Repugnant

Please keep this is mind. And that it, too, was a final argument, played two years ago this month:

Viewers tuning into NFL and college football games in recent weeks have been bombarded with two Trump ads — running nationally and locally in swing states — that take issue with Vice President Kamala Harris’ past support for taxpayer-funded gender-affirming treatments. They’re running during baseball playoff games, too.

Both ads end with the same punchy tag line: “Kamala is for they/them; President Trump is for you.”

The thrust of the ad below is that Israel is to blame for the affordability crisis in the USA.  Assuming for the sake of simplicity that the two individuals are married to each other, the wife says to her husband "you're going to have to put those eggs back... We have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians." The husband responds "I mean, don't we give Israel four billion dollars a year, anyways?"

New low for normalized Jew-hate in the American Democratic Party. Very sad: Painting your political opponents as puppets of Jews, as this El-Sayed ad does, and as crazed baby-killers and money-grubbing villains who are the root cause of every bad thing not just in the world, but in your life—from wars to the price of eggs to the reason you can’t have free healthcare—is not just low-grade Jew-hate. It’s pure Third Reich stuff, translated directly from the original German. Do you remember when Jewish Democrats in Michigan explained that they would vote for El-Sayed despite his open disdain for Jews, since there are many other important issues they need him to fight for? That anything was worth it to “defeat MAGA”? Well, here’s El-Sayed’s answer to them: Don’t worry, all those issues we agree on, like healthcare, inflation, and climate change, I’m going to make them about Jews too! I will tell the public that the Jews are the reason they can’t have those things.

— Saul Sadka (@Saul_Sadka) October 25, 2026

Seven dollars? That is so 2025, when in February the average price of a dozen grade A large eggs, thanks to the Avian flu, rose to $5.90- still $1.10 less than alleged in the ad. Last month, they were $2.27.

The wife tells her husband "Yeah, and now we're giving them another 26 billion dollars. Do you know how much that is for every American taxpayer?.... Apparently, it's costing us a lot of money to drop bombs on Gaza."

Much of the increase in prices can be attributed to the war in Iran, as we justifiably have heard repeatedly. This is the first time a candidate has blamed Israel's attack upon Hamas in Gaza for the soaring cost of living- any candidate, that is, not named el-Sayed.

A secondary theme is jealousy of Israel- or perhaps indignation that Israelis receive health care. After his "wife" blames inflation on the Israel-Hamas war, her "husband" says "oh, that's terrible. Don't they get universal health care, too"?

Oh, the horror of it all! Residents of Israel are assured of health care. It is not single payer, but makes health care more available than it is in the USA. This is health care for every resident- Jews, Christians, and Muslims, including Palestinians, individuals of any religion.  A guess: this is not given to residents of Gaza under Hamas rule, and never was. This would hardly be of concern to el-Sayed, whose wife Sarah

Jukaku, who has a medical degree from Columbia University and a masters from the University of Oxford, worked as co-chief of psychiatry at University of Michigan Health—which does accept Medicare—before starting her own Ann Arbor, Mich.-based practice, Mind Work Psychiatry, in 2024. The following March, Jukaku opted out of Medicare, records show, meaning she cannot bill the program and requires Medicare patients to pay out of pocket. The same goes for patients with private insurance plans, though they can often submit bills to their providers and recoup some of the costs.

You might think that a Democratic candidate for the US Senate who advocates Medicare for All might suggest to his wife that she accept Medicare and some insurance plans, at least while he is running for office posing as a progressive. Having not done so, he remains a heartthrob of prominent progressives this autumn, which should concern individuals for whom universal health care is supposedly a priority.  But the health of Americans ravaged by a health care system controlled by insurance companies and for-profit hospitals no longer is the priority it once was. Case in point:

After learning the pro-Israel lobbying group plans to spend up to $9 million backing Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan's Senate race, (Senator Bernie) Sanders wired $1 million on Wednesday to Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and began calling allies for more, reports the New York Times. By day's end, he'd lined up an additional $300,000 in pledges from a dozen Democrats, including Sens. Martin Heinrich, Tina Smith, Chris Van Hollen, and Jeff Merkley.

Undermining Israel now is the main issue for the far-left, It certainly is not opposition to President Trump, for whom the candidate appears to have a soft spot. 

So el-Sayed now has an ad with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu depicted while "Mike Rogers for they/them And El-Sayed is for you" appears. The candidate is copying the 2025 GOP ad which blasted Kamala Harris' support for the LGBTQIA community with "Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for us."  Only now the target is not transsexuals but Jews- uh, er, "Zionists".

Health care, an increase in the federal minimum wage, accessible daycare, and other issues once near and dear to the allegedly progressive camp are so 2024, evidently. concern for racial and sexual/gender minorities all take a back seat to animus for America's steadfast ally in the Middle East.

In the seventh chapter in Matthew's gospel, Jesus warns

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles. Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 

Support for el-Sayed is now the focal point for hatred of the Jewish state. On a positive note, he does not come to us in sheep's clothing. He is being quite obvious in his hatred and bigoty .

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Rank Incompetence at Committing Genocide

As CNN would say, BREAKING NEWS: Israel has attacked Jordan from the air and the sea.

That's not true, of course. Nonetheless, that's what Bernie Sanders would have you believe. 

But first: second gneration British-American, Orthodox Jew and Trump supporter Alexander Shabbos Kestenbaum argues that Isael is not committing genocide because the allegation is "the whole point is to kill Palestinians."  However

- "after more than three years of fighting, Israel hasn't been able to kill more than 70,000 people," some of whom are Hamas terrorists; 

- "zero of the Palestinians in the West Bank have been touched";

- "two million Palestinian Arabs of Israel have full equal rights within Israel;";

- "the United Nations own estimates are over 1.4 million tons of food have entered Gaza since October 7, which actually exceed the pre-war daily averages," much of it hijacked by Hamas;

- the civilian to combatant casulty ratio (is) lower than any othe war fought in modern warfare";

- Israel is inoculating Gazan children against polio.

