Debacle

If this is what victory looks like, I'd hate to see defeat.

Marco Rubio was labeled "Little Marco" in 2016 by Donald Trump, who also called him "Mr. Meltdown" and "lightweight choker" before the Florida senator was dispatched from the presidential race

On Tuesday,June 2 Little Marco appeared on the Hilll for a budget request hearing and

"We're no longer conducting sustained strikes inside of Iran to degrade their military, because Epic Fury is over," Rubio told the House Foreign Affairs Committee, asserting that the US had secured victory….

"We define victory as destroying their defense industrial base, significantly reducing the number of missile launchers that they possess, significantly reducing their stockpile of drones," Rubio said.

"And we achieved all those, in addition to destroying what they had left of an air force and wiping out their entire conventional navy."

Grilled at the hearing by Democrat Cory Booker of New Jersey, the Secretary weirdly asserted "well, the war is over."

Yet, just this past week

Kuwait’s military said Iranian strikes that hit a terminal at its international airport killed at least one person and wounded 63 in the first deadly attack in the Gulf since a ceasefire on 8 April came into effect.

The US and Iran also exchanged fresh missile and drone strikes, further jeopardising efforts to secure a new ceasefire agreement between Washington and Tehran.

Donald Trump said in an interview released on Wednesday that talks with Iran were continuing and he was not looking to escalate, adding: “We don’t need boots on the ground now.”

He later claimed Iran was “pretty close” to signing a peace agreement with the US and “it could happen over the weekend”.

If President Trump appears to be looking for a way out of this debacle, looks here are not deceptive. Sixteen days ago, after Donald asked for a 30-day extension of the ceasefire reached in April, Brookings Institution senior fellow Robert Kagan wrote

As the Institute for the Study of War reports, Iran has been using the cease-fire period to “normalize” its control over the strait by “compelling oil-importing countries” to establish transit agreements with Tehran and charging fees on vessels from nations without such deals. According to Iranian officials, the new strait regime will give Iran’s strategic partners, such as Russia and China, priority and allow nations friendly to Iran, such as India and Pakistan, to negotiate their own transit agreements. Vessels associated with nations that Iran regards as an adversary will be denied access to the strait entirely.

Several nations, including South Korea, Turkey, and Iraq, are reportedly already negotiating at least temporary transit agreements. Now that Trump has made clear he has no intention of fighting to reopen the strait, the stampede to get good terms with Tehran will begin. All nations heavily dependent on energy from the Persian Gulf will want to cut their deal quickly to get the oil and gas and other commodities flowing and rescue their battered economy. Those nations currently allied with the United States and friendly to Israel will feel pressure to distance themselves and make their peace with Iran. The international sanctions against Iran will collapse, and even more money will pour into the country’s accounts as its newly central role in the global economy becomes normalized. By the end of 30 days, most of the world will have a stake in the new arrangement and will oppose any resumption of hostilities, even in the unlikely event that Trump wanted to go back to war…

The Iran war may end up as the single most devastating blow to Israel’s security in its brief history. On the present trajectory, Iran will emerge from the conflict many times stronger and more influential than it was before the war. It will exercise leverage with dozens of the richest nations in the world, all of which will have an acute interest in keeping Iran happy. They will be unlikely to take Israel’s side in any conflict that it has with Tehran or with its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza, because Iran will have the means to punish them if they do. Israel will emerge more isolated than it has been at any time in its history—and not least from its only reliable protector, the United States. When Trump turns his back on Israel, as he must do to implement this policy, MAGA will gladly follow. The bipartisan anti-Israel consensus in the United States will grow and harden.

Will Israel go gentle into this good night? That is the wild card that may disrupt the financial markets’ dreams of a new stability in the Gulf. A stronger, richer, more influential Iran will mean new life for Hamas and Hezbollah. It will mean the end of the Abraham Accords, as the Gulf States will have to make their own peace with Tehran so that their economies can survive. Trump says that Netanyahu “will do whatever I want him to do.” But can Israel stand by while Iran replaces the United States as the arbiter of power in the region?

