For your own good, Jews

 

Tell me again - who are the antisemites?

 

And here you can see what gives them ammunition...

Mandy Patinkin's message to Jews

We should all have this degree of outrage.

(In case you don't know, Mandy Patinkin is Jewish.)

Click the clip above, or here, to watch.  And here to read the accompanying story.

It's Sunday

Antisemitism dispensation for Christians. 

Senate Republicans added an amendment to bipartisan legislation addressing rising antisemitism on college campuses that could be seen as a concession to Christian conservatives who wanted to protect those who preach that the Jews killed Jesus

[...]

The added language, which is referred to as a “manager’s amendment” and proposed by the committee’s chair, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, states that the legislation would not “diminish or infringe upon any right protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, including the free exercise of religion.”

The bill would require the Department of Education to use the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism — which classifies most anti-Zionism as antisemitic — when investigating allegations of discrimination.

It passed in the House last May by an overwhelming majority of 320-91, but was stalled in the Senate due to some resistance over constitutionally protected free speech. It has been reintroduced in the House this year and is up for a vote at the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on Wednesday morning.

[...]

Of the 11 examples of antisemitic speech IHRA includes, six have to do with Israel.

  Forward

Specifically, the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) lists: Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.

It also lists: Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

That's not antisemitism. That's just historical fact, the same as drawing comparisons with contemporary US policy to the Nazis. Also, conflating the Israeli government with the Jewish religion may or may not be antisemitic, but it's wrong.

Semites emboldened by MAGA and Trump

 

She stays so very cool.

This could be what the witch hunts looked like.

JFC

 

Marc Elias responds to Elon Musk

Elon Musk is trying to intimidate and take down, if possible, the most prominent attorneys who are fighting him and winning.  This is from Marc Elias:

Elon Musk recently posted on his site that another lawyer and I are “undermining civilization.” He goes on to ask if we suffered childhood trauma and concludes by suggesting we are suffering from “generational trauma.” This is my response.

Mr. Musk,

You recently criticized me and another prominent lawyer fighting for the rule of law and democracy in the United States. I am used to being attacked for my work, particularly on the platform you own and dominate.

I used to be a regular on Twitter, where I amassed over 900,000 followers — all organic except for the right-wing bots who seemed to grow in number. Like many others, I stopped regularly posting on the site because, under your stewardship, it became a hellscape of hate and misinformation.

I also used to buy your cars — first a Model X and then a Model S — back when you spoke optimistically about solving the climate crisis. My family no longer owns any of your cars and never will.

But this is not the reason I am writing. You don’t know me. You have no idea whether I have suffered trauma and if I have, how it has manifested. And it’s none of your business.

However, I will address your last point about generational trauma. I am Jewish, though many on your site simply call me “a jew.” Honestly, it’s often worse than that, but I’m sure you get the point. There was a time when Twitter would remove antisemitic posts, but under your leadership, tolerating the world’s oldest hatred now seems to be a permissible part of your “free speech” agenda.

Like many Jewish families, mine came to America because of trauma. They were fleeing persecution in the Pale of Settlement — the only area in the Russian Empire where Jews were legally allowed to reside. Even there, life was difficult — often traumatic. My family, like others, lived in a shtetl and was poor. Worse, pogroms were common — violent riots in which Jews were beaten, killed and expelled from their villages.

By the time my family fled, life in the Pale had become all but impossible for Jews. Tsar Nicholas II’s government spread anti-Jewish propaganda that encouraged Russians to attack and steal from Jews in their communities. My great-grandfather was fortunate to leave when he did. Those who stayed faced even worse circumstances when Hitler’s army later invaded.

That is the generational trauma I carry. The trauma of being treated as “other” by countrymen you once thought were your friends. The trauma of being scapegoated by authoritarian leaders. The trauma of fleeing while millions of others were systematically murdered. The trauma of watching powerful men treat it all as a joke — or worse.

As an immigrant yourself, you can no doubt sympathize with what it means to leave behind your country, extended family, friends and neighbors to come to the United States. Of course, you probably had more than 86 rubles in your pocket. You probably didn’t ride for nine days in the bottom of a ship or have your surname changed by immigration officials. Here is the ship manifest showing that my family did. Aron, age three, was my grandfather.

As new immigrants, life wasn’t easy. My family lived in cramped housing without hot water. They worked menial jobs — the kind immigrants still perform today.

Some may look down on those immigrants — the ones without fancy degrees — but my family was proud to work and grateful that the United States took them in. They found support within their Jewish community and a political home in the Democratic Party.

I became a lawyer to give back to the country that gave my family a chance. I specialize in representing Democratic campaigns because I believe in the party. I litigate voting rights cases because the right to vote is the bedrock of our democracy. I speak out about free and fair elections because they are under threat.

