voters looking for viable policy and a progressive, rather than utopian, view of the future." Leaving aside the question of viability, I would like to see some numbers to support that claim. There is growing support for bigger government and an improved social safety net in the US, while Corbyn's proposals poll very well in Britain.
As for "the angry and frustrated" -- yes, voters are both of those things. Why shouldn't they be? For too long, the center-left ignored their needs in order to pursue the notion that government could be run by insiders from both parties, through that quiet process of back-room negotiation known as "bipartisanship." Kenan Malik, also writing in the New York Times, accurately characterized the British and European center-left of recent decades:
"With the dismantling of the postwar political system has gone, too, the old division between social democracy and conservatism. The new fault line -- not just in British politics but throughout Europe -- is between an elite, technocratic managerialism, governing through structures that often bypass democratic processes, and a growing mass of people who feel alienated and politically voiceless."
The same could be said of its counterpart in the United States. The consensus rule of political insiders across the globe, from center-left to center-right, has not responded to voters' needs or wishes. As a result, it is falling. That's not tragedy; it's democracy. Europe's center-left became complacent and complicit: complacent in its power, and complicit in its relationship to corporate power.
Professor Berman worries that, without, "populism will flourish and democracy will decay." But the left's populism is answering the unmet needs of people in Western Europe and the United States. That's not decay; it's progress.
Khalil's wife said that "officers in plain clothes—who refused to show us a warrant, speak with our attorney, or even tell us their names—forced my husband into an unmarked car and took him away from me."
The family of Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the United States now at risk of deportation because he helped lead pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University last spring, on Friday released a video of his recent arrest by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents in New York City, which has sparked legal battles and protests.
"You're watching the most terrifying moment of my life," Khalil's wife, Noor, said in a statement about the two-minute video. "This felt like a kidnapping because it was: Officers in plain clothes—who refused to show us a warrant, speak with our attorney, or even tell us their names—forced my husband into an unmarked car and took him away from me."
"Everyone should be alarmed and urgently calling for the freedom of Mahmoud and all other students under attack for their advocacy for Palestinian human rights."
"They threatened to take me too, even though we were calm and fully cooperating. For the next 38 hours after this video, neither I or our lawyers knew where Mahmoud was being held. Now, he's over 1,000 miles from home, still being wrongfully detained by U.S. immigration," said Noor, whose husband is detained at a facility in Jena, Louisiana.
Noor, who is eight months pregnant, noted that "Mahmoud has repeatedly warned of growing threats from Columbia University and the U.S. government unjustly targeting students who want to see an end to Israel's genocide in Gaza. Now, the Trump administration and DHS are targeting him, and other students too."
"Mahmoud is clearly the first of many to be illegally repressed for their speech in support of Palestinian rights," she added. "Everyone should be alarmed and urgently calling for the freedom of Mahmoud and all other students under attack for their advocacy for Palestinian human rights."
Khalil, who finished his graduate studies at Columbia in December, is an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent. He was living in the United States with a green card until his arrest on Saturday. In response to a filing by his legal team—which includes Amy Greer from Dratel & Lewis, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) project—a judge has temporarily blocked his deportation.
The ACLU and its New York arm have joined Khalil's legal team, and his attorneys filed an amended petition and complaint on Thursday. NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman said that with the new "filing, we are making it crystal clear that no president can arrest, detain, or deport anyone for disagreeing with the government. The Trump administration has selectively targeted Mr. Khalil, a student, husband, and father-to-be who has not been accused of a single crime, to send a message of just how far they will go to crack down on dissent."
"But we at the NYCLU and ACLU won't stand for it—under the Constitution, the Trump administration has no basis to continue this cruel weaponization of Mr. Khalil's life," Lieberman added. "The court must release Mr. Khalil immediately and let him go home to his family in New York, where he belongs. Ideas are not illegal, and dissent is not grounds for deportation."
Samah Sisay of CCR reiterated those messages as the arrest video circulated on Friday, saying that "Mr. Khalil was taken by plainclothes DHS agents in front of his pregnant wife without any legal justification. Mr. Khalil must be freed because the government cannot use these coercive tactics to unlawfully suppress his First Amendment protected speech in support of Palestinian rights."
