Back in 2015 I was furious with my senator, Chuck Schumer, for opposing the Obama Administration’s nuclear deal with Iran. According to several sources, Schumer opposed the deal because Bibi Netanyahu asked him to. I sent Chuck a sternly worded email about it, as I recall, vowing to never vote for him again. (And I didn’t, although I was living in Missouri the next time he ran.) Eventually Chuck and the mostly Republicans who opposed the deal were defeated. (Of course a certain Great Orange Idiot canceled the agreement some time later, promising he could negotiate something better, which he never even attempted to do. But that’s another rant.)
I take it Chuck’s speech of last week calling for new elections in Israel landed like a bomb in Israel. See, for example, Schumer’s anti-Netanyahu speech stuns Israel at Axios.
In addition to being the most senior Jewish elected official in the country, Schumer has had one of the longest and closest relationships with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of any U.S. politician.
Schumer’s speech stunned officials and observers in both Washington and Jerusalem because he has been — and still is — the Democratic Party’s most avid supporter of Israel in decades.
His harsh remarks about Netanyahu create more political space for other Democratic members of Congress to publicly voice their criticism of the Israeli government amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
Pro-Palestinian protesters are giving themselves credit for Schumer’s shift in position, but I suspect what really happened is that he started hearing from Jewish constituents saying they were opposed to the Netanyahu government’s wholesale destruction of Gaza. See From her lips to Chuck’s ears: Schumer’s rabbi weighs in on his Israel speech.
“In this speech, he said what most of us think,” Timoner, senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Elohim, said in an interview with POLITICO. “There’s been a real fear in the American Jewish community of criticizing Israel. … He did something so great in breaking that silence.”
Schumer has attended Timoner’s synagogue near his home in Park Slope, Brooklyn for at least a decade. Timoner officiated his daughter’s wedding, blessed his three grandchildren and buried his father.
I’m reading that no one expects Netanyahu to change his course because of Schumer’s speech. The U.S. Right is outgaged about it, and Netanyahu probably figures if Trump wins re-election he can count on infinite support from the U.S. going forward. It does give President Biden more room to maneuver, though. For so long criticism of Israel has been something of a third rail here, and that has to change.
In other news: The Washington Post is running an opinion piece by Kathleen Parker headlined “For the country’s sake, Vice President Harris should step aside.” I’m not going to link to it because it’s garbage, but it’s easily found on their editorial page today.
Parker’s opening sentence is “The Democratic Party’s indulgence of identity politics has proved successful in building a diverse organization, but its strategy of courting (and pandering to) minority voters is the road to ruin.” OMG.
And then Parker goes on to trash Harris for … what, exactly? It’s not clear. Parker calls Harris’s speeches “rambling,” which is not something I’ve ever noticed. And she accuses Harris of having a bad laugh. A representative paragraph:
Whatever the reasons, it has seemed that Harris’s role was to be quiet, lest she embarrass her boss with her sometimes inane, rambling remarks and a laugh that erupts from nowhere about nothing obvious to others. I do, however, relish the thought of her face-to-face with Vladimir Putin and suddenly cackling at a linchpin moment during nuclear arms discussions.
I am old enough to remember Dwight Eisenhower being president, and in all those years I’ve noticed that the role of vice president is a mostly thankless one that doesn’t let anyone shine too brightly. But if Parker thinks that it would be good for Joe Biden’s election chances to switch veeps now — to another white guy, I assume — she’s a flaming idiot. The erupting controversy would drown out anything else the Biden Administration is trying to present. (Does the name “Thomas Eagleton” ring any bells?) Whatever “safe” candidate is chosen will still be ripped to shreds in right-wing media.
I’m absolutely disgusted with Kathleen Parker, and if any of you want to complain to WaPo about her, please don’t let me discourage you.
Update: See Your Regular Reminder That We Knew About Kathleen Parker’s Bigotry Years Ago at No More Mister Nice Blog.
Bad faith arguments from Kathleen Parker can hardly be a surprise.
I hardly ever read her columns.
I read Kathleen Parker yesterday, after a long hiatus, even left a comment intended to wake her up from her southern belle slumber. Mostly I felt that: if all Republicans are as clueless and as churlishly resigned as she is, we're in good shape. "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn".
IMO, the thing about the thankless job of VP is that Joe held that position for eight years, playing second fiddle to the first black POTUS. In all that time, Biden did not upstage Obama or embarrass him. From what I read, Biden offered advice and supported the decisions of the administration.
Harris can be a link to the black community to remind them that Joe isn't new to the problems they face. The former guy will set the clock on racial equality back 60 years if he gets elected. The black vote is the first segment of the electorate Trump will silence. Harris might do well to remind black voters that Black women are beating the drum of justice – she might not be able to mention the names, Letitia James, Fani Willis, or Tanya Chutkan. But she can dance close enough to the edge that the audience knows – black women in the legal profession are holding powerful white men to account in court. It's long overdue and white bigots don't like it. But the law wasn't written for white men to control the lower classes of a darker complexion. And the current administration is making justice color-blind. Done properly, this can provoke Trump into even more open racism and racial threats. MAGA voters are not multiplying -they can't get more wound-up than they are. Black voters need to see that their political futures are on the line so they turn out to vote. That's Parker's concern, whether she said it or not.