Now let me address the real crux of your post.

You are very rich and very powerful. You have thrown in with Donald Trump. Whether it is because you think you can control him or because you share his authoritarian vision, I do not know. I do not care.

Together, you and he are dismantling our government, undermining the rule of law and harming the most vulnerable in our society. I am just a lawyer. I do not have your wealth or your platform. I do not control the vast power of the federal government, nor do I have millions of adherents at my disposal to harass and intimidate my opponents. I may even carry generational trauma.

But you need to know this about me. I am the great-grandson of a man who led his family out of the shtetl to a strange land in search of a better life. I am the grandson of the three-year-old boy on that journey. As you know, my English name is Marc, but my Hebrew name is Elhanan (אֶלְחָנָן) — after the great warrior in David’s army who slew a powerful giant.

I will use every tool at my disposal to protect this country from Trump. I will litigate to defend voting rights until there are no cases left to bring. I will speak out against authoritarianism until my last breath.

I will not back down. I will not bow or scrape. I will never obey.

Defiantly,
Marc Elias

You can subscribe to Marc's newsletter here.

A free and independent press

And Trump finally has a legitimate Time Magazine cover to hang on the walls of his golf clubs instead of the fake one he's been using.

Also... "G-d"

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 12/15/2024:

And warn others of the dollar amount they might be facing in the event of any lawsuit.

A couple independent sources:

As far as I'm aware, McClatchy papers are still decent.  They have the Miami Herald, the Kansas City Star, and the Sacramento Bee, among other local papers.  Media Bias has rated McClatchy DC as "left-center" in editorial bias, and "High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing and a clean fact-check record."  (A detailed report is included at the link.)

Consider Democracy Docket for information on voting rights.

And, of course, the BBC is still better than US mainstream. 

UPDATE 12/15/2024 03:11 pm:  Oh, what a surprise...

UPDATE 12/16/2024:

[T]he 1964 case of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan [...] involved an ad that criticized the police force in Montgomery, Alabama for its treatment of civil rights protesters. The ad contained a few factual inaccuracies, such as misstating the number of times Martin Luther King Jr. had been arrested. The police commissioner sued the Times for libel and won based on Alabama law that was satisfied by a showing of falsity.

The Supreme Court unanimously reversed. It held that a public official alleging libel had to prove what has come to be known as actual malice or constitutional malice. The First Amendment precluded a libel claim by a public official based on mere falsity; rather, the plaintiff needed to show a media defendant knew the statement was false or at least recklessly disregarded its falsity.

Justice Brennan justified the actual malice standard as critical to safeguarding freedom of the press and preventing self-censorship based on fear of legal repercussions for criticizing public officials. As Justice Brennan wrote, “Erroneous statement is inevitable in free debate, and it must be protected if the freedoms of expression are to have the 'breathing space' that they need to survive.” The Court further explained that the standard was critical for ensuring accountability for government officials.

NY Times v. Sullivan immediately gained canonical status and the actual malice standard has been widely accepted as a cornerstone of constitutional law. (Recently, Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch criticized the decision’s underpinnings, which provoked the equivalent of gasps among court watchers.)

So, had the [ABC/Stephanopoulos] case gone to trial, the jury’s focus would have been on whether Stephanopoulos’s statement— “Donald Trump has been found liable for defaming the victim of that rape by a jury. It’s been affirmed by a judge”—was false and, if so, whether Stephanopoulos knew it or was recklessly indifferent to its falsity.

[...]

The case that Stephanopoulos and ABC would make to a jury is that it was literally true to say, “Trump has been found liable for defaming the victim of that rape by a jury. It’s been affirmed by a judge.” That statement, which was the initial assertion from which the others emerged, most sensibly relies on Kaplan’s judgment that the jury found Trump guilty of rape in the more common usage of that term. The Washington Post headline—“Judge clarifies: Yes, Trump was found to have raped E. Jean Carroll”—straightforwardly affirmed that interpretation.

An extra cushion of protection from liability is that Stephanopoulos manifestly believed the statement was true, which is why he cited the headline. Trump’s argument would need to be that Stephanopoulos’s subjective impression was reckless. But it’s a hard sell to a jury, I think, to say that taking the word of the judge on the case is reckless.

Finally, there’s the question of whether the whole brouhaha matters at all because there’s no damage to Trump’s reputation, which is a necessary element of a defamation claim. Trumpalready has been publicly accused of sexual misconduct by 26 women, spanning incidents dating back 50 years. He has denied them all, and the public seems to have largely given him a pass. Conversely, members of the public have long since taken him to be an incorrigible sexual offender. It’s hard to see why the Stephanopoulos interview would damage his reputation among either cohort.