When a Memorandum of Understanding- or whatever it will be or will be called- is finalized, Donald Trump will declare victory, perhaps characterizing the Iran war as the greatest America ever has fought. Trump will be his lying, corrupt self, Little Marco will still be a sniveling loser, and the Middle East will be more unstable and dangerous than it has been in a very long time.

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Non-Christian Nation

The Fox News banner during an argument between network host Kayleigh McEnany and network contributor Harold Ford reads "TALARICO IS WORSE" TRUMP SAYS TX SEN CANDIDATE WORSE THAN GRAHAM PLATNER."   I

It's odd to believe that a guy who has said that he believes communion "is a form of asking for forgiveness" and that with it "I feel cleansed" is qualified to refute James Talarico's biblical arguments, but here we are. I don't know precisely what preceded the portion of the McEnany/Ford confrontation but the remarks of the onetime Trump 45 press secretary are intriguing. McEnany comments

There is a one-and-a-half, three minute clip of Charlie Kirk. It is epic A breakdown of how nine of the thirteen original states required you to be a Bible-believing Chistian- the original states of the United States. He goes on to list thirteen of thirteen required a declaration of faith. Several of them said "profess Christ as Lord and Savior." You're lying to say this is not a Christain nation. You're lying to say that God is several genders. You're lying to say that Christianity is not a religion of eclusivity. 

Say what you will but President Trump is very spot-on to say the greatest danger and I believe and I will cross the Democratic Party is not Graham Platner for his moral indiscretions. There are people in the Republican Party who have moral indiscretions, too. It is someone who lies about Scripture and that is what this man is doing.

Kayleigh: He says we are not a Christian nation—false

Ford: The constitution never mentions the bible.

Kayleigh: Go read the original 13 colonies and their constitutions. Nine of the 13 required you to be a bible-believing Christian. pic.twitter.com/4t5uhmDXbA

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 3, 2026

 

If the Center for the Study of  the American Constitution is reliable, McEnany is not entirely wrong when she remarks that "thirteen of thirteen required a declaration of faith. Several of them said 'profess Christ as Lord and Savior.'"  While only one- Delaware- referred to Jesus Christ, all of them required what McEnany presumably means by "a declaration of faith,".adherence to a specific religion.

And what would that religion be? McEnany's clear implication- "Bible believing Christian" and "declaration of faith"- is that all of these states required an office-holder to be a Christian. However, that applies only to five of the states- the aforementioned Delawar, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Massachusetts. The other four- New Jersey, North Carolina,, Georgian, and New Hampshire- required the individual to be a Protestant Christian. It was expressed as "professing belief in the faith of any Prorestant sect" (N.J.); "no person, who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion" (N.C.) "of the Protestant religion" (Ga.); and "shall be of the Protestant religion" (N.H.).

So to be clear: not all of the 13 originals were the same.  It has been a very long time that voters required thought that non-Protestants were unqualified because they were of the wrong (in their view) branch of Christianity.

Fortunately, the framers of the USA Constitution believed similarly.and inserted the No Religious Test Clause, which reads  

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

The Constitution forbids a religious test clause. Individuals who identify as Protestant, Roman Catholic, or Orthodox Christian are equally entitled to serve in public office, as are members of any religion, or individuals who have unconventional religious beliefs or none at all.. Further, a growing number of Americans identifies religiously as "none and aside from Jews, an increasing number of citizens are of the Muslim faith or another.  Approximately 45% of individuals of a Christian religion admitted (split infinitive alert!) in a 2025 survey of the Baptist Press to not attending church, and many of the others are lying.

I would like to be a strong safety in the National Football League, or maybe a nuclear engineer.  Kayleigh McEnany would like this to be a "Christian nation". But wishing doesn't make reality, and for better or worse, this hasn't been a Christian nation for a very long time, is not one now, and won't be one in the future.

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Imperfect People and Imperfect Theology

Leave it to a MAGA Republican, an infamous "Stop the Steal" activist and influencer, to atttack the one accurate remark made by a Democrat. The following evidently comes from a speech the current Democratic nominee for governor of Texas made in October, 2021 on the floor of the Texas House of Representatives when he was a member of that body.

 

I FOUND IT!

Here’s the video of democrat James Talarico calling God non-binary.

“God is both masculine & feminine & everything in between.”

In the same breath, Talarico said, “[Trans children] are perfect, beautiful, & they are sacred.”

No, Talarico. God isn’t non-binary. pic.twitter.com/RnS21b8TeH

— ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) May 31, 2026

God obviously is is not binary, though it's understandable- albeit inaccurate and reprehensible that the Republican right would reinforce the myth that God is male. In the first book, verse 29 of chapter 15, of Samuel the prophet Samuel (probably) says "he who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a human being, that he should change his mind."  In verse 24 of chapter 4 of the gospel of John, the apostle John (very likely) states "God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth." God is non-binary.

I don't know what Talarico actually believes God is but unless the Bible is wrong on this point, God is non-binary. His statement "God is both mascline and feminine nd everything in between" is open to interpretation. Although Scripture consistently refers to God in masculine terms (e.g., "father")

God created humanity in His image-both male and female (Genesis 1:27)-showing that all people reflect His likeness. This underscores God’s transcendence above human gender divisions. He is neither male nor female in the physical or biological sense. The masculine pronouns convey how God relates to humanity and expresses His authority and intimacy, not that He has a human body defined by gender.

There has been less backlash against Talarico for the comment about transsexual (uh, er, "transgender") children, possibly because that remark made less sense.

Trans children are God's children, made in God's own image. thee's nothing wrong with them.  Nothing at all. They are perfect. They are beautful, and they are sacred.

Collins Dictionary defines "sacred" as "holy and having a special connection with God"; Cambridge as "considered to be holdy and deserving espect, especially because of a connection with a god; Merriam-Webster as "dedicated or set apart for the worship of a deity.'  How Talarico gets from there to transsexual children or trans children (or straight children, were that his preference) are "sacred" is a mystery to me, and probably to himself.

Trans/transexual children are beautiful- just as straight children are. Except that most of them, as with most of us, are simply not beautiful. A world of mostly beautiful people? Awesome! (It would be almost as awesome as a blog post with only complete sentences. And far less likely.)

And then we come to the characterization of transexual/trans children as "perfect". Yes, a Christian  seminarian said that a whole class of people is perfect. Yet he no doubt read the "Teacher" (presumably Solomon) write in Ecclesiastes 7:20  "indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins".  We move to the New Testament, where in Romans 3:23 the apostle Paul asserts "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God".

These are not outliers.  If individuals- trans or whomever- were perfect, there would have been no need for a Jesus Christ. We're not perfect, and cannot be.  

It's disappointing that an individual who received a Master of Divinity degree from a Christian seminary would understand this. However, Talarico attended Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, a Presbyterian Church in the USA school.

The PCUSA long ago lost its way theologically. Fortunately, James Talarico, a supporter of abortion rights and opponent of state-mandated religious displays in public schools, has not lost his way politically. Of course, he is superior to opponent Ken Paxton in approximately 3,283 ways, spanning both political ideology and personal character. But suggesting that trans children possess virtues which other children and adults do not is both biblically unsound and, frankly, weird.

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Wrong Issue

In a newsletter from Bulwark, Adrian Carrasquillo writes

Ro Khanna, the ubiquitous California congressman with one eye ever on the White House, put his fellow Democrats on blast this week, saying anyone who supported the Laken Riley Act—one of the first major laws passed during the second Trump administration—should be disqualified from becoming the party’s next standard-bearer.

“Nine swing-state Democrats gave permission for mass deportation,” Khanna told me. “No one who voted for the Laken Riley Act should have any role in the future leadership of the Democratic party in this country. . . . It’s disqualifying, just like the Iraq War vote."  

Laken Riley was an August (Ga.) University student who was murdered while she was jogging in February of 2024. The perpetrator had entered the USA from Venezuela illegally in 2022, arrested by Border Patrol, released, and given temporary permission to stay in the country. The murder sparked outrage which led to passage of the act, signed in January 2025, named in her honor.

The National Immigration Project, an immigration rights group explains

Before the Laken Riley Act, many people were already forced to go through their immigration cases under mandatory detention. These laws require certain immigrants to remain detained while their casegoes on in immigration court. People who are affected by mandatory deterntion cannot be considered for release by an immigration judge and generally must remain in detention until their immigration court case ends, a process that can take years. In contrast, people who are not detained under mandatory detention laws can get a “bond hearing” in immigration court in which they can try to convince the immigration judge that they should be released while their immigration case is pending.