"Between his massive conflicts of interest across the healthcare sector and his endorsement of further privatizing Medicare, Oz would be a threat to the health of tens of millions of Americans," said one opponent.
Progressive watchdog organizations responded to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee's Friday hearing for Dr. Mehmet Oz by again sounding the alarm about the heart surgeon and former television host nominated to lead a key federal healthcare agency.
Since President Donald Trump announced Oz as his nominee for administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last November, opponents have spotlighted the doctor's promotion of unproven products, investments in companies with interests in the federal agency, and support for expanding Medicare Advantage during an unsuccessful U.S. Senate run in 2022.
"Dr. Oz's career promoting dubious medical treatments and pseudoscience often for personal financial gain should immediately disqualify him from serving in any public health capacity, let alone in a top administration health post," Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk said in a Friday statement.
"Dr. Oz's nomination is part of President Trump's grand plan to enrich his corporate donors and wealthy friends while the rest of us get higher costs, less coverage, and weakened protections."
In December, Carrk's group found that based on disclosures from Oz's 2022 run against U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), the Republican doctor reported "up to $56 million in investments in three companies" with direct CMS interests—including Sharecare, which became the "exclusive in-home care supplemental benefit program" for 1.5 million Medicare Advantage enrollees.
A spokesperson said at the time that Oz has since divested from Sharecare. However, critics have still expressed concern about how the nominee's confirmation could boost Republican efforts to expand Medicare Advantage—health insurance plans for seniors administered by private companies rather than the government.
"As a self-interested advocate of privatizing Medicare at a higher cost and more denials of care for seniors, Dr. Oz is surely eager to enact the Trump-Republican budget plan to gut Medicare and Medicaid and jeopardize health coverage for millions of Americans—all to pay for more tax breaks for billionaires and price gouging corporations," said Carrk. "Dr. Oz's nomination is part of President Trump's grand plan to enrich his corporate donors and wealthy friends while the rest of us get higher costs, less coverage, and weakened protections—especially those with preexisting conditions."
As he faces Senate confirmation, remember that Dr. Oz: -Pushed Medicare privatization plans on his show -Owns ~$600k in stock in private insurers -Has ties to pyramid scheme companies that promote fake medical cures His main qualification to oversee CMS is loyalty to Trump.
— Robert Reich ( @rbreich.bsky.social) March 14, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, has been similarly critical of Oz, and remained so after senators questioned him on Friday, saying in a statement that "Mehmet Oz showed he is profoundly unqualified to lead any part of our healthcare system, let alone an agency as important as CMS."
"Between his massive conflicts of interest across the healthcare sector and his endorsement of further privatizing Medicare, Oz would be a threat to the health of tens of millions of Americans," Weissman warned. "Privatized Medicare Advantage plans deliver inferior care and cost taxpayers nearly $100 billion annually in excess costs."
"It is time for President Trump to put down the remote, stop finding nominees on television, and instead nominate people with actual experience and a belief in the importance of protecting crucial health programs like Medicare and Medicaid," he argued, taking aim at not only the president but also his billionaire adviser Elon Musk, head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency and, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the conspiracy theorist now running the Department of Health and Human Services.
Weissman declared that "Trump, Musk, and RFK Jr. fail to put the American people first as they seek to gut agencies and make dangerous cuts to health programs to fund tax cuts for billionaires. Oz indicated he would not oppose such cuts, bringing more destruction to lifesaving programs. Oz has no place in government and should be roundly rejected by every senator."
During a Friday exchange with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the committee's ranking member, Oz refused to decisively commit to opposing cuts to Medicaid. As the Alliance for Retired Americans highlighted, Oz kept that up when given opportunities to revise his answer by Sens. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.).
Other moments from the hearing that garnered attention included Oz's exchange with Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) about Affordable Care Act tax credits and Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) calling out the doctor for his unwillingness "to take accountability for" his "promotion of unproven snake oil remedies" to millions of TV viewers.
Betar—which the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League has blacklisted after comments like "not enough" babies were killed in Gaza—says it provided "thousands of names" for possible arrest and expulsion.