The decision permitting the case to go to trial by Judge Cecilia Altonaga of the Southern District of Florida recognized and basically endorsed the argument that Stephanopoulos’s statements were not actionably false.

[...]

Since Stephanopoulos’s statement relied expressly on the judge’s finding, that conclusion could have been enough to grant the motion. But the judge ultimately decided that there was an issue of fact that a jury needed to resolve, namely whether Stephanopoulos was relying on Kaplan’s statements or whether he was relying on—and misconstruing—the definition of rape under New York criminal law.

There is one more material fact that possibly bore on the settlement. A magistrate handling discovery had ordered both Trump and Stephanopoulos to sit for four-hour depositions in the coming days. That’s always an attractive opportunity for lawyers in cases involving Trump, who is erratic, lacks self-control, and is always at risk of committing perjury. On the other hand, it’s also true that Stephanopoulos’s deposition could have been damaging for ABC’s case, as Trump’s lawyers could have asked him 25 versions of the question: “Isn’t there a difference between rape and sexual assault?”

All these details demonstrate that Trump was by no means on a glide path to victory when ABC settled. And given the traditionally vigorous litigation of defamation claims by the large media companies, the expectation was that ABC would have fought hard and to the end. Indeed, if this case had been brought a few years ago, or if it were brought today by a prominent public official other than Trump, it is very likely that ABC would not have agreed to the settlement.

[...]

The settlement comes on the verge of his return to the White House and coincides with a series of startling aggrandizements of his own power. All in all, it clearly strengthens Trump’s hand in bringing the media to heel and deterring negative but truthful reporting about him.

[...]

It means that Trump has new wind in his sails for his continuing threats to make trouble for media that criticize him. He has threatened not just defamation claims (which he has continued to file, including a $10 billion case against CBS for a supposedly too-cozy interview with Vice President Harris). He also suggests that major networks—whom he refers to as “the enemy of the people” and “fake news”—such as ABC should lose their broadcast licenses and that journalists should be imprisoned if they refuse to name confidential sources.

[...]

One might think that the most mainstream media companies would be the least likely to kowtow to Trump’s threats. But here, I think there is a very unfortunate throughline between ABC’s buckling and the conduct of other media behemoths like The Washington Post and The LA Times, both of whose owners scuttled expected endorsements of Kamala Harris.

[...]

And it can be argued—and I’m sure it will—that the settlement was a reasonable business move for ABC and Disney [and their stockholders]. The $15 million in damages is essentially pocket change, and the statement of regret was sufficiently lawyered and muddled to be not too damning. But the whole package of money, legal fees, and a somewhat muddled statement of regret clearly amounts to a solid win for Trump.

[...]

Trump’s settlement has likely succeeded in recalibrating the President’s relationship to the media it way that increases the probability that members of the Fourth Estate will stay their hands rather than risk a defamation suit for reporting important, truthful material that provokes the ire of the maximum leader.

[...]

We are watching the initial degradation of democratic rule.

  Harry Litman

Another Trump threat to the Jewish people

Nice little country you've got here.  Be a shame if something should happen to it.  Mobster.

He truly is a transactional person.  I do something for you, and you owe me.

Also, it's a lie.  He certainly did not do more than anybody for the Jewish people.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

What in the world...

Yes, and it's also batshit crazy.  Is he threatening them?  Also, "if there's a loss" - wtf?  I didn't think he could lose.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 09/20/2024:

Setting up the Jews for MAGA attacks.

It's 1930s Germany in America

This is not going to be limited to New Jersey.  We are being presented with a challenge and an opportunity to get it right this time.  Will we be up to it?

UPDATE:

UPDATE 11/5:

It's Sunday

Some years ago, I had a premonition that we were going to have to repeat the Hitler era, and I thought: we'd better get it right this time.  I'm not at all sure we will.  At the time, I thought it would happen sooner, but here we are now.  It's coming.  We already have proof that Trump world is violent, now I think we'll see just how anti-Semitic it is.

The chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League led condemnation of Donald Trump after the former president used antisemitic tropes in remarks about American Jews and Israel.

“Insinuating that Israel or the Jews control Congress or the media is antisemitic, plain and simple,” Jonathan Greenblatt said. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time he has made these offensive remarks.”

Trump was speaking to the journalist Barak Ravid, author of a book on Trump and the Middle East. Parts of the interview aired on Friday on a podcast, Unholy: Two Jews on the News.

“It’s a very dangerous thing that’s happening,” Trump said. “There’s people in this country that are Jewish and no longer love Israel. I’ll tell you, the evangelical Christians love Israel more than the Jews in this country.”