The idea that Gazans, one of the most radicalized groups of people on planet Earth, are experiencing a genocide, is detached from reality.

A mass psyop has convinced you it's true.

Figured I'd take 80 seconds to debunk it while overlooking the beautiful Tel Aviv beach! pic.twitter.com/y6oh03d1Or

— Shabbos Kestenbaum (@ShabbosK) July 20, 2026

Not only has no Palestinian in the West Bank, though the region is under Israeli occupation, "been touched."  Ramallah, according to Wikipedia, is the "financial and commercial center" of the Palestinian Authority and administrative capital of Palestine. The World Population Review estimates the population of "Palestine" to have been 5,069,692 in 2020; 5,692,790 in 2025; and 5,589,623 in 2026. The population of Palestine is increasing.  That's a heck of a bad job of genocide for any country but especially for a military power such as Israel.  A really miserable job.

Yet, at 1:36 in this video, Vermont senator Sanders asserts (emphasis his)

Israel suffered a terrible attack a number of years ago.  They had the right to defend themselves.  BUT they did not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestine population.

If Bernie Sanders mean what he says, he believes Israel has been attacking the nation of Jordan, which is approximately half ethnic Palestinian. He would be as ignorant as much of the well-meaning, ill-informed supporters at his rallies are.

However, Senator Sanders is not ignorant. He must have at least a clue of what constitutes "genocide" and that Israel's actions don't fall under that umbrella. Unfortunately, making a cogent, reasoned argument against the Netanyahu government is nothing which interests him. Chuck Schumer and Rahm Emanuel, who as with Sanders are non-young Jewish males, have done so, but Bernie Sanders cannot be bothered. 

Sanders, and others with even more hateful views toward our Mideast ally, are entitled to their viewpoint. They're entitled even to be wrong, bandying about the terms "genocide" and "Israeli apartheid," the latter smear all the rage a year or so ago. Nevertheless, the rest of us are entitled to inform them that they're ignorant, bigoted, or dishonest as the case(s) may be.

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Cesspool of Bigotry

I don’t give a RIP about being politically correct. Here’s the truth: America was founded on CHRISTIAN values.

If you refuse to assimilate and follow our laws, love our country, and be a proud AMERICAN… then LEAVE.

We don’t want you here.https://t.co/dETXKcNAmw

— Coach Tommy Tuberville (@SenTuberville) April 9, 2026

If Senator Tuberville really wants to evict residents of our nation who don't love our country, he should have urged the deportation of the guy who on January 20, 2917 referred to "American carnage" and who on october 30, 2022 described the USA as "rigged, crooked, and evil."  But no big mouths on the right said anything either time, and that fellow is President for a second time.

Here is where a liberal or progressive is to say "but immigrants love this country even more than do native-born Americans." But that's not the point. If there were such a thing as an effective loyalty test, Donald Trump would have been banished to the golf courses of Scotland long ago.  

So Tuberman is a bigoted extremist, longing to deport persons practicing an unacceptable religion. He hates Muslims because they're Muslims. However, there are Muslims who hate people because they're not Muslim.  Note the

September 23, 2025 meeting of Dearborn’s City Council, where first-term Mayor Abdullah Hammoud refused to apologize for trying to bully Christian evangelist Ted Barham into leaving the city at the previous city council meeting on September 9, 2025. Barham attracted the mayor’s ire at that meeting by complaining about the naming of a busy intersection after a Hammoud supporter who, in addition to praising former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, once joked about sending Israeli Prime Minister the Benjamin Netanyahu “back to Poland.”

Not only did Hammoud, the mayor of a city with more than 100,000 residents—55 percent of whom are Muslim—fail to apologize for bullying Barham in a vain effort to get him to leave the city, not one council member offered a word of criticism of Hamas and Hezbollah after they were challenged to do so by one of the more than 100 audience members who showed up to attend the September 23 city council meeting.

“Do you definitively, unequivocally—by name—denounce Hamas and Hezbollah, or do you support them?” Dearborn resident Anthony Deegan asked the council members on September 23. They said nothing in response.

It doesn't seem as if asking for criticism of Hamas and Hezbollah is asking a great deal. Council members would not have to betray their principles. Or perhaps they would have because

With its silence, the council lent credence to Barham’s concerns about the naming of the intersection of Warren Avenue and Chase Road after Osama Siblani, the founding publisher of Arab American News. According to the ADL, Siblani told the Chicago Tribune in 2006 that, “If the FBI wants to come after those who support the resistance done by Hezbollah, then they better bring a fleet of buses. I for one would be willing to go to jail.”

Siblani’s gibe about needing a fleet of buses to arrest Hezbollah supporters in the region is no joke. In 2024, Dearborn hosted an Al Quds Day celebration during which protesters called for America and Israel’s destruction. Siblani has condemned chants calling for America’s destruction, but according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, he has legitimized an anti-American narrative to audiences in the Middle East. In 2024, he described U.S. efforts to drive Iran out of Syria as an attempt to steal the country’s oil. “America wants two things: To partition Syria and to keep the oil and gas resources,” he said.

Siblani, who now has a street named after him in a substantial American city, appears to be quite a character inasmuch as

In 1993, Siblani, a newspaper publisher, abandoned the principle of free speech during an appearance on Larry King’s show on CNN on which he condemned U.S. President Bill Clinton for meeting with Salman Rushdie for an hour. Rushdie was forced to live in hiding as the result of a fatwa calling for his murder issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. Khomeini issued the fatwa in response to the publication of Rushdie’s book, Satanic Verses. “When [Clinton] met with Salman Rushdie in the White House for one hour,” Siblani said, “it’s sending a message—The President’s thereby sending a message to the Islamic world that he condoned the insult of Islam, and that is something that should not have been done.”

By way of comparison, Siblani came to the defense of Al Manar, described by National Review (NR) in 2006 as “a satellite television channel operated, owned, and controlled by the Iranian-funded Hezbollah terrorist network [that] was designated as a global terrorist entity.” NR reports that Siblani “was quoted in the Washington Post as saying, ‘I disagree with the State Department that it [Al-Manar] incites violence. … By that standard, they should shut Fox News for inciting against Muslims.’”

After Barham strongly criticized naming a street after a supporter of Hezbollah, city councillor 

interrupted Barham to declare, “I’m going to stop you because he’s not a violent person. You can interpret his words any way you want, but I will guarantee you he is not intending to incite violence anywhere in the world. … [W]e’re not going to allow personal attacks in our community.”

Well, of course he is, because the Mayor dwells in the sewer of deeply personal attacks. After Barham responded to the councillor

Eventually, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, a Shia Muslim whose family hails from Lebanon, weighed in, calling Barham, “a bigot,” “a racist,” and “an Islamophobe.” He didn’t stop there.

“I want you to know as mayor, you are not welcome here,” the mayor told Barham. “And the day you move out of the city will be the day that I launch a parade celebrating the fact that you moved out of the city because you are not somebody who believes in coexistence.” It was an astounding display of contempt from an elected official who had sworn to uphold the United States constitution when he was sworn in as mayor in 2022. Hammoud’s verbal attack was an attempt to use the language of coexistence and a narrative of Muslim victimhood to put an uppity non-Muslim in his place.

 

When a Christian resident of Dearborn, Michigan, spoke out against naming a street after well-known Hezbollah supporter Osama Siblani,

Mayor Abdullah Hammoud got very angry: “You do not belong in this city, Islamophobe! Get out, you are not welcome here!” pic.twitter.com/za0KVi5LBI

— Dr. Maalouf ‏ (@realMaalouf) April 10, 2026

Well, of course he is, because the Mayor dwells in the sewer of deeply personal attacks. After Barham responded to the councillor

Eventually, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, a Shia Muslim whose family hails from Lebanon, weighed in, calling Barham, “a bigot,” “a racist,” and “an Islamophobe.” He didn’t stop there.

“I want you to know as mayor, you are not welcome here,” the mayor told Barham. “And the day you move out of the city will be the day that I launch a parade celebrating the fact that you moved out of the city because you are not somebody who believes in coexistence.” It was an astounding display of contempt from an elected official who had sworn to uphold the United States constitution when he was sworn in as mayor in 2022. Hammoud’s verbal attack was an attempt to use the language of coexistence and a narrative of Muslim victimhood to put an uppity non-Muslim in his place.

That expression of tolerance and support of free speech came from the mayor of a major municipality outside of the city of Detroit.

So we have two individuals, Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville and Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, one of whom believes No Muslim Need Apply and the other who believes No Non-Muslim Need Apply.

Dogmatism or narrow-mindedness is often derided as characterizing the extremism of the far right and of the far left. However, in this case, that would be a serious misreading of the situation.

If Senator Tuberville's bias or parochialism is a product of right-wing radicalism, Hammond's prejudice is something a little different. Consider infamous Twitcher streamer Hasan Piker, who once stated "America deserved 9/11" and, as NBC's Kristen Welker noted, has "referred to ultra-Orthodox Jews as inbred, employed anti-Semitic dog whistles (blood-thirsty, violent pig dog) against an anti-Hamas viewer of his stream, compared liberal Zionists to liberal Nazis and said Hamas is 1,000 times better than the Israeli state." And, of course, the old "if you don't like it here, why don't you go back to where you came from," when he attacked a pro-Trump Vietnamese-American woman with

F--- you, dude," Piker said. "I mean, seriously. F--- you old lady. Shut the f--- up you stupid f------ idiotic old lady with your stupid f------ gamer headset. Who has f---ed you harder, America or f------ Ho Chi Minh? Suck my d--- old lady. Goddamn dude. F--- this refugee. F--- this South Vietnamese motherf------, whatever, like Christian supremacist psychotic f------ refugee living in America now and able to talk that s---. Why don't you go back and live in f------ South Vietnam in the same conditions if that's your perspective?

Seems nice.

The Council on American-Islamid Relations (CAIR) has vigorously defended Piker (of course), who has been campaigning with Abdul el-Sayed, who is running for the Democratic nomination to replace retiring senator Gary Peters of Michigan. Recently asked about Piker, Michigan senator Elissa Slotkin acknowledged that from what she was aware of, his language "sounds deeply antisemitic, consistently, and therefore not someone that should be helping anybody out in the Michigan political environment." 

After Slotkin on April 3 appeared on "Real Time with Bill Maher," CAIR and CAIR-Michigan issued a statement denouncing Bill Maher's "long history of anti-Muslim bigotry and anti-Arab racism." It claimed "it was deeply hypocritical for Senator slotkin to embrace Bill Maher just days after she denounced a Muslim politician for associating with a podcaster accused of bigotry."

CAIR is wrong to attribute to Maher the "anti-Muslim bigotry and anti-Arab racism" he is frequently accused of on social media with no explanation. But that's not the point. 

The organization alleges there are "double standards that American Muslims face." One is tempted to disagree with this statement, absurd on its face.

Yet, there is a double standard. If any political figure- or perhrps any public figure at all- were to have made about Muslims the remarks made by Hasan Piker about Jews, Asian-Americans, or the elderly, progressives, liberals, centrists/moderates and even a few Republicans would be apoplectic- as would be warranted.  Piker not only would be roundly condemned as a bigot, racist, fascist, and worse.

Yet, here we are, with candidate el-Sayed and congresswomen Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ro Khanna up his rear end and Representative Ro Khanna and Senator Bernie Sanders getting close. It's not ultra-conservatives and ultra-libberals; it's Repulbican ultra-consrvatives and Democrats who are Islamism (not Muslim or Islamic)- friendly. Both are illiberal attitudes, in the best meaning of liberal.

It's not only that Piker is the left's answer to white supremacist Nick Fuentes. It's that some (still a minority, thankfully) Democrats are openly accepting of a prominent bigot and Republicans such as Senator Tommy Tuberville, Steve Miller, and others being Fuentes-adjacent.   This toxicity will continue as long  as Donald J. Trump is with us.

 

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Jew/Zionist

Mr. Hasan, please say "Zionist" is a synonym for "Jew" without saying "Zionist is a synonym for Jew."

Mehdi Hasan on Hasan Piker: “The idea that he is the single biggest threat to American jews right now is insane when you have a card-carrying antisemite in the White House. The reason they don’t like Hasan Piker is not because of antisemitism, it’s because of his anti-Zionism. If… pic.twitter.com/IYVJyp0FTo

— Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) April 7, 2026

Hasan Piker, described by Politico as a "far let political streamer with millions of followers," is more significant than Mehdi Hasan lets on. He currently is campaigning with Abdul El-Sayed against State Enator Mallory McMorrow and Representative Haley Stevens for the Democratic nomination for an open US Senate seat from Michigan.

There is no compendium of quotes from him, a sort of "Greatest Hists of Hasan Piker." However, according to The Detroit Jewish News

Piker has previously referred to Orthodox Jews as “inbred,” compared Israelis to the Ku Klux Klan and defended Hamas, writing in a post on X in January that the terror group is “a thousand times better than the fascist settler colonial apartheid state.”

On one of his shows aired days after Oct. 7, Piker told off a listener who condemned the massacre, saying “Bloodthirsty violent pig dog, suck my d–-k.” In a May 2024 stream, Piker also minimized reports of the prevalence of sexual assault during the Oct. 7 attacks, saying “It doesn’t matter if rape happened on October 7th. It doesn’t change the dynamic for me.”

Piker once stated "America deserved 9/11" and has called critics "rabid ultra-Zionist pigs." The Daily Mail maintains that in one of his videos

he joked about pedophilia with the phrase: 'old enough to count, old enough to mount', suggesting with sick humor that a child who can count is old enough to have sex.

In the same video he added: 'I always knew Hannah Montana was a little sl*t', after referencing a story about an outfit giving a 'cameltoe' to singer Miley Cyrus who played child star Montana.

'Look this is a classic example of what happens when your father doesn't pay attention to you. You turn out to be a sl*t who's craving for attention, and then I tend to pick you up at a bar late night and bang you out on the first date,' he said.

Piker was accused online of calling police for an unwanted 'wellness check' on his ex-girlfriend, porn star Janice Griffith, after they broke up, allegedly because she wasn't returning his calls.

Seems nice.

Last year, Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as part of their Fighting Oligarchy tour, sat for a freindly interview with Piker. So did prominent anti-Semitic New York City councilman, now mayor, Zohran Mamdani. This past Saturday, Sanders, El-Sayed and former US Representative Nina Turner (D-Ohio) participated in a livestreamed rally, intended to raise money for progressive candidates, with Piker and others. Sanders joined Piker at a rally the following day.

Mehdi Hasan is correct that the threat of bigotry posed by Piker is not as big as that of President Trump. However, that may change. Cameron Kasky, described in the South Florida Sun Sentinel as "a Jewish Gen-Z progressive who recently dropped his bid in New York's 12th District race," has tweeted "Yeah, no sh-t big politicians are talking to Hasan Piker. More of them should be. God forbid a candidate actually work with new media, which the Right has used to dominate us."

Whether the "us" she is speaking of is Democrats, progressives, or anti-Semites is not clear. Piker thus far has been criticized by Representative Ritchie Torres of the Bronx, NY, Representative, New Democrat Coalition Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) and Third Way president Jonathan Cowan. 

That''s not enough. Last September, a New York City-based Jewish newspaper reported

During a Twitch stream, Piker said any “Zionist entity” should be “treated in the same way as a rabid neo-Nazi, and you shouldn’t even let someone be the local dog catcher if they’ve ever exhibited any positive feelings about the State of Israel.”

At the 2025 People’s Conference for Palestine in August, he said “some of the worst people” in the world include “the Michael Rapaports of the world, the Amy Schumers of the world … Satan-yahu.” Both Rapaport and Schumer are proud Jewish celebrities and “Satan-yahu” is a clear reference to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Zionist entity?" Really?  There are many American politicians who are legitimately anti-Israel.who manage not to be obsessed with "Zionism" or "Zionists." or Jews.  Unfortunately, Hasan Piker and Mehdi Hasan are not among them. Piker's influence is growing and as with cancer, must be denounced and eradicated.

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Leadership Myth(s)

Crudely, tastelessly, and without redeeming social merit, Representative Jasmine Crockett of Texas' 10th Congressional District

mocked her state’s governor during a weekend appearance, referring to Greg Abbott — who uses a wheelchair — as “Gov. Hot Wheels” while speaking at a banquet in Los Angeles.

“You all know we got Gov. Hot Wheels down there. Come on, now,” Crockett, a Dallas Democrat, said about Abbott, a Republican, while addressing the Human Rights Campaign event. “And the only thing hot about him is that he is a hot-ass mess, honey.”

Abbott was paralyzed in 1984 after a tree fell on him while he was running. The accident severely damaged Abbott’s spinal cord. Abbott, now 67, was elected in 2014.

The day before Crockett's remark, according to CBS News

An estimated 34,000 people gathered Friday evening at Civic Center Park in Denver to hear Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York push a number of progressive policies.

Just hours later, they spoke before a crowd of about 11,000 at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley.

The two stops for the progressive leaders in Colorado were part of what they dubbed the "Fighting Oligarchy Tour."

The figure of 34,000 is not objective because apparently it originated with a tweet by Ocasio-Cortez herself. Still, a lot. A heck of a lot, a number Donald Trump circa 2016 would have been happy about. And then, there is Scott Jennings, a regular on CBS NewsNight (Usually) with Abby Phillip

Jasmine Crockett will learn no lessons from the “Hot Wheels” episode because the Left’s angry mobs eat this stuff up. Trust me: the unquestioned head of the Democratic Party thinks is a winning vector. pic.twitter.com/egtZIbPyDV

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) March 26, 202

"I don't know how the Democrats," Jennings says, "came to appoint Jasmine Crockett as the unquestioned leader of your Party But thank God...."

Let's not play the How About Game. Of course, we remember Donald Trump when he mocked a disabled reporter.

