By Jonathan Miller, on Tue Jun 12, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
On June 26th, there will be an election in Brooklyn between Hakeem Jeffries, a New York State Assemblyman and New York City Councilman, Charles Barron. While the Daily News this week endorsed Jeffries in the Democratic Primary (which will essentially be the election in this heavily-Democratic district), the retiring Member of Congress Ed Towns, and the Amsterdam News, have endorsed Barron. This race is neck in neck and the turnout will be lowimmediately.
Barron has questioned the legitimacy of Israel’s existence, calling the Israeli government “the biggest terrorist in the world.” In 2009, hejoined former anti-Israel congresswoman Cynthia McKinney on a Viva Palestine convoy to undermine the Israeli blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza, which he has compared to a “concentration death camp.” He said, “There’s too many children and women and innocent men of Gaza dying because you’re isolating them and not allowing anything in. It’s like having a concentration death camp.”
At a 2002 rally in support of reparations for slavery, Barron said: “I want to go up to the closest white person and say, ‘You can’t understand this, it’s a black thing’ and then slap him, just for my mental health.”
For a compilation of Barron’s statements, click here:
And be sure to watch this stunning video:
If any of this makes you want to jump to action, click here to support Barron’s primary opponent, Hakeem Jeffries.
By Jonathan Miller, on Tue Jun 12, 2012 at 11:00 AM ET
One of the “Crazy Lies” that I have debunked in my new book, “The Liberal Case for Israel: Debunking Eight Crazy Lies About the Jewish State,” is the pernicious charge of “pinkwashing”: anti-Zionists perniciously claim that Israel’s extraordinary LGBT record is merely a pink smokescreen for its other failures. [Click here to read an excerpt from my book on “pinkwashing” charge.]
Fortunately, I am not the only one up and arms about the claim. Last week, a Trustee of the City University of New York lambasted that school’s decision to hold a conference on pinkwashing. As The Algemeiner reports:
The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at City University of New York plans to hold a conference on “Homonationalism and Pinkwashing” next year, which intends to accuse Israel of using their strong record on gay rights to detract from the “oppression of Palestinians”, while ignoring “the existence of Palestinian gay-rights organizations”, according to a release from CLAGS.
Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, who sits on the Board of CUNY Trustees calls the conference “disgusting” and plans to bring the issue to the Chancellor’s office, which he believes may be unaware of the issue.
“It’s just amazing to me that one of the few free societies in the world like the state of Israel should be a target for people so stupid that they can’t recognize what their fate would be in any other nation in the Middle East,” Wiesenfeld told The Algemeiner.
Ross Douthat has a striking observation on the futile Wisconsin recall: rather than echo the conventional Republican theme that the effort was an ill-conceived liberal putsch, aimed at overturning the fruits of both the electoral and legislative process, he compares the saga to 2009-10, when Barack Obama’s Democrats rammed through sweeping domestic legislation and the Right decisively counterattacked in the midterms. Provocatively, he calls them “mirror image exercises in reverse shock and awe, and…backlash.”
Fascinating stuff. Of course, it’s a message some conservatives will blanche at for the simple reason that a recall is an extremely unprecedented gesture—three governors in our history have fallen victim—while the 2010 off year races were obviously a regularly scheduled democratic exercise. But Douthat surely has the ultimate conclusion right: both sides have gotten well schooled in the gymnastics of cut and slash opposition; it’s just that Republicans are getting the better of it. And as Douthat allows, the outcome in a bluish state that Democrats are still favored to carry underscores the political pull of reeling in outsized spending and the relative weakness of the liberal alternative, when both are put to the test.
