Procrastination

Sometimes Nike's ad slogan, "Just Do It," works.  Reprising her earlier role as an anti-Semite,  Ilhan Omar appeared last Wednesday on a panel with Representative Rashida Tlaib. At the end of a mostly innocuous statement, Omar commented "So for me, I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country."

Six-plus days have passed, Omar has been condemned by members of the Jewish community and supporters of Israel, defended by supporters, and only now, as Politico reports

A vote on a resolution condemning anti-Semitism in response to controversial comments by Rep. Ilhan Omar is set to slip past Wednesday amid intensifying pressure from the left both inside and outside the House Democratic Caucus.

An array of progressive groups declared their support for Omar, while both the Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Progressive Caucus — two of the most important factions among House Democrats — wanted more time to review the situation, lawmakers and aides said.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said in a closed-door meeting Tuesday that the vote would likely happen Thursday. They also said a draft resolution would be updated to include additional language rejecting anti-Muslim bias, although some Democratic sources believe that an entirely new document might be crafted.

What is clear, however, is that the furor over Omar's remarks — the second time in two months the Minnesota Democrat has made comments that were condemned by her own colleagues as anti-Semitic — is threatening to overshadow everything else happening in the House. House Democrats are set to pass a major anti-corruption package that deals with ethics and campaign finance reform initiatives and voting rights, but much of the attention is on Omar and how party leaders respond to her comments.

A more important issue is in danger of being overshadowed by the furor over anti-Semitism, as reflected by

"We're still discussing it," Hoyer said on Tuesday. "The sentiment is that it ought to be broad-based. What we're against is hate, prejudice, bigotry, white supremacy, Islamophobia, and anti-Semitism."

"Yes, we're strongly against anti-Semitism, but we're strongly against prejudice directed at any group," Hoyer added.

An old joke, updated for the current situation: Stop the presses- and social media! Democrats oppose prejudice!

Hoyer- himself Jewish and presumably taking his cues from Speaker Pelosi- has it wrong.

The caucus had a chance to do the right thing. On Monday, Speaker Pelosi received a letter written by House Foreign Affairs chairperson Elliot Engel, with eleven Jewish and/or Zionist organizations as signatories, arguing

We need to ensure that anti-Semitism has no place within the venerable House Foreign Affairs Committee. We therefore respectfully request that Congresswoman Omar be removed, immediately, from the sensitive work of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

(Engel has now reversed himself; evidently, he got the message- video, below.)

Four days after Republican Steve King's remark supporting white nationalism was published, Minority Leader McCarthy stripped the Iowan of his two committee assignments, on Judiciary and Agriculture.

Yet 6-7 days after Democrat Omar made her comment decrying alleged dual allegiance, House leadership has been unable or unwilling either to remove Omar from the Foreign Relations Committee or to denounce anti-Semitism.

In the coming days, Pelosi and her caucus will do something. The optimum decision would be to remove her from a committee which has jurisdiction over foreign affairs, including in the Middle East, which includes the Jewish state and American ally, Israel.

Many people- perhaps your neighbor and undoubtedly some US representatives- have one or another bias, whether against Jews, Muslims, atheists, blacks, or another group. But Omar expressed hers publicly, and they bear on her work on the committee.

It is not absolutely necessary to do that, however. The House can simply pass a resolution condemning anti-Semitism and move on.

As Hoyer's remark indicates, however, leadership- cowed by misguided interest groups in the Democratic caucus- probably won't take even that minimal action.  It won't do it even though while anti-Semitism and anti-Islamic sentiments are bad, so is prejudice against Hindus (where are you, Tulsi Gabbard?) and all other religious groups, as well the non-religious.

Additionally, Omar is not accused of making anti-Muslim remarks. She stands accused, justifiably, of making one or more anti-Jewish statement. Were a US Represntative- particularly a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee- to make an anti-Muslim remark, the burden of proof would be on the individual's  supporters to demonstrate why he/she should not be penalized.

Perhaps Pelosi sees strategic value in making Republicans vote against anti-Islamic bias, given that much of the GOP base and President Trump are not partial to Muslims. However, that is not her primary motive in hesitating (and probably avoiding) to do the right thing.

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Jury Is Still Out, Barely

Most Americans are intelligent and (arguably) most American voters are even more intelligent.

Maybe most voters in the State of Iowa are intelligent, even in its 4th congressional district, represented by Steve King, who recently was interviewed by The New York Times:  .

“White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” Mr. King said. “Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?”

Although King later issued a clarification, Charlie Pierce remarked

this revolting lump of hot, bigoted mess has been elected to the Congress nine freaking times. His constituents are racists or they are idiots. (A third alternative is not available at this time.)

They've voted nine times for a fellow who previously graced his office desk with a Confederate flag. (Iowa was not part of the Confederacy.) They've been represented for over 16 years by a fellow who has supported far-right politicians in Europe and been characterized by a neo-Nazi as "basically an open white nationalist at this point."

Racists or idiots, Pierce speculates. In either case, a great lack many harbor sentiments inconsistent with democratic values of tolerance and inclusiveness, or are ill-informed, irrational, and senseless.

The evidence is not only in their endorsement of Steve King.  Although the 4th District is not one of those venerated, celebrated Trump to Obama districts, the electoral turnaround is stunning. In 2008, 53% of its voters opted for Barack Obama and only 45% for John McCain. In 2012 its Democratic/Republican numbers reversed- 53% voted for Mitt Romney and only 45% for Obama. Four years later, the big change came when Donald Trump garnered 61% of the vote and Hillary Clinton only 34%.

In eight years, the percentage of vote given to the GOP- represented by a war hero in 2008 and a draft evader in 2016- went from 45% to 63%.  The district in 2008 rejected this guy in favor of Barack Obama:

Eight years later its voters, favorable to Barack Obama, overwhelmingly repudiated Hillary Clinton and embraced this guy:

There may have been many factors involved in the dramatic uptick in the GOP share of the presidential vote in eight years. However, the starkly different perspective of the two Party's candidates (with Romney, three) is undoubtedly one of them. "Racists or idiots" may be a little harsh. The shoe may not fit exactly, but it's not far off.




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The Religious Test The Right Likes

Representative Steve King, who has charged that immigrants from the Middle East do not want to assimilate into American culture, has told Talking Points Memo

Sharia law is incompatible with the United States Constitution and so if they want to demonstrate that they are open to being Americanized, the first thing they should do is renounce Sharia law. You won't get Keith Ellison or Andre Carson in this Congress to renounce Sharia law,let alone somebody that's just come out of the Middle East that is someone who has been steeped in Islam for a lifetime.

Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) with Andre Carson (D-IN) one of the two Muslim members of the US Congress, called King's comment "an incredibly ignorant statement. And when I say ignorant I don't mean it as an insult, I meanit as it is incredibly uninformed. That is all I can really say."

He could say more, but it would be extremely dangerous, all the more so because Ellison is not a Christian.  He could, of course, defend King's inference that American law should not be based on religious creed.

We already apply a religious test, as the US Supreme Court has endorsed.  Lest we forget, sixteen months ago the Court reprehensibly ruled 

that requiring family-owned corporations to pay for insurance coverage for contraception under the Affordable Care Act violated a federal law protecting religious freedom. It was, a dissent said, “a decision of startling breadth.”

The 5-to-4 ruling, which applied to two companies owned by Christian families, opened the door to many challenges from corporations over laws that they claim violate their religious liberty.

As Justice Ginsburg noted in her dissent

Would the exemption…extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah's Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations[?]…Not much help there for the lower courts bound by today's decision.

If the courts were to rule against such plaintiffs, it would become clear the Hobby Lobby case was an unconstitutional establishment of religion.  If courts were to side with the plaintiffs, they would reinforce the idea that sectarian law trumps civil law, not unlike in nations abiding by Sharia Law.

Not surprisingly, though, King applauded the majority opinion, which he wrote "concluded the Constitution means what it says and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 also means what it says."  He added "I congratulate Hobby Lobby for standing on both their religious convictions and on Constitutional principles." The religious convictions were the corporation's particular interpretation of their religion, and the Constitutional principles were that discrimination is permissible when that interpretation is claimed as the basis for discrimination.

Keith Ellison should offer his colleague this deal: King renounces and denounces anti-choice harassment and terrorism and all favoritism shown to corporations and others on the basis of their claimed, alleged religious beliefs. In return, Ellison will denounce Sharia law.  That's the last he'd hear from Steve King.


And have I mentioned how loathsome Carly Fiorina (below) is?













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"Drug Mules?" Why, The Nerve!

Ha! Ha! We all laughed. It was quite amusing.  The Huffington Post reports

Three undocumented immigrants delivered cantaloupes to Rep. Steve King's (R-Iowa) office Thursday and called for his removal from the House Judiciary Committee after the lawmaker insisted that many Dreamers are involved in the drug trade.

"For everyone who's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert,"King recently told Newsmax, referring to undocumented young people known as Dreamers. "Those people would be legalized with the same act."

Maricela Aguilar, a 22-year-old organizer for Dreamer group United We Dream, said that King was trying to "give this narrative of us being criminals and bad people, when we're not." Aguilar is a graduate student at Brandeis University in Massachusetts and said that she was in the top 10 percent of her graduating class in high school.

The Dreamers delivered two cantaloupes to King's staffers, but were not able to speak with the congressman because he was in a meeting. King's office did not respond to a request for comment.

But you knew about King's statement, so offensive it was denounced even by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor ( "inexcusable") and by Speaker Boehner, who said it "does not reflect the values of the American people or the Republican Party."   (Boehner wisely did not admit the sentiments were less ridiculous than the values of the Republican Party.)   Joe Scarborough labeled the comments "inexcusable" and Jim Vandehei, executive editor of Politico, wrote "It's these guys that say these crazy things that are routinely getting picked up and have us talking about it, have other people talking about it, and it defines down the Republican Party."