   

:

But that happened several years ago, and we know that if Donald Trump were videotaped shooting someone in the back on 5th Avenue, most of his supporters would respond with something akin to "it was a Democrat and he stuck his tongue out at the greatest President ever."

However, this is 2025. Now, strategist Jennings is a CNN contributor and may end up running for the GOP nomination to succeed Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell, who is retiring and for whom Jennings once worked. 

It is not up to Scott Jennings to anoint someone as leader of the Democratic Party. Nor is it necessary for there to be one leader for the entire Party at this time. Hakeem Jeffries is the leader in the House of Representatives and Chuck Schumer, whatever his worth, in the Senate. Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are now the de factor leaders of the activist wing of the Party, to whatever extent there is an activist wing and it has leadership.

After Mitt Romney followed in John McCain's footsteps by losing a presidential race to Barack Obama, the Republican National Committee launched an "autopsy," the "Growth and Opportunity Project." It cited the need for the rudderless GOP to become more inclusive, including welcoming racial minorities and immigrants. Four years later, the Party nominated for President a reality television star who filled a vacuum by condemning immigrants because "they're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists." He won the election and the Republican Party lost fewer seats in the Senate and the House of Representatives than expected. 

So much for the importance of leadership the year after a presidential election.

In the wake of the Signal fiasco, the lies are coming fast and furious from the Trump Administration, with some officials acting as if trying to undo Donald Trump in mendacity. Scott Jennings is a serious Republican operative who may become something even more prominent and significant. His guile must not go unchallenged, and the Democratic Party must not go undefended. 

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A Winning Character

Hey, Senator Sanders! I could have answered the question and stayed on message and I've never been a United States Senator, United States Representative, or mayor.   Figuratively standing with the Vermont senator and former presidential candidate is popular podcaster Brian Taylor Cohen, who remarked (at 1:40 of the video below)

                                         

Here's what I hope we can take out of not just this interview but this political era. Americans are tired of watching our media focus on the horse race of politics instead of the implications of it. The reason that Bernie Sanders is doing this massively successful Stop Oligarchy tour is not because he wants to fuel speculation about a 2028 run because quite literally he wants to stop oligarchy. It is right there in the title and yet when given the opportunity to speak with Senator Sanders,, the fact that the media cannot shake its old habits is a testament to the fact that they're not willing to meet this moment with the urgency it deserves.

In the interview Bernie Sanders took with ABC's This Week with Occasionally George Stephanopoulos (transcript here), correspondent George Karl asked these questions before he set Sanders off:

- So what are you trying to accomplish with this tour?

- Well, I hear you telling people out there, fight back. What do you mean, though? How do these people- how do they fight back?

- I've been covering you for a long, long time. I've hear you railing against millionaires and billionaires for a long time.

- Is there anything that you think Trump has done right?

After asking Sanders for a comment about President Biden's record on immigration, Karl asked

- So, realistically, Republicans control the House. They control the White House. They control the Senate. So what, realistically, can be done?

- You said that the passage of this bill, the continuing resolution, was a "absolute failure of Democratic leadership." What are you talking about?

After days of speculation about Democratic leadership in the Senate, and even about Chuck Schumer remaining as minority leader, Karl introduced the Sanders interview by noting that more than 30,000 people appeared for the Sanders/Ocasio-Cortez rally in Denver, and the Vermont senator (legitimately) bragged to the ABC audience "and we have done a lot of big rallies. 32,000 people here is by far the largest rally I have ever done." Then the interviewer had the temerity to ask Sanders "would you like her (i.e., Ocasio-Cortez) to join you in the Senate?"

The nerve of that man! 

It wasn't the most important question but as one people have been talking about, it begged to be answered.  And it could have been answered with something as simple as "you'll have to ask her about her plans."  A little more problematically, the Senator might have said "she'd be a very good Senator, just as Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand have been." (Admittedly, that would have been a lie about Gillibrand.)

Bernard "Bernie" Sanders is not far removed from his New York City roots. His response to an innocent question that could easily have been brushed away reveals a somewhat nasty and belligerent old white man who easily takes personal offense. 

This should remind us all of the White House occupant who has been elected to the presidency twice, not the least because of his damaged character. In much smaller measure, a degree of arrogance and belligerence attracts tens of thousands to a rally, and a cantankerous old man may be what voters nationally are drawn toward in this irascible and hostile period.

 

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Especially on Gaza, Prescient

As long as Joe Walsh says he agrees with "every single word that Hillary Clinton spoke here," let's go the videotape to unveil her entire statement.

I agree with every single word @HillaryClinton said here. Every single word. Have a listen.👇 https://t.co/rCNyeVy4MC

— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) October 23, 2023

In a primary debate on April 14, 2016 in Brooklyn, New York, CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked Senator Bernard "Bernie" Sanders"

Senator, let’s talk about the U.S. relationship with Israel. Senator Sanders, you maintained that Israel’s response in Gaza in 2014 was, quote, “disproportionate and led to the unnecessary loss of innocent life.” What do you say to those who believe that Israel has a right to defend itself as it sees fit?"

Sanders agreed that Israel had a right to defend itself (bold!) but asserted that the Israeli attack was indeed "disproportionate."  The argument (with the applicable remark in italics and bold) continued

Blitzer: Thank you. Secretary Clinton, do you agree with Senator Sanders that Israel overreacts to Palestinians attacks, and that in order for there to be peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Israel must, quote, "end its disproportionate responses"?

Clinton: I negotiated the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in November of 2012. I did it in concert with President Abbas of the Palestinian authority based in Ramallah, I did it with the then Muslim Brotherhood President, Morsi, based in Cairo, working closely with Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israeli cabinet. I can tell you right now I have been there with Israeli officials going back more than 25 years that they do not seek this kind of attacks. They do not invite the rockets raining down on their towns and villages.