I would even go one major step further: in the post LBJ era, the public has arguably never validated a specific, identifiable liberal agenda at the ballot box. The winning Democrats in that time frame—Carter, Clinton and Obama—have won on a tightly crafted appeal that stressed economic anxiety and blurred ideological content. Even the one congressional landslide for Democrats in memory, the 2006 midterms, were linked primarily to fatigue with Iraq and Republican overreach on Social Security. If one reads the post Reagan era as a closely matched siege over time, the left owes its victories to negative referenda on incumbents and a couple of superstar performers. In other words, liberals have been cursed to plot a course identical to the one they dismissively suggested accounted for Ronald Reagan.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: One Cautious Take on Wisconsin
It’s worth reading EJ Dionne’s latest piece about the essence of modern conservatism, not so much for the originality of its analysis—its argument that conservatism has morphed into a mean-spirited, anti-communal, exercise in selfishness is a standard liberal trope at this point—but because it revives a valuable debate I’ve written about before: is the Republican Party really in the midst of a hard-right revolution and has the right all but given up on community?
To be sure, there’s a lot to assail about Dionne’s history lessons. Trying to re-imagine Civil War pensions, or the creation of national hospitals to treat sailors under John Adams, as relevant entries in a debate over modern ideology is about as illuminating as linking pro-slavery antebellum Democrats to the modern Democratic Party’s stance on abortion, or dwelling on the Ku Klux Klan’s twenties era power base in the Democratic Party. In other words, minor rhetorical noise, but not much light. Similarly, describing McCarthyism, Vietnam, the civil rights fires, Watergate, and the generation gap as minor pauses in a robust past consensus is the slight-of -hand of a DC pundit framing another lament about the allegedly woeful times we live in now (times that don’t feature inner-city riots, assassinations, 56,000 deaths in a foreign war, or the wiretapping of political enemies).
I won’t challenge Dionne’s premise that modern conservatism is mainly a campaign for “low taxes, fewer regulations, [and] less government.” It is distinguishable from earlier phases when conservatives spent much energy on co-opting liberals, i.e, George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism”, Gerald Ford’s off and on economic stimulus proposals; Richard Nixon’s forays into affirmative action and environmental protection. And to be sure, the cable news organ of the contemporary right sometimes blends an unattractive fearfulness about the future with a bravado-laced denigration of the left (that is of course, matched by the left’s unadorned contempt in return).
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: Republicans and Community, Redux
Michael Jordan was one of the first people in pro sports to realize that politics and sports don’t mix.
When asked to endorse black Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt in an epic 1990 Senate race against longtime civil rights opponent Jesse Helms – a nod that could’ve had a profound impact in Jordan’s home state – MJ famously declined. “Republicans buy shoes, too,” he is reported to have said.
As a Gantt supporter I was very disappointed in Jordan’s refusal to get involved, but it was probably smart business. And I suspect that the Mets may be about to learn as much.
By Jonathan Miller, on Mon Jun 4, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
Woody Allen once famously said that, “90 percent of life is just showing up.” Our members of Congress apparently aren’t big believers in this philosophy.
Among the many reasons for Congressional gridlock is the fact that they’re rarely in session together, if at all. This past May offered a representative example as the House and Senate were only in session at the same time during nine out of 22 available work days.
Congressional absenteeism is hardly a new problem. In the last 10 years, the House averaged only 135 days in session per calendar year, while the Senate averaged 160. But in recent years, it has reached tragicomic proportions, as some members don’t even show up when Congress is in session.
Members of Congress now routinely fly home to their districts on Thursday nights to meet with constituents or attend fundraisers, and they often don’t return until the following Tuesday. That often leaves only a few days a week available for actual legislating. As former Democratic Senate leader Tom Daschle once said, “When we scheduled votes, the only day where we could be absolutely certain we had all one hundred senators there was Wednesday afternoon.”
This is simply unacceptable. America has big problems to solve, and we won’t have much hope of solving them if we effectively have a part-time legislature. Thankfully, members of Congress from both parties are starting to speak up.
Read the rest of… The RP: Make Members Come to Work
No Labels isn’t alone pressing for immediate congressional reform.