Voters are famous for seeing what they want to see in a candidate. I think Chuck "fell" for a line of BS from Bibi. He shouldn't have and it took a lot of "incidents" which proved the intended result of driving Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank before Chuck was convinced of the policy of genocide. Israel is "shook" by the speech, they say. Not Bibi. Like Trump, he needs to hold power to stay out of jail.
But to the average citizen in Israel, it's a warning that Bibi has hit the limit of what the US will sanction. The warning packed more punch from Chuck than it would have from President Biden. We're the only friend Israel has in the world – they've created enemies by the hundreds of thousands within the borders of Israel with repressive policies. Europe is sick of the apartheid brutality. Muslim countries would wipe the Jews off the face of the earth except for US protection. Hopefully, it will be a wake-up call and a signal to change direction.
"Hopefully, it will be a wake-up call and a signal to change direction"
Agreed but Bibi's not going to change direction, he said in response to Schumer's speech that: "Are your memories that short? Have you so quickly forgotten October 7, the most horrific massacre of Jews since the Holocaust?". So in Bib's mind there will be no course correction, in fact he is promising to push on into Rafah soon (the area they told Palestinians to evacuate TO three months ago). Bibi understands the politics in this country are difficult for Biden to abandon them during this war and so close to an election. Israel has what it needs to continue the brutality and Biden abandoning them might just get Stump elected, which is what Bibi wants in the end anyway.
Bibi's fighting to escape accountability by changing the subject.
He has to go.
Going OT: Trump is going "all-in" on freeing the J6 insurrectionists. He's opening rallies with the J6 choir and the MAGA national anthem. He's calling them "patriots" and seems like he's ready to run on J6 being completely justified. Most J6 criminals pleaded to a lesser offense rather than go to trial. Some were charged with such serious violence they took their chances with a trial. The DOJ wasn't cutting deals with the militias either. Voters see themselves as potential jurors and Trump is suggesting that ALL the jurors on ALL the juries were wrong.
I suppose this also fits with Trump's strategy in the DC J6 case and the GA prosecution under RICO. If Trump anticipates that the prosecution(s) will be able to prove a conspiracy to overturn the certified results, you want to convince the jury that the fake electors scheme and the intimidation of election workers was justified. This is Nixon writ large: "If the president does it, it's legal."
Trump is using the term "bloodbath" to describe what will happen if he does not win the election. This will resonate with the fanatics Trump has signed up, It's not going to fly in the late hours of the election with "moderate" voters who have not tuned in and think Trump and Biden are basically the same.
I read and suspect it's True that Trump will roll out a plan to unify the country over abortion with the proposal of a 16-week ban, even in states that have ratified state constitutional protection for abortion. This one is really stupid because the fetus people will like it even less than progressives in California. The evangelicals are getting ready for a new round of repression and Trump could pour political cold water on attacks on IVF, contraception, and access to medical care. Once Trump "announces" his plan, the evangelicals will demand to know what Trump is doing to them at the same time women will want to know what the plan will do for them. Trying to satisfy both sides with vague platitudes will piss off both sides.
It's possible Trump may be goaded into going after Obamacare. You can repeal Obamacare of you just have the votes. The promise that you will replace it with something "better" demands specifics. Trump has NEVER produced a plan for how he would make Obamacare better. (It can be improved, but only with changes that Trump would never consider.)
Trump wandered into a comment on Social Security and Medicare (without specifics, go figure) and the Biden camp went after it at once. Trump retreated but it's also something Trump is tempted by. Why? Wall Street has wanted to privatize SS benefits so they could gamble SS benefits with future retirees taking the risk. Taking the "security" out of Social Security. But huge money would be dumped into Trump's campaign if Wall Street thought Trump might deliver. And Trump needs the money.
Obviously, I'm biased but looking at where Trump is and where he's going with his campaign, I see huge problems with what Trump has and likely will propose to voters who are not already committed.
I remember Kathleen Parker writing an op-ed saying Sarah Palin was not ready to be a vice-presidential candidate, and that McCain should find a new running mate. So maybe her latest essay is her way of being "fair and balanced" ?
I was surprised as anyone by Schumer's latest speech, but I found Bibi's response troubling. He basically said Israel should not hold elections until the war is over.
I've been told so many times that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. What would have been our reaction if George W Bush had said "It's inappropriate to hold presidential elections until our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are over."? Would we be calling the U.S. a democracy?
I am so glad Chuck Schumer said it. Hopefully israelis will wake up to the untenable basis of their policies: apartheid.
As for Harris , she is too quiet and VP s have to be but she is best when she speaks out forcefully.ex. Fisk University speech.
And when she was a senator and was questioning a witness to a committee. The prosecutor in her came out and she was very effective.
Netanyahu is thug! He should be in jail.