They do not believe that there should be a constant incitement by Hamas aided and abetted by Iran against Israel. And, so when it came time after they had taken the incoming rockets, taken the assaults and ambushes on their soldiers and they called and told me, I was in Cambodia, that they were getting ready to have to invade Gaza again because they couldn't find anybody to talk to tell them to stop it, I flew all night, I got there, I negotiated that.

So, I don't know how you run a country when you are under constant threat, terrorist attacks, rockets coming at you. You have a right to defend yourself.

That does not mean that you don't take appropriate precautions. And, I understand that there's always second-guessing anytime there is a war. It also does not mean that we should not continue to do everything we can to try to reach a two-state solution, which would give the Palestinians the rights and the autonomy that they deserve. And, let me say this, if Yasser Arafat had agreed with my husband at Camp David in the late 1990s to the offer then Prime Minister [Ehud] Barak put on the table, we would have had a Palestinian state for 15 years.

Blitzer: Thank you, go ahead, Senator.

Sanders: I don't think that anybody would suggest that Israel invites and welcomes missiles flying into their country. That is not the issue.

And, you evaded the answer. You evaded the question. The question is not does Israel have a right to respond, nor does Israel have a right to go after terrorists and destroy terrorism. That's not the debate. Was their response disproportionate?

I believe that it was, you have not answered that.

Clinton: I will certainly be willing to answer it. I think I did answer it by saying that of course there have to be precautions taken but even the most independent analyst will say the way that Hamas places its weapons, the way that it often has its fighters in civilian garb, it is terrible.

I'm not saying it's anything other than terrible. It would be great -- remember, Israel left Gaza. They took out all the Israelis. They turned the keys over to the Palestinian people.

And what happened? Hamas took over Gaza. So instead of having a thriving economy with the kind of opportunities that the children of the Palestinians deserve, we have a terrorist haven that is getting more and more rockets shipped in from Iran and elsewhere.

Later in the transaction, Sanders would note "There comes a time- there comes a time when if we pursue justice and peace, we are going to have to say that Netanyahu is not right all the time." Clinton had never suggested or implied that the Israeli prime minister was right all the time, but Sanders' words should reverberate when he recognize the role of Netanyahu's self-centered, possibly even corrupt, leadership, that helped enable Hamas to commit the massacre of 10/7/23 massacre.

The Vermont senator remarked also "all that I am saying we cannot continue to be one-sided. There are two sides to the issue." However, as recent events have demonstrated, there is only one side and, if anything, American foreign policy 

As recent issues have demonstrated, there are not the two sides- Israel and the Palestinians/Hamas- which Sanders thought there were. There are three sides- Israel, Hamas, and the Palestinians who are not part of the ruthless terrorist group ruling Gaza. Clinton obviously understood this when recommended the USA

continue to do everything we can to reach a two-state solution, which would give the Palestinians the rights and... the autonomy that they deserve. And let me say this,if Yasser Arafat had agreed with my husband at Camp David in the 1990s to the offer then-Prime Minister Barat (sic) put on the table, we would have had a Palestinian state for 15 years.

When "Israel left Gaza," the then-Secretary of State explained, "they took out all the Israelis. They turned the keys over to the Palestinian people" and now "we have a terrorist haven that is getting more and more rockets shipped in from Iran and elsewhere."

That's the current situation- laid out over seven years ago- in a nutshell. And prior to the Middle East, Clinton had been asked about the reliance upon the USA of funding for NATO and replied

.... we have to work out the financial aspects of it, but let’s not forget what’s really happening. With Russia being more aggressive, making all kinds of intimidating moves toward the Baltic countries, we’ve seen what they’ve done in Eastern Ukraine, we know how they want to rewrite the map of Europe, it is not in our interests. Think of how much it would cost if Russia’s aggression were not deterred because NATO was there on the front lines making it clear they could not move forward.

In the 2016 primary, I voted for Sanders over Clinton, for reasons completely unrelated to foreign policy. Moreover, Clinton never actually has claimed to be psychic. But she evidently understood, better than Senator Sanders and President Obama, the threat posed by Vladimir Putin's Russia. And on the matter of Palestinians, the terrorist subset known as Hamas, and of Israel, she told us in 2016 what was going on. It's not only unfortunate but dangerous that even now, so many people across the world cannot see, or refuse to see, what she saw then.

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Sunset

This is how politicians should be interviewed- not only Republicans but also Democrats, and not only by CNN's Kaitlan Collins. But in this case it was she and in the wake of President Joe Biden's State of the Union address on Tuesday, Scott was the a prime, and deserving, target.

In this interview, Florida senator Scott insists that President Biden has cut Medicare, though he is careful not to say “cut Medicare benefits.”In a fact check on Thursday, CNN noted that deputy director of the Medicare policy program at the Kaiser Family Foundation, Mark

Cubanski explained that the Inflation Reduction Act’s projected prescription drug savings of $237 billion will largely come from three particular provisions. None of these provisions cuts Medicare benefits.

One provision allows the federal government, starting in 2026, to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies over the prices of certain high-cost drugs for Medicare. Another requires the drug companies to pay rebates to Medicare if the price of certain drugs rises faster than inflation. A third provision delays, until 2032, the implementation of a Trump administration rule that had never taken effect and already been postponed until 2027. That rule, which would have effectively banned rebates from drug companies to insurers and pharmacy benefit managers, had been expected not only to increase Medicare spending but to force Medicare beneficiaries to pay higher premiums.

So, again, not even the cost-saving parts of the law are Medicare cuts. And then there are the additional provisions Cubanski mentioned above, which will add expenditures to the government but save seniors money – such as the new $35-per-month cap on out-of-pocket spending on insulin and a new $2,000-per-year cap, starting in 2025, on out-of-pocket prescription drug spending in Medicare Part D.

Scott insists that he hasn't endorsed benefit cuts. At 6:10 of the video with Collins, he states

I've been clear. I will not reduce Social Security or Medicare benefits. Alright? I've been clear. And I was in my plan. Congress needs to fix Med- make sure that Medicare and Social Security survive.