“Fools on the Hill” is a new documentary that makes the case that Congress needs to pass some stringent laws to keep themselves in check. Things like no more adding hundreds of pages to a bill in the middle of the night and passing it the next morning.
The documentarians are organizing a march and rally on Congress July 17, and are asking people to sign a petition and join them as they converge on DC to demand Congressional reform.
While I’ve gone to great lengths to keep this website a forum for ideas, and not a personal forum, I should say something about the various stories regarding my political future in Virginia, the state that has been my primary home since late December 2010. The short of it is this: I don’t know and am nowhere near deciding. If I were to run, it would be as a Republican. And I am in the process of changing my voter registration from Alabama to Virginia, a development which likely does represent a closing of one chapter and perhaps the opening of another.
As to the horse-race question that animated parts of the blogosphere, it is true that people whose judgment I value have asked me to weigh the prospect of running in one of the Northern Virginia congressional districts in 2014 or 2016, or alternatively, for a seat in the Virginia legislature in 2015. If that sounds imprecise, it’s a function of how uncertain political opportunities can be—and if that sounds expedient, never lose sight of the fact that politics is not wishfulness, it’s the execution of a long, draining process to win votes and help and relationships while your adversaries are working just as hard to tear down the ground you build.
I by no means underestimate the difficulty of putting together a campaign again, especially in a community to which I have no long-standing ties. I have a mountain of details to learn about this northern slice of Virginia and its aspirations, and given the many times I have advised would-be candidates to have a platform and a reason for serving, as opposed to a desire to hold an office, that learning curve is one I would take seriously.
And the question of party label in what remains a two team enterprise? That, too, is no light decision on my part: cutting ties with an Alabama Democratic Party that has weakened and lost faith with more and more Alabamians every year is one thing; leaving a national party that has been the home for my political values for two decades is quite another. My personal library is still full of books on John and Robert Kennedy, and I have rarely talked about politics without trying to capture the noble things they stood for. I have also not forgotten that in my early thirties, the Democratic Party managed to engineer the last run of robust growth and expanded social mobility that we have enjoyed; and when the party was doing that work, it felt inclusive, vibrant, and open-minded.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: A Response to Political Rumors
A decade ago, the Hispanic political community and the gay rights lobby were in a substantially similar position: both with agendas that were largely under radar, far enough off the grid that their cause was neither a rallying point for friends nor a wedge issue for their adversaries. The demands of both groups were mostly inconsequential in a national election.
Adjust the dial to 2012 and both gay rights and immigration have turned into cultural flashpoints. But the fortunes of the respective constituencies have taken sharply divergent paths. By any measure, gay rights advocates are on the rise. A once far-fetched goal of theirs, repealing “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”, survived congressional gridlock to become one of the Obama administration’s signature achievements; an even more implausible seeming cause, full-fledged marital status for same-sex couples, has just won the endorsement of the President of the United States and has become a major policy commitment of that president’s party.
In contrast, Hispanic interest groups are in the midst of a bad run. They are winless at the congressional level in the preceding decade—losing badly in their campaign to open up citizenship opportunities for much of the illegal immigrant population, and failing in a more incremental bid to legalize young undocumented adults who join the military or complete college. During Barack Obama’s term, they have actually lost ground. Alabama and Arizona have passed sharply restrictive laws aimed at making their states all but unlivable for illegal immigrants. The Democratic Party that generally wins Latino votes has been an ambivalent ally, with two major elements of their base, labor unions and African Americans, skeptical of any broad liberalization of immigration laws.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: Hispanic Losses, Gay Victories
By Jonathan Miller, on Tue May 22, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
“Bring it to the Table” is a web and documentary project that seeks to bridge political divides in an increasingly partisan era. At a time when it’s so easy to filter out ideas that don’t sit well with us, they aim to get liberals speaking to conservatives–and conservatives speaking to liberals.
Take a look at the video below, and if you like what you see, I encourage you to click here to learn more about the Kickstarter campaign.