According to the Project, the law applies to individuals arrested for, convicted of, or who admit to having committed, any one of a number of serious offenses or shoplifting (shoplifting?). It does not apply to individuals already under a deportation order, who have been granted refugee status, who have overstayed their vis, or are lawful permanent residents.

Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna says any Democrat who voted for the Laken Riley Act is disqualifying.

KHANNA: “It was a terrible vote…I’m tired of a Democratic Party that throws immigrants under the bus.” pic.twitter.com/sxeUV1690j

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 29, 2026

"Throws immigrants under the bus?"  The Act is an overreach and faulty legislation promoted by the Trump Administration. However, Democrats ignored the chaotic border, then not coincidentally got their rear ends handed to them in November, 2024. They still speak as if there are no illegal immigrants in this country, nor immigrants with green cards who need to have their cases adjudicated.

Thus, it's a big issue- but not the only issue, and not the most important one. If Khanna really wants a litmus test, he can consider cryptocurrency, whose

openness has made it a playground for scams. Rug pulls, where project founders disappear with investor money, still happen. Pump-and-dump schemes, Ponzi projects, and fake initial coin offerings remain threats.

On a personal level, romance scams and “pig butchering” schemes are becoming more sophisticated. These target individuals directly, tricking them into sending funds to fake platforms or wallets. Without due diligence, it’s easy to fall victim.

One of the biggest risks is the lack of consistent global rules. Some countries embrace crypto, while others impose heavy restrictions or outright bans. What is legal in one country may not be in another.

Individuals are very vulnerable to being scammed by investing in crypto. But some will profit enormously because

The primary appeal of cryptocurrencies for criminals lies in their decentralized nature, which offers a degree of anonymity and independence from traditional financial systems. They present an attractive alternative to conventional money laundering methods as they enable quick, cross-border transactions that are often harder to trace. Moreover, the absence of a central authority – like a bank or government – overseeing these transactions makes it more challenging to monitor and regulate this activity.

I don't like litmus tests, but if Ro Khanna does, here is a suggestion:

Here with Tim Miller is .@ben_mckenzie talking about the Genius Act, and how corporations have found another way to screw over the American people. #DemsUnited pic.twitter.com/cXzP1LhYnf

— Rod (Izzy) 🇺🇸🦅 (@1zzyzyx1) April 24, 2026

The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act ("GENIUS Act") “defines specific government entities that will oversee stablecoin issuers” but

Excluded from these definitions of regulatory agencies overseeing payment stablecoin issuers are the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), none of which have roles to play in regulating of payment stablecoin under the GENIUS Act.

So the GENIUS Act, signed into law by President Trump in July of 2025, specifies that cryptocurrency will be regulated as a commodity, rather than as a security. It will reduce, not increase, regulation of this shameless industry.

If details of the legislation are complicated or at least obscure, an examination of the roll call vote in the House of Representatives and the Senate makes things a little clearer. In the Senate, 16 Democrats and 50 Republicans voted for the bill. Among those who voted for this dangerous legislation were four Democrats who have been mentioned at one time or another as possible candidates for the party's 2028 presidential nomination. They were Booker of New Jersey; Gallego of Arizona; Ossoff of Georgia; Slotkin of Michigan. Credit where credit is due: Thirty Democrats voted "nay" and included Murphy of Connecticult; Sanders of Vermont; Van Hollen of Maryland; Warnock of Georgia. Two Republicans voted against it and Democrat Mark Kelly of Arizona, often mentioned as a 2028 possibility, joined Republican Hawley of Missouri in not voting.

In the House of Representatives, 206 Republicans and 102 Democrats voted "aye" while 12 Republicans and 110 Democrats voted "nay".  Among the 102 Democrats who gave the crypto industry an early Christmas gift in 2025 was the U.S. Representative from the 17th congressional District of California, Silicon Valley's man in D.C., one Ro Khanna.

The whole of a member's body of work should be considered. Senator Raphael Warnock, senator from the conservative state of Georgia, is one of those individuals Khanna cited as disqualifying because he voted for the Laken Riley Act. Yet, he boldly voted against the GENIUS Act, in my opinion more important legislation.  