Sen. Rick Scott says "no," it wasn’t a mistake to propose a plan that would require all legislation, including that relating to programs like Social Security and Medicare, to sunset unless Congress reauthorizes them. Our full interview this morning: pic.twitter.com/wOxxApUCpR

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) February 9, 2023

It is an article of faith- or at least, it seems to be- of Republicans that Medicare and Social Security will die on the vine (i.e., not survive) unless benefits are slashed. There is a little bit of logic there. Scott, as with some of his GOP colleagues, says he will never vote to raise taxes. If Congress does not increase the maximum annual wage- now $160,200- that's subject to Social Security tax, the trust fund eventually, in a matter of decades, will run out.

The cap, as Senator Bernie Sanders and other Democrats have long advocated, could be increased or (as it should be) eliminated altogether. That's a bridge to decency Republicans will not cross.

Senator Scott knows that cutting, or decreasing, benefits won't fly politically. Therefore, he wants to sunset "entitlements" (earned benefits) which- in the short term- does not necessarily cut benefits.  A lot of voters don't know what sunsetting is (and it's not an actual word). Elderly individuals, the Florida senator believes, may believe it wouldn't happen for awhile, and Republicans have been trying for years to condition young people to accept as inevitable that Social Security, if not Medicare also, won't last forever. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, if he's not lying through his teeth, is not keen on Scott's plan. That's for now, though. Republicans in the House of Representatives, which the GOP controls, are unpredictable, and ghastly.  So it becomes essential for President Biden, as he did in his State of the Union address, to tell the public that some Republicans want to sunset the program and tie that to a decrease in benefits. And it can only help if journalists, such as Kaitlan Collins did one fine Thursday morning, persist in asking the uncomfortable questions.

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Journalistic Diversion

Democrats made a good start on Sunday- and it wasn't by a Democrat. On CNN's State of the Union, Dana Bash seemingly asked (at 2:08 of the video below) Senator Bernard Sanders (I-VT)

Here we are, one year into the Biden presidency- those two key priorities are stalled in the Senate, the social spending bill and climate bill, the election reform legislation. It's because of senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema won't get on board. How frustrated are you?

This was less a question than a statement. Bash's point was that progress is being blocked by two Democrats, from West Virginia and Arizona.

Sanders got off on the right track by responding

Well, it's not only those two. It's fifty Republicans who have been adamant in not only pushing an anti-democratic agenda. but also by opposing our efforts to try to lower the cost of prescription drugs, try to expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing, and eyeglasses, to improve the disastrous situation in home health care, child health care, to address the existential threat of climate change.

You've got fifty Republicans who don't want to do anything except criticize the President and then you have, sadly enough, two Democrats who chose to work with the Republicans rather than the President and who have sabotaged the President's effort to address the needs of working families in this country. 

"It's fifty Republicans" and "you've got fifty Republicans," states the Independent who is typically more a Democrat than are most Democrats. Subtly bashing Democrats as well as Republicans- CNN's twist on "fair and balanced"- Bash claims the two Democratic priorities are being stalled because of two Democrats. The fifty Republicans- 50 out of 50- who oppose both pieces of legislation are neatly disappeared by the news host.  Instead, she targets the 4% (two out of 50) of members of the Senate Democratic caucus who are standing in the way.

The Vermont senator continued

Is it frustrating? It sure is but my view, Dana, is we need a new direction, a new approach, in the Senate. I think after six months of negotiating, so-called negotiating, we need closed doors with Manchin and Sinema. We need to start voting. We need to bring important pieces of legislation that impact the lives of working families, right on to the floor of the Senate and if Republicans want to vote against lowering the cost of prescription drugs, climate change, whatever it may be and if the Democrats (or two Democrats) want to join them, let the American people see what's happening, then we can pick up the pieces and pass legislation. But the current course of action..... 

Even after recommending a "new approach" to persuading Manchin and Sinema, Sanders still knows to lay primary responsibility upon Senate Republicans: "if Republicans want to vote against...."

  "

The question posed by Bash represents terrible journalism, and media personalities need to recognize they are being used. If Senate Republicans stand united- as they do on almost all pieces of significant legislation- they need only one Democrat to break ranks with his/her own party.  That results in either the bill getting watered down into virtual nothingness or being killed outright. If the latter, Republicans and the media are enabled to complain that Joe Biden specifically or "the Democrats" generically are ineffective and incapable of governing.

Much of the media, in this case a CNN host, then blames Democrats generally or certain Democrats by name. That plays out as a distinction without a difference because voters conclude that the Democratic Party cannot get out of its own way and is useless at best.

One of the members of the Democratic caucus was having none of it on Sunday.  Others should do the same. The irony, of course, is that the individual standing up for our one pro-democracy party actually is not a registered Democrat.

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Horrific War

He was a day late, but definitely not a dollar short. In what was criticism directed primarily against the media, Kyle Kulinski (video below) on December 4 argued

Yemen is the world's worst atrocity and it's currently ongoing and there's a famine there. There's a blockade from Saudi Arabia. There's indiscriminate bombing of civilians. They've bombed open marketplaces. They've bombed mosques. They've bombed civilian infrastructure and this is something that got a little bit of coverage for awhile but now it's mysteriously disappeared.

Now, why did it disappear? Well, Joe Biden famously came out and said we're not gonna help Saudi Arabia anymore with offensive bombing.

Now, notice the wording there? He added the word "offensive," which means--what- he's leaving the wiggle room to say we're gonna help them with defensive bombing. Yeah, but what if none of the bombing is defensive? Well, they'll just call it defensive and help bomb and that's the gist of it and that's what they did.

And the left has been placated, too. I haven't seen much from any of the people, even the ones who led the charge, whether it's Bernie Sanders or Ro Khanna on the left. I haven't seen them really take it to Biden on this.

The day before, the aforementioned Sanders and Khanna in an opinion piece in The Guardian wrote

The recent breaching of the United States’ embassy in Yemen’s capital city of Sanaa by rebel forces, and the detaining of Yemeni employees of the embassy, is the latest escalation in a war that has gone on for far too long. It is a war that the United States has supported and remains deeply involved in. It’s time for that complicity to end.