Betar, the international far-right pro-Israel group that took credit for the Department of Homeland Security's arrest of former Columbia University graduate student and permanent U.S. resident Mahmoud Khalil for protesting the annihilation of Gaza, claimed this week that it has sent "thousands of names" of Palestine defenders to Trump administration officials for possible deportation.
"Jihadis have no place in civilized nations," Betar said on social media Friday following the publication of a Guardian article on the extremist group's activities.
Earlier this week, Betar said: "We told you we have been working on deportations and will continue to do so. Expect naturalized citizens to start being picked up within the month. You heard it here first. Those who support jihad and intifada and originate in terrorist states will be sent back to those lands."
Betar has been gloating about last week's arrest of Khalil, the lead negotiator for the group Columbia University Apartheid Divest during the April 2024 Gaza Solidarity Encampment.
On Thursday, immigration officers arrested another Columbia Gaza protester, Leqaa Kordia—a Palestinian from the illegally occupied West Bank—for allegedly overstaying her expired student visa. Kordia was also arrested last April during one of the Columbia campus protests against the Gaza onslaught.
On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian doctoral student at Columbia whose visa was revoked on March 5 for alleged involvement "in activities supporting" Hamas—the Palestinian resistance group designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government—used the Customs and Border Protection's self-deportation app and, according to media reports, has left the country.
Khalil and Kordia's arrests come as the Trump administration targets Columbia and other schools over pro-Palestinian protests under the guise of combating antisemitism, despite the Ivy League university's violent crackdown on demonstrations and revocation of degrees from some pro-Palestine activists.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who in January signed an executive order authorizing the deportation of noncitizen students and others who took part in protests against Israel's war on Gaza, called Khalil's detention "the first arrest of many to come."
The Department of Justice announced Friday that it is investigating whether pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the school violated federal anti-terrorism laws. This followed Thursday's search of two Columbia dorm rooms by DHS agents and the cancellation earlier this month of $400 million worth of funding and contracts for Columbia because the Trump administration says university officials haven't done enough to tackle alleged antisemitism on campus.
On Friday, Betar named Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian studying philosophy at Columbia, as its next target.
Critics have voiced alarm about Betar's activities, pointing to the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League's recent designation of the organization as a hate group. Founded in 1923 by the early Zionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Betar has a long history of extremism. Its members—who included former Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin—took part in the Zionist terror campaign against Palestinian Arabs and British forces occupying Palestine in the 1940s.
Today, Betar supports Kahanism—a Jewish supremacist and apartheid movement named after Meir Kahane, an Orthodox rabbi convicted of terrorism before being assassinated in 1990—and is linked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party. The group has called for the ethnic cleansing and Israeli recolonization of Gaza. During Israel's assault on the coastal enclave, which is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case, its account on the social media site X responded to the publication of a list of thousands of Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces by saying: "Not enough. We demand blood in Gaza!"
Ross Glick, who led the U.S. chapter of Betar until last month, told The Guardian that he has met with bipartisan members of Congress who support the group's efforts, naming lawmakers including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and John Fetterman (D-Pa.). Glick also claimed to have the support of "collaborators" who use artificial intelligence and facial recognition to help identify pro-Palestine activists. Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department said it was launching an AI-powered "catch and revoke" program to cancel the visas of international students deemed supportive of Hamas.
Betar isn't alone in aggressively targeting Palestine defenders. The group Canary Mission—which said it is "delighted" about Khalil's "deserved consequences"—publishes an online database containing personal information about people it deems antisemitic, and this week released a video naming five other international students it says are "linked to campus extremism at Columbia."
Shai Davidai, an assistant professor at Columbia who was temporarily banned from campus last year after harassing university employees, and Columbia student David Lederer, have waged what Khalil called "a vicious, coordinated, and dehumanizing doxxing campaign" against him and other activists.
Meanwhile, opponents of the Trump administration's crackdown on constitutionally protected protest rights have rallied in defense of Khalil and the First Amendment. Nearly 100 Jewish-led demonstrators were arrested Thursday during a protest in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City demanding Khalil's release.
"We know what happens when an autocratic regime starts taking away our rights and scapegoating and we will not be silent," said Sonya Meyerson-Knox, the communications director for Jewish Voice for Peace. "Come for one—face us all."