This- nor anything else- disqualifies Ro Khanna from public office or even seeking the Democratic nomination for President, as he is rumored to be interested in. But when Khanna poses as a populist, we should remember that at a very important moment, he came up on the side of big money.

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The Only Win Donald Trump Wants is His

"I'm not saying the're rooting for Ameica to lose," the former press secretary to President George W. Bush states, "but they're not saying America wants to win."

Dana Perino on Democrats and Iran: “I think they are trying to separate themselves so much from Donald Trump that, I’m not saying they are rooting for America to lose.. but they are not saying America wants to win.”pic.twitter.com/MQ27X0jpda

— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) May 26, 2026

Donald J. Trump on October 30, 2022 tweeted on Truth Unsocial "Our Country is Rigged, Crooked, and Evil."  During the first Cabinet meeting of his second term, on February 26, 2025, Trump stated "our country has gotten bloated, fat, and disgusting". The day after speaking to mainland Chinese president Xi Jinping in mid-May, Donald remarked on Untruth Social "When President Xi very elegantly referred to the tremendous damage we suffeed during the four years of Sleepy Joe Biden and the Biden Administration and on that score, he was 100% correct."

Sure sounds like a President who wants America to win! Not.  Nor is it only words which confirm Trump's preference that the USA decline or as Perino might put it, not to win. On Wednesday, January 24, 2024, Donald 

privately pressured Senate Republicans to “kill” a bipartisan deal to secure the U.S. border because he doesn’t want President Joe Biden to chalk up a win ahead of the 2024 presidential election, according to a source familiar with the tenuous negotiations on the package.

Trump directly reached out to several GOP senators on Wednesday to tell them to reject any deal, said this source, who requested anonymity to speak freely. The GOP presidential frontrunner also personally reached out to some Senate Republicans over the weekend, the source told HuffPost.

“Trump wants them to kill it because he doesn’t want Biden to have a victory,” said the source. “He told them he will fix the border when he is president… He said he only wants the perfect deal.”

If the perfect deal- nearly impossible- had been achieved, it still woldn't have been perfect in Trump's eyes. As a zero-sum devotee, Donald doesn't want anything good for the other because he assumes that would be bad for him. And of course, Donald Trump is the only cause Donald Trump is interested in. Hence, he supports only what is bad for whomever or whatever he considers his adversary, irrespective of whether it is good, or a win, for this country.

Dana Perino can only speculate about motives of Democrats. We know what Donald Trump's motive always is, and it's he, not us.

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Mr. DHS Secretary

When something is reported locally and nationally and an Administration flunkie tells us it isn't so, the lying has gotten out of hand.

This is nothing more than a political stunt by New Jersey sanctuary politicians for fundraising clicks.

There is NO hunger strike at Delaney Hall. There are no subprime conditions.
@SenBooker, @SenatorAndyKim, @RepMenendez, @RepNellie, @FrankPallone, @GovSherrillNJ and dozens… https://t.co/Lg3c3B2Q9A

— Secretary Markwayne Mullin (@SecMullinDHS) May 25, 2026

In an article published by NJ.com on May 22 and updayed four days later

At the Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark, detainees are so desperate, they’re going on a hunger and labor strike.

On Friday morning, at a small rally organized by Gabriela Soto — a rising immigrants’ rights advocate who’s married to Martin Soto, a Peruvian man detained at Delaney since February — several men held at the center spoke to the crowd via video chat.

One man said he and the nearly 300 others in his unit at the facility had decided to “stop eating and stop working” indefinitely until the inhumane conditions inside the facility improve. “But that’s not all we demand,” he said. “We are also doing this to demand freedom.”

“We’re not treated like people,” he continued. “We’re treated like animals.”

One man

decried the lack of adequate medical care inside the facility.

He said in the months he’s been held there, he’s fallen ill three times and has never been seen by a doctor despite repeatedly asking to each time.

A spokesperson for ICE and the GEO Group, which operates the facility on behalf of the federal government, did not return requests for comment.