For more than six years, Saudi-led military intervention into Yemen’s civil war on behalf of Yemen’s exiled government against Yemeni rebels has been a key driver of the largest humanitarian disaster in the world. “The country’s economy has reached new depths of collapse, and a third wave of the pandemic is threatening to crash the country’s already fragile healthcare system,” United Nations humanitarian relief coordinator, Martin Griffiths, said in September, with millions “a step away from starvation”.

Under first the Obama and then the Trump administration, the United States was Saudi Arabia’s partner in this horrific war. In 2019, Congress made history by passing its first War Powers Resolution through both chambers of Congress, pressing Donald Trump to end this support. It marked the first time that Congress invoked the War Powers Resolution of 1973 to direct the president to withdraw troops from an undeclared war.

It appears the two congressmen (yes, Rachel Maddow and others, Senators are members of Congress) are not sitting idly by as

We have proposed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act to finally end all US support for the Saudi war effort. The House already passed this amendment for the third consecutive year. Given that this amendment simply codifies a prohibition on providing support for the Saudi war that already passed both houses of Congress in 2019 – legislation supported at the time by multiple officials now in the Biden-Harris administration – it is long overdue for this provision to be included in the final defense policy bill that is sent to the president’s desk.

Still, Kulinski is right not only on the policy but also that nobody "has really take(n) it to Biden on this.  In their commentary, Sanders-Khanna mentioned the current President only twice, the above reference to the Biden-Harris administration and when they "welcomed the Biden administration’s announcement earlier this year that it would end support for 'offensive' military operations led by Saudi Arabia in Yemen and name a special envoy to help bring this conflict to an end."

Noting "under first the Obama and then the Trump administration, the United States was Saudi Arabia’s partner in this horrific war," the two Democrats place blame on the two last presidents rather than the current one. Trump and Obama do deserve the brunt of the criticism, but it's now the Biden Administration which can, as Sanders, Khanna, and Kulinski all understand, time for an American president to end American support for Saudi Arabia's brutal adventure.

 

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Joe Biden's Ally

To turn John Lennon's lyrics on their head, "he was a candidate in a million, my friend. She should have known he would not win in the end."

In a brilliant article, Shant Mesrobian reminds us

The problem with this strategy was never clearer than when Ocasio-Cortez, who by all accounts was Sanders’s most famous and influential surrogate, split with his campaign for trumpeting an endorsement it received from the mega-popular podcaster Joe Rogan. In any normal circumstances, that sort of mainstream, pop culture endorsement would be considered nothing short of heaven-sent for a political campaign. With one of the most influential media platforms in the country and a devoted following whose size rivals that of cable news networks, the impact of a Rogan endorsement is difficult to overstate.

But within the rarefied confines of the intersectional Left, Rogan had long been designated as a “problematic” figure for hosting guests whose views on social and cultural issues have at one time or another run afoul of woke pieties. Faced with choosing between the first genuinely left-wing contender for the White House in generations—someone who had devoted his life to economic and social justice—and her status and celebrity among social justice activists, Ocasio-Cortez chose the latter. As a disciplinary action for the Rogan endorsement, Ocasio-Cortez pulled back from her surrogate role, declining to stump for Sanders or appear at any more events during the crucial early-state period of campaigning.

According to a Quinnipiac poll released on October 14, 2019, 30% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents supported Elizabeth Warren, 27% backed Joe Biden, and 11% were behind Bernie Sanders.  Sanders' support rose steadily after his campaign revealed on October 9 that he had a heart attack and Ocasio-Cortez endorsed him fifteen days later- two days after CNN declared Warren the front-runner. By late November Biden reportedly had slipped to 28% and Warren to 14%, with Sanders up to17%, also among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. 

A few months later, Sanders and Buttigieg were reported to have roughly tied in Iowa but the Vermont senator emerged the victor in both New Hampshire and Nevada. He was likely to lose a primary three days later, probably narrowly, when Representative Jim Clyburn endorsed Biden and the former vice-president won overwhelmingly in South Carolina.

Recognizing that the race was very likely down to two candidates- Biden and Sanders- the Democratic Party establishment coalesced around the one remaining candidate not hostile to that establishment. Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar dropped out and endorsed Biden after former President Obama pushed one or both to recognize that their candidacy (like that of Warren) was all but over.

On Super Tuesday, Biden bulldozed Sanders. Warren soon dropped out, and it was Sanders vs. Biden, and it was no contest on Super Tuesday for Democratic primary voters, who decided that a vote for a candidate officially an Independent was a bridge too far.

As Ocasio-Cortez realized, Senator Sanders- with a large base and avid following- had an excellent shot with several candidates in the race.  She probably understood further that the Senator's chances would go down dramatically if he faced off with another candidate one-on-one. What she- presumably- did not expect was that the race would narrow down, relatively early, to two candidates. (Neither did I.)

That was the political death knell of Bernie Sanders.

It also was the death knell, short-term, of progressives in the Party. Ocasio-Cortez had faced the choice of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and chose unwisely. She chose the candidate who unfortunately had earned the enmity of a sizeable portion of mainstream and institutional Democrats and thus could not carry the day when voters were left with the choice between him and an uninspiring, acceptable Democrat such as Joe Biden.

Her endorsement of Sanders had galvanized the latter's support and was critical in lifting him to victory in at least two, probably three, of the first three states. And then, according to Mesrobian, Ocasio-Cortez deserted him.

It's unlikely the congresswoman would have done that to Warren, had she endorsed her, because Warren simply would not have gotten the endorsement of Rogan. Warren clearly did not have the depth of support among primary voters as did Sanders. However, the breadth of her support was much greater and would have presented a far greater threat to the moderate Biden.

At first glance, Ocasio-Cortez is a loser for having backed the wrong progressive horse. However, her calculation may have included another factor- that if Elizabeth Warren had been nominated and elected, the congresswoman would not have been nearly the most powerful woman in the Democratic Party. Similar to the woman in the Lennon composition, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (her principles pushed aside) may prove to be a winner in the end.

 

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