The "extreme" or "crazy" or "irresponsible and reprehensible" (as described by Idaho Representative Paul Labrador of Idaho) characterizations appeared not to refer to King's charge that illegal immigrants are bringing huge amounts of grass across the border but instead to his reprehensible description of a set of human beings.  But when Labrador maintained the remarks were "out of touch with the conference," he reflected the widespread belief in his party that King was out of line and threatened to damage further the reputation of the party among Hispanics.

It's never good to compare a portion of the anatomy of an entire group of people to cantelope or other, less delicious, food. (Although calling one's spouse "honey" is quite acceptable. Go figure.)  Labeling them "drug mules" can bring only widespread refutation, condemnation, and shunning.

Not always.  Steve King is a pariah among Democrats, a large swath of independents and of the mainstream media, and- if we are to believe their wails of outrage- a few Republicans.  But if King were located much further east, were much larger, represented an entire state, and terrible at his job, perhaps the reaction would be different:

A day ahead of school budget elections statewide, Gov. Chris Christie today escalated his war of words with the state teachers' union, accusing union representatives of "using the students like drug mules" to carry information about whether their parents planned to vote.

Christie cited what he called a "mandatory" homework assignment instructing children in the Monroe Township School District to interview their parents about whether and why they would vote on Tuesday. 

"These are the typical kind of scare tactics that they involve themselves in," Christie said about the 200,000-member New Jersey Education Association, which has been critical of his proposed $820 million cut in school aid. "Scaring students in the classroom, scaring parents with the notes home in the bookbags, and the mandatory 'Project Democracy Homework' asking your parents about what they're going to do in the school board election, and reporting back to your teachers union representatives, using the students like drug mules to carry information back to the classroom, is reprehensible."

Steve Wollmer, a spokesman for the NJEA, said a third-grade teacher in Monroe distributed the homework as part of a civics lesson on voter participation, and it had nothing to do with how parents would vote.

"It's just astounding that a governor who just spent a week telling people how to vote would be upset at a teacher for just wondering if people are going to vote," Wollmer said.

A U.S. Representative claims with questionable evidence that illegal immigrants are drug mules.  A state governor claims public school students have been turned into drug mules by their teachers.  The former politician is excoriated; the latter becomes the favorite Republican of the traditional media. of many Independents and Democrats, and of MSNBC.

Blame Christie-love.  Or recognize that insulting illegal immigrants is far more dangerous politically in this neo-liberal age than demeaning public school students and teachers.  Your mileage will vary.  Either way, however, the double standard is remarkable and as outrageous as Steve King's remarks themselves are.



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A Thought about Steve King (R.- Iowa)

It's hard to resist commenting on the remarks made by Representative Steve King. During the tour announcing his bid for a fourth term in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Iowa Republican noted his support for the election of John McCain and contended in part:

I don't want to disparage anyone because of their race, their ethnicity, their name -whatever their religion their father might have been. I'll just say this: When you think about the optics of a Barack Obama potentially getting elected President of the United States -- I mean, what does this look like to the rest of the world? What does it look like to the world of Islam?.... Additionally, his middle name (Hussein) does matter. It matters because they read a meaning into that in the rest of the world. That has a special meaning to them. They will be dancing in the streets because of his middle name. They will be dancing in the streets because of who his father was and because of his posture that says: Pull out of the Middle East and pull out of this conflict.

The bigotry implicit in these remarks doesn't interest me; King cannot compete with Reverend John Hagee. Neither does the reference to Obama having an unusual middle name; I'm aware that if the Illinois senator is nominated, there will be plenty of references to Obama's middle name by Republicans, probably each time McCain declaring how shocked, or offended, he is by such tactics.

Instead, I'm intrigued at 1)the (probably intentional) misunderstanding of the Middle East policy of a candidate who says that if there is actionable intelligence that Osama bin Laden (in whom Republicans once were interested) is in Pakistan and that government doesn't take action, he would- a position about which the Repub candidate for president has expressed skepticism; and 2) that Barack Obama's background, be it African-American or misrepresented as Muslim, does matter. This is a notion, I think, held by many Americans, including many supporters of Obama (and, incidentally, by Don Imus, who loves and supports John McCain, but who believes a President Obama's background, however he interprets it, would improve our image abroad.) It's a perspective held by many on the right, and by many on the left. And it is wrong. An American president named Barack Obama, or Barack Hussein Obama, born of a father from Kenya and having lived in Indonesia and the island of Hawaii, would be fascinating and perhaps heartening to much of the world. For about 15 minutes. Thereafter, each regime would get on with looking out for its national interest, positively or negatively, and react as necessary to the conduct of American foreign policy.

Consider Libya. On December 19, 2003 Prime Minister Blair of England and President Bush announced that the government of Moammar Gadhafi had agreed to dismantle its nuclear weapons program and permit inspections by international agencies. As wrongheaded- and inept- as George W. Bush has been in conducting foreign affairs, this appears to have been a victory for the west- won because the action Libya took was in its national interest.