Last night, I flagged a press release from House Speaker John Boehner’s office in which – inter alia – Boehner says he told Israeli Ambassador Dermer not to inform the White House or the State Department about the speech to Congress Dermer and Boehner’s staff were planning. Dermer, according to Boehner, acknowledged the correctness of the request and agreed. Now Dermer himself is speaking. And he back up Boehner’s account.
Collier Meyerson has an arresting, deeply personal piece up at The Slice today about the emotional messiness of being a transnational adoptee of color. She and her best friend Sadye are both adopted and both brown-skinned, but there’s a big difference: Collier was born in the United States, and Sadye was born in the middle of a civil war in El Salvador.
Contrary to reports earlier today that he would run, Mitt Romney just announced he will not seek the presidency in 2016.
George Zimmerman is on to his third domestic violence incident since killing Trayvon Martin. And not just three incidents, three separate women: his ex-wife and then two successive girlfriends. Once again, the girlfriend has now recanted her account of George’s latest attack. So he will face no charges.
Presumably his killin’ finger remains itchy.
This must have been a truly special moment. At a gathering of Texas Muslims near the state capitol yesterday a protestor ran up to the podium during a press conference, grabbed the microphone and yelled Islam “will not dominate Texas.” Watch.
A proposed new law in Texas would allow teachers to use lethal force against students to protect school property.
We learn that Israeli PM Netanyahu’s decision to enter the Speech Pact with John Boehner is going so brilliantly that Netanyahu’s been hitting the phones with top congressional Democrats to try to make nice and end the controversy. And according to this Times article, it isn’t going very well. Netanyahu has reached out to Reid and Pelosi and had both tell him he’s making a mistake. Indeed, this article says Netanyahu game-playing with John Boehner has had the effect of pushing Senate towards the White House on the Iran sanctions bill. So even on the terms of his own notional priorities, Netanyahu’s gambit has been an abject failure in terms of Iran policy while adding the benefit of turning both Democrats and a significant portion of American Jewry against him.
I had not seen this statement put up by Speaker Boehner’s office trying to explain away the Boehner-Netanyahu speech debacle. For starters, the statement appears geared to suggest that reports questioning the incident are part of some sort of anti-Semitic conspiracy theory – claims that the Israelis “orchestrated” the invitation. But to the point, the statement has Boehner instructing Amb. Dermer not to tell the White House what they were agreeing to.
This is how a Texas Republican legislator is greeting visitors to Texas Muslim Capitol Day.
The administration seems to be upping the pressure, tightening the net around the political operative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put in place as his (and yes, I use that adjective advisedly) Ambassador to the US. The Times today reports that the White House has upped the ante, explicitly attacking Dermer’s behavior in a statement to the Times. Oddly, unless I’m misreading the article, the Times doesn’t actually quote what the unnamed but authorized “senior American official” said – which is odd and slightly undercuts the impact. But they provide the gist: “an unusually sharp criticism by a senior administration official who said that the Israeli ambassador, Ron Dermer, who helped orchestrate the invitation, had repeatedly placed Mr. Netanyahu’s political fortunes above the relationship between Israel and the United States.”