On Tuesday, I will be visiting Pittsburgh to perform my Pink Floyd hit “The Wall” at Consol Energy Center. By coincidence, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has gathered this week in Pittsburgh.
One issue the Presbyterians will be debating is whether to take action in support of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank, under siege in Gaza and as second-class citizens in Israel under the rule of the apartheid government there.
I write in support of those Presbyterians who would like their church to divest its holdings in three U.S. companies — Motorola Solutions, Hewlett-Packard and Caterpillar. These companies profit directly from Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank and suppression of the Palestinian people in both the West Bank and Israel itself.
While there are very legitimate issues with the Israeli government’s handling of the West Bank’s disputed territories (I support the transfer of most of these lands to a new Palestinian state), the notion that Gaza is under siege by Israel (when Hamas just fired 150 rockets last week into civilian Israeli territory), or that Palestinians who live in Israel proper are second-class citizens under an apartheid regime (when they share every single right and responsibility of citizenship as their Jewish neighbors), cannot be classified as anything but malicious lies.
The decision to divest is an independent issue, and while I am strongly opposed for the reasons I outline here, reasonable minds certainly can differ. But if people base the decision on Waters’ lies, they are doing a great disservice to the dialogue.
The answer? We do need education. Indeed someone just wrote a good book on the subject…
Great timeline of what is implemented and when in the Affordable Care Act. Already prescription drugs are more affordable for seniors. [Doctors for America]
Big news on the film front: “Hitting the Cycle,” the baseball-themed film, co-produced by The RP’s sister, Jennifer Miller was named Best Dramatic Feature Film last night at the Manhattan Film Festival. The film was written and directed by Jennifer’s high school classmate Richey Nash, and co-stars the legendary Bruce Dern.
Anderson Cooper has, at long last, publicly said he is gay.
Cooper made the announcement in an email to writer Andrew Sullivan.
“The fact is, I’m gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn’t be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud,” he wrote.
Cooper’s sexuality has long been the subject of ample media speculation, but he has never publicly confirmed it — a fact which he also seemed to address in the email to Sullivan:
In other BREAKING NEWS: The RP is Jewish, RP Jeff Smith is short, RP Michael Steele is African-American. RP Krystal Ball is a brunette, and RP John Y. Brown, III has curly hair.
Whether Chief Justice John Roberts changed his mind, or is the latest example of Republican justices “evolving” on the bench, he has done the improbable: liberals are praising a Supreme Court that they had trashed as a player in a right-wing conspiracy. Old sins like Citizens United are washed away, as are President Obama’s spring musings about the dangers of an unelected court unaccountable to public opinion. The about-face is jarring even in a political atmosphere where the right result typically makes right.
I’ll offer two quick cautionary notes, though, on the politics,and on the arguably more significant trend signified by the outcome. First, a rebuttal to Democratic wishfulness that healthcare is now a politica lwinner for Barack Obama: the better evidence is that it will be a media inflated victory that is worth no votes. Just as Democrats miscalculated in 2010 by assuming that the passage of the healthcare law would prove that they could get things done, they are probably drawing th ewrong lesson today if they assume the Court’s rescue of a deeply unpopular law somehow validates the Obama term.
The notion that the Supreme Court’s imprimatur alters the electoral equation implies that the hostility to Obamacare among Independents and swing voters is related to their doubts about the law’s legitimacy. To the contrary, there is considerably more polling evidence that the political middle’s resistance to the Affordable Care Act is grounded in bread and butter realities: sticker shot at the cost; reflexive doubts that any fledgling federal bureaucracy will work the way it is supposed to; and a suspicion that for all the hoopla, the reform won’t lower their premiums or improve their coverage. The constitutional gripe never really permeated the congressiona ldebate, and it has become a rallying point only within the GOP’s Tea Party base and on the intellectual right: two places that are not exactly part of the persuadable voter universe, and two sectors that aren’t about to rethink thei ropinion based on a one vote escape act.
