Since I wrote this post last night trying to reconcile the conflicting accounts about that Jewish family in Lancaster County, PA I’ve done a couple ‘Late Updates’ in the post itself. The gist is that the local paper stood by its original story. But since they were unable to get in contact with the family again after the ADL press release, they shifted the emphasis of the piece from ‘fleeing’ the area to taking their child out of the school. Meanwhile, Mark Joseph Stern of Slate got in contact with the ADL and learned, as we suspected, that they had no reason to doubt anything about the harassment detailed in the story. Their entire issue was with the word “fled.” In my mind that still puts the ADL (in this case I believe a regional office of the ADL) in a very bad light, since the clear import of their press release was that the entire story was false.
Since 1972, the United States has vetoed 40 United Nations Security Council resolutions critical of Israel. Most recently, in February 2011, the Obama administration vetoed a resolution declaring Israel’s occupation of the West Bank to be illegal and calling for it to “completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.” But today, the administration abstained and allowed to pass by 14 to zero virtually the same resolution. By doing so, the US didn’t actually support the resolution – that’s why it gets only two cheers in my book – but it declared that it would no longer shield Israel from criticism by the Security Council.
We’ve been discussing the different building blocks Democrats will need to use the survive and expand in the Trump Era. There are countless different moving parts to the equation. None of them provides a silver bullet solution to turning back the Trump tide. But if there is one that is really important to get right it’s the person who serves as the Chair of the Democratic National Committee. Even more than the person, it is the strategy and vision for how to grow the party. To that end, I’m excited to announce I’ll be hosting in-depth interviews with both of the major candidates for DNC Chair – Rep. Keith Ellison and Labor Secretary Tom Perez – in early January. Each will join us for one full episode.
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Here’s a question from our on-going “center-left influencer” Insight study on Obamacare repeal. The gist is to what extent Democrats should cooperate with Republicans on crafting a replacement to Obamacare.
As we go from one tweet to the next, there’s a strong urge (and it would seem for some an irresistible urge) to find a logic to Donald Trump’s tweets, threats, promises on the foreign policy front. It is highly reminiscent of the early Obama years when Obama diehards saw ’12 dimensional chess’ whether Obama was winning on an issue, losing on an issue or maybe not even paying attention to an issue.
Today TPM, along with a slew of other news outlets, picked up a story out of Lancaster County, PA, which detailed a series of false but weaponized ‘War on Christmas’ stories from Fox and the Breitbart hate network, that had allegedly led a Jewish family to leave the area fearing a replay of the recent “Pizzagate” episode. What appears undisputed is that the original conservative media reports falsely claimed that a Jewish family’s complaints about the production of ‘A Christmas Carol’ had led to the play’s cancelation. The question is whether the family reacted to being demonized in these publications by temporarily leaving the area.
Just yesterday I noticed two stories on Trump administration plans to impose 5% tariffs on imports. One was about the Trump administration, another was about plans emerging from the GOP House, going back to June and seemingly independent of Trump. This is for a so-called “border adjustment tax” of 5% on imports as part of corporate tax reform. Here’s an explanation of how the “border adjustment tax” would work and why retailers are up in arms about it. The latter isn’t a tariff exactly. But it has a similar practical effect of imposing an additional cost on imports and thus making them less attractive than domestic manufactures.
A couple days ago I noted news that the leader of the far-right Austrian Freedom Party had met with incoming Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn at Trump Tower recently. The Austrian Freedom Party was founded in the 1950s by former Nazis and in its current incarnation is another far-right nationalist anti-immigrant party like others now on the ascent in Europe. Today though, Trump spokesman Jason Miller denied the two men had ever met and further said that Flynn “strongly disavows groups with such viewpoints.”
My friend Stuart Stevens has the rare combined vantage point of being both a top Republican campaign professional and also someone who has built a successful career in Hollywood. He’s mentioned more than once the unique challenges of entertainment programming at the GOP’s quadrennial nominating conventions. But something unique or heretofore unprecedented is happening with the Trump inauguration. It’s no surprise there’d be a 85% or even 95% freeze out from Hollywood and the music industry. But it appears to be closer to 99% or 100%.