The GEO Group- privatization? Of course. Continuing

Emanuel Rodrigues, a Brazilian man who’s been in forced “medical isolation” at Delaney for more than 100 days, recently told me detention center staff “do not care” about detainees’ health or well-being.

When it was his turn to speak, detainee Jordi Alvarado reiterated the long list of complaints he and others at the facility made in a recent letter pleading elected officials for help.

Inside Delaney, Alvarado said, “conditions are substandard and human rights violations are commonplace.”

“And those who speak out [against the abuses], as we’re doing now, are harshly punished for it, berated, and placed in solitary confinement for days,” he said in Spanish.

“We have to be very careful, everything we say and do is closely monitored, at all times,” he warned us. And then, almost as if on cue, his face abruptly disappeared from the screen of the iPhone advocates had used to call him.

On the blacked out screen, a message popped up. “Call paused.” And shortly after, “Call ended.”

Hours after the rally, Sally Pillay, of Eyes on ICE NJ, a grassroots coalition of dozens of immigrants’ rights groups, informed journalists the group had “lost all contact with phones and tablets for people detained inside.” Cell service returned shortly after 5 p.m. Friday.

On Memorial Day, New Jersey senator Andy Kim visited the facility. Outside

ICE had brought out an armored vehicle, and lined in front of that was a wall of armed officers creating a barricade.

Kim said that the protesters present “kind of lined up in front of them” and that he “tried to get in between the ICE officers and the crowd to de-escalate.”

 “ICE officials told me that they were going to push through the crowd with their vehicle and they wanted to get some vehicles out of there,” he said. “I tried to arrange a situation where people would not get hurt, where there wouldn’t be a confrontation. Unfortunately, ICE just continued on.”

 He said he “immediately saw people getting tackled and brought to the ground” and that ICE “started pushing through with their vehicles.”

 Kim said he again ran up to try to put himself between the ICE agents and the crowd to prevent things from escalating when the agents “started shooting at us with pepper balls and using pepper spray.”

 “I tried to do whatever I could standing in the middle to keep people safe,” he said.

That's one heck of a political stunt, trying to create order from chaos and de-escalating a situation Immigration and Control Enforcement was escalating. Of course, this sort of thing probably could have been expected from an agency led by Kristi Noem's replacement, who only a short time ago was a United States senator.

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If Only She Had Said "Israel, Go to Hell"

Quit your whining.

On May 21, the day the Democratic National Committee's "autopsy." written by party strategist Paul Rivera, was released, Sophie Hurwitz of the left-wing Mother Jones noted that it was accompanied by a note from Committee chairperson Ken Martin reading

"For full transparency, I am releasing the report as we received it, in its entirety, unedited and unabridged. It does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards, but I am doing this because people need to be able to trust the Democratic Party and trust our word."

It is understandable that an unedited and unendorsed draft would include numerical and grammatical errors, as well as notes saying things like “No sourcing provided for this claim” and “Methodology appears internally inconsistent.”

The DNC didn't like it, its critics didn't like it, and even Rivera was lukewarm toward it. It is a mess. That doesn't matter because the report didn't matter. In early 2013, following the Republican Party's second straight loss to Barack Obama, the Republican National Committee commissioned an autopsy. It recommended increased sensitivity toward immigrants and minority groups generally. Then along came Donald J. Trump, and the rest is history.

Sophie Hurwitz of Mother Jones, though, was focused on a more sustantive ommission, in which

Amont the more than 50,000 words in the DNC's 192-page autopsy of why it lost the 2024 presidential election, here are a few that do not appear even once: Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Jewish, Muslim, foreign policy, protest, genocide.

Here are a few other words that do not appear even once: Hamas, Islamofascism, and October 7 slaughter, each of which, unlike "genocide," actually exists in the conflict. Nonetheless, Hurwitz continued

During the 2024 election cycle, tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military, often using US-supplied bombs. At every turn, when confronted by protesters asking her to do more to stop the slaughter, the party’s nominee, Kamala Harris, demurred. When Democrats outraged by the war asked that a single Palestinian speaker be allowed to speak onstage at the DNC—and endorse Harris in doing so—they were snubbed.

Yet, at that time, it was not insignificant that 

The second night of the Democratic National Convention was intensely Jewish: Along with Emhoff and Schumer directly discussing their Jewish identities, two other prominent Jewish elected officials — Bernie Sanders and J.B. Pritzker — took the stage, while the night opened with an invocation by Rabbi Sharon Brous. Jewish heritage, inclusion in America and the fight against antisemitism all got prime-time attention.

But just one of the politicians alluded to Israel, in an anguished reference to the war it is waging against Hamas in Gaza. Absent altogether were references to the unshakeable U.S.-Israel alliance, once a staple of Democratic political conventions, and an orthodoxy that permeated last month’s Republican convention in Milwaukee.

Even Schumer, the New York Democratic senator who has long played on the Hebrew origins of his name, “shomer,” to say he sees himself as a guardian of Israel, left the country entirely out of his speech....

The sole mention of the hostages during prime time came from Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Jewish Vermonter who is the unofficial leader of the progressives and among Israel’s harshest critics.

“We must end this horrific war in Gaza, bring home the hostages and demand an immediate ceasefire,” Sanders said, pausing after the first clause to allow for cheers that were some of the loudest of the evening.

No one at the convention spoke against a ceasefire, which would have been (and ultimately was) needed to "bring home the hostages".  Sanders understood that, and so did the bloc of  "Uncommitted" delegates eager to bring on a Palestinian speaker to speak of the suffering of Gazans while ignoring the events of 10/7/23.

It became more obvious two nights later when the parents of a young Jewish Israeli man spoke from the podium. There

Both of the couple called for a deal to release the hostages and agree to a ceasefire in Gaza, drawing the loudest applause of their speeches. Their appearance came at a time when negotiations between Israel and Hamas over a deal are again faltering, as they have in successive rounds of talks over the past several months. They said both Republicans and Democrats have sought to help them, and thanked President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the party’s nominee, for working “tirelessly” for a deal.

“In a competition of pain, there are no winners,” Jon Polin said. “In an inflamed Middle East, we know the one thing that can most immediately release pressure and bring calm to the entire region: a deal that brings this diverse group of 109 hostages home and ends the suffering of the innocent civilians in Gaza. The time is now.”

The crowd fell into silence as the couple strode onto the stage. Delegates stood up, including those scattered throughout wearing keffiyehs in solidarity with the Palestinians. A man sporting a Hebrew Harris-Walz button started a “Bring them home” chant, and soon the whole room picked it up.

It wasn't "win the war" or "get them back".  It was "bring them home," which anyone paying any attention whatsoever knew meant "Israel, make a deal, now"! Yet, Hurwitz assumes that all one-issue Gaza voters were ones opposed to Israel's actions defending itself. She wrote

According to polling by the IMEU, 29 percent of former Biden voters who did not choose Harris—equivalent to roughly 122,380 votes across six swing states—were influenced by Gaza. There were of course other factors: broad economic dissatisfaction, as well as a late-game candidate switch, among them—but to omit mention of Gaza is avoidant at best and dishonest at worst.

How many voters would have shunned Harris-Walz at the polls or switched to Donald Trump had the Vice President succumbed to anti-Israel/pro-Palestine sentiment is, unsurprisingly, ignored. It's impossible to determine, though it's extraordinarily unlike that Harris would have scraped together 270 electoral votes whatever position she had taken. The Democrat lost not only Michigan, with a tremendous number of Muslim voters, but also Pennsylvania, in which Muslim voters are outnumbered by Jewish voters.

There are many reasons, some of them noted by Rivera and others not, that the Democratic Party lost the last presidential election. With such a multitude, I would be unable to argue with any certainty that the major factor was the candidate herself, whose selection as V.P. nominee in 2020 I abhorred. Neither can the anti-Israel crowd legitimately argue that Kamala Harris' failure to break with President Biden's policy and condemn Israel in 2024 was the primary factor in her defeat. 

The "autopsy" brings us no closer to  understanding why Donald Trump was (re-) elected. However, it's always instructive to be reminded of the hostility born of narrowmindness of the All Hail Palestine! gang members. Perhaps they also can enlighten us as to how Iranians and other Muslims of the Middle East have benefitted as a result of Trump's victory over the candidate they believe was so unfair to Palestinians during the Democratic National Convention. 

 

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