  Guardian

And with those words, they've just been given the exoneration to start seriously attacking Jews, people they've always harbored disdain for - after all, the Jews killed Jesus.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 12/20:

Not mere assholes

Despicable assholes.  Proud of their assholery.

In the age of Trump

On Saturday night, an attacker stabbed five people during Hanukah festivities at a rabbi’s home in Monsey, Rockland county, about 30 miles north of New York City, in what Governor Andrew Cuomo called “an act of domestic terrorism”. The attack was the latest in a string of antisemitic incidents in the region.

“After the hateful assaults we saw this past week in Brooklyn and Manhattan, it is heart-wrenching to see the holiday of Hanukah violated yet again. We are outraged because the answer is clear: the Jewish community NEEDS greater protection,” Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted on Sunday following the stabbings.

[...]

New York mayor Bill de Blasio urged New Yorkers come together to resist the rise of antisemitism.

“We have snuffed out hatred before and forced it back,” he said, announcing an expansion in efforts to educate the city’s school children on the issue, along with extra neighborhood policing.

[...]

“The challenge is that there are antisemitic tendencies rising up in ways that we have not seen in a very long time” ADL regional director Evan Bernstein told CNN. “This is beyond policing. These are communal problems, societal problems, that we need to get ahead of.”

  Guardian

Hard to do with a "leader" who spews hate on a daily basis.

Visiting Monsey on Sunday morning, Cuomo said the attack was “about the thirteenth incident of antisemitism” in the state of New York over recent weeks, and described the climate of intolerance as “an American cancer in the body politic”.

[...]

The incidents come less than three weeks since a Kosher store in Jersey City, in the neighboring state of New Jersey, was attacked as part of an hours-long assault that left six people dead, including three civilians, one police officer and both suspects.

[...]

Across the US, other recent incidents in which swastikas or antisemitic graffiti have been used to vandalize property include a high school in Encinitas, California; a Boston elementary school; and at a synagogue in Washington DC.

What the everloving fuck

Trump is now the dictionary?  He can sign executive orders to make a thing something it's not?

Jesus, we are lost.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  The point:

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

Yeah, how does that work?

UPDATE:

Yes, and he's pretending - and his followers believe - he's doing it as a protection for Jews.

Lying rooster

Can't count?

2000: Trump enters the presidential race as a Reform Party candidate and receives more than 15,000 votes in the party's California primary.

  TV Guide

That was at a speech he gave to Jewish people (if that's not obvious by the backdrop) of the Israeli American Council, and that wasn't the worst of it by a long shot.

"A lot of you are in the real estate business, because I know you very well.  You're brutal killers.  Not nice people at all, but you have to vote for me. [...] You're not going to vote for the wealth tax."

Holy shit.

They were cheering, though.

It didn't go over so well other places.

“The President of the United States is incapable of addressing Jewish audiences without dipping into the deep well of anti-Semitic tropes that shape his worldview,” the [Jewish advocacy group J Street] tweeted Sunday.

“We’re not going to hold our breath waiting for Trump's supporters to speak out. We are going to work tirelessly to defeat this president and those who’ve enabled him 11 months from now,” J Street added.

[...]

Soifer pointed out that Trump, in fact, does not have the support of the majority of American Jews.

“American Jews do have a choice, and they’re not choosing President Trump or the Republican Party, which has been complicit in enacting his hateful agenda,” she said.

Soifer said Jewish support for the GOP slashed in half since Trump took office, from 33 percent in 2014 to 17 percent in 2018.

[...]

“An overwhelming majority of Jews are both pro-Israel and anti-Trump because of his incendiary rhetoric targeting our community and others, and because his symbolic gestures on Israel have not made America or Israel more secure,” she said.

[...]

The Jewish Democratic Council of America and J-Street were among groups to condemn Trump in August when he said American Jews who vote for Democrats are disloyal.

      The Hill

Consequences

Loyalty tests

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

How does the GOP feel about Jew-baiting?

We're about to find out.

"I think Jewish people that vote for a Democrat — I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty," Trump told reporters during an Oval Office meeting with the president of Romania.

Trump and the GOP have sought to win over Jewish voters from the Democratic Party by criticizing statements by Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), the first two Muslim women elected to Congress.

  The Hill

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that's probably not the way to do it.

Liberal Jewish groups swiftly condemned the president's Tuesday remarks.

“At a time when anti-Semitic incidents have increased — due to the president's emboldening of white nationalism — Trump is repeating an anti-Semitic trope. If this is about Israel, then Trump is repeating a dual loyalty claim, which is a form of anti-Semitism. If this is about Jews being ‘loyal’ to him, then Trump needs a reality check,” said Halie Soifer, executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.

UPDATE:





Depends upon who he's wooing.

UPDATE: