markpkessinger
markpkessinger's JournalLast night, my 20-year-old grandniece reached out to me to ask what I thought of RFK, Jr. . . .
Here was my response:
And one more thing to think about is this: even if a third-party/independent candidate could somehow get elected, that candidate would take office with no natural group of supporters in Congress, so he or she would be able to accomplish next to nothing while in office.
The hard reality of the matter is is that a vote for RFK, Jr. is effectively a vote for Trump.
I believe the Supreme Court, including the three liberal justices, erred gravely today
Let's be clear: this is NOT a decision based on the text or intention of the Constitution as Amended. I believe there is a flaw in the court's reasoning on the question of whether a state can disqualify a candidate for the entire country. The decision by the Colorado Secretary of State affected only whether Trump would appear on the ballot in Colorado. Other states would still have been free to decide otherwise. And I believe that was precisely the intent of those who ratified the 14th Amendment, and would have been consistent with the very federalism the Constitution sets up.
The Constitution leaves it to the individual states to administer federal elections. I believe the drafters and ratifiers of the 14th Amendment envisioned a system whereby a state could indeed exclude a candidate from the ballot within its jurisdiction based on the candidate's participation in an insurrection, provided some sort of due process had occurred to make that determination. Such a process had occurred in Colorado. Under this envisioning, the candidate could then have appealed on the substantive question of whether he or she had, in fact, participated in an insurrection (a question today's ruling doesn't address at all).
The three liberal justices seem to have been concerned about creating a patchwork, but a patchwork is precisely what the Constitution sets up! If we are seriously worried about creating a patchwork, then logically we should dispense with the entire electoral system and have instead national federal elections administered by the federal government! But this ruling amounts to a picking and choosing of federalism when it suits the Court's preferred result.
Sorry, Justices Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson -- all of you missed the boat on this one!
For those who have a Netflix account . . .
. . . I highly recommend the documentary, "Brother Outsider: The LIfe of Bayard Rustin." Rustin was the great African American, Quaker, openly and unapologetically gay civil rights activist, pacifist and organizer who was, in many respects, the organizing genius behind things like the March on Washington and something of a mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr. This is not the recently released feature film, "Rustin," which is also streaming on Netflix. This is a 2003 documentary, and provides much more detail on Rustin's life and beliefs. It features numerous recordings of Rustin's singing -- which earned him enough money to put himself through City College, as well as an interview with one of his past lovers. Actually, as I watched it, I was struck by how many aspects of Rustin's life the feature film, "Rustin," either played down or omitted entirely! It is beautifully put together!
https://www.netflix.com/watch/70139371?trackId=14170286&tctx=2%2C0%2C03edbe16-9e73-4645-9b7a-94b4a766a852-17486363%2CNES_AC884119042DB46FB04F79A5EC41A4-994911DC4F528C-45130432CD_p_1708740184338%2CNES_AC884119042DB46FB04F79A5EC41A4_p_1708738981381%2C%2C%2C%2C%2CVideo%3A70139371%2C
The Supreme Court's Very Selective Originalism and Federalism
They're "originalists" or "textualists," until they're faced with a ruling from a state supreme court, written specifically from a textualist standpoint, that commands a political result they don't like.
They're "federalists," all in favor of state's rights, until they're faced with a state that makes a presidential eligibility determination that is contrary to their desired political result.
As an institution, the current SC deserves nothing but contempt!
Rabbi Jay Michaelson: "Elise Stefanik's Calculated Demagoguery on Antisemitism and Free Speech"
https://www.thedailybeast.com/elise-stefaniks-calculated-demagoguery-on-antisemitism-and-free-speech?ref=scrollThis is some of the best commentary I've seen anywhere on this subject!
For that matter, I’ve heard countless Jews say that there is no such thing as the Palestinian people over the years (indeed, former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said so). Is that a “call for genocide”? It’s certainly in the neighborhood.
I’ve heard right-wing Israelis call for “transfer” of Palestinian populations out of the West Bank. In the last month, I’ve heard them call for Palestinians to be pushed out of Gaza. Calls for genocide? Again, maybe, maybe not—subject to interpretation and context.
[ . . . . ]
What I find most personally repellant about this whole spectacle is how it exploits the trauma and pain that the Jewish community is still feeling (while utterly ignoring the trauma and pain that Palestinians are experiencing).
Foreign Affairs: Israel's Failed Bombing Campaign in Gaza
Superb article from Foreign Affairs magazine:
Collective Punishment Won’t Defeat Hamas
By Robert A. Pape
December 6, 2023
Since October 7, Israel has invaded northern Gaza with some 40,000 combat troops and pummeled the small area with one of the most intense bombing campaigns in history. Nearly two million people have fled their homes as a result. More than 15,000 civilians (including some 6,000 children and 5,000 women) have been killed in the attacks, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health, and the U.S. State Department has suggested that the true toll may be even higher. Israel has bombed hospitals and ambulances and wrecked about half of northern Gaza’s buildings. It has cut off virtually all water, food deliveries, and electricity generation for Gaza’s 2.2 million inhabitants. By any definition, this campaign counts as a massive act of collective punishment against civilians.
Even now, as Israeli forces push deeper into southern Gaza, the exact purpose of Israel’s approach is far from clear. Although Israeli leaders claim to be targeting Hamas alone, the evident lack of discrimination raises real questions about what the government is actually up to. Is Israel’s eagerness to shatter Gaza a product of the same incompetence that led to the massive failure of the Israeli military to counter Hamas’s attack on October 7, the plans for which ended up in the hands of Israeli military and intelligence officials more than a year earlier? Is wrecking northern Gaza and now southern Gaza a prelude to sending the territory’s entire population to Egypt, as proposed in a “concept paper” produced by the Israeli Intelligence Ministry?
Whatever the ultimate goal, Israel’s collective devastation of Gaza raises deep moral problems. But even judged purely in strategic terms, Israel’s approach is doomed to failure—and indeed, it is already failing. Mass civilian punishment has not convinced Gaza’s residents to stop supporting Hamas. To the contrary, it has only heightened resentment among Palestinians. Nor has the campaign succeeded in dismantling the group ostensibly being targeted. Fifty-plus days of war show that while Israel can demolish Gaza, it cannot destroy Hamas. In fact, the group may be stronger now than it was before.
Israel is hardly the first country to err by placing excessive faith in the coercive magic of airpower. History shows that the large-scale bombing of civilian areas almost never achieves its objectives. Israel would have been better off had it heeded these lessons and responded to the October 7 attack with surgical strikes against Hamas’s leaders and fighters in lieu of the indiscriminate bombing campaign it has chosen. But it is not too late to shift course and adopt a viable alternative strategy for achieving lasting security, an approach that would drive a political wedge between Hamas and the Palestinians rather than bringing them closer together: take meaningful, unilateral steps toward a two-state solution.
Washington Post Op-Ed by the King of Jordan: "A two-state solution would be a victory for our common humanity"
< . . . . >
I cannot but believe that Palestinians and Israelis want the same things. They are not monsters; they do not cherish misery and death. Like Israelis, Palestinians have a right to lives of dignity, security and respect, in an independent, sovereign and viable state.
Yet for almost 20 years, Israel’s unilateral actions have undermined the peace process and flouted the Oslo accords, which promised the two-state solution of peace and security for both sides. Instead, step by step, and against international law, the Palestinian territories have been divided into small, disconnected enclaves. Israel has tripled its “settlements” on land that the accords recognized would be part of the Palestinian state. Jerusalemites have been pushed out of their homes. Muslim and Christian holy sites have been attacked and worshipers harassed. And now, 60 percent of Gaza’s besieged population of 2.3 million Palestinians has been displaced.
< . . . . >
Are there any realistic alternatives to a two-state solution? It is hard to imagine any. A one-state solution would force Israel’s identity to accommodate competing national identities. A no-state solution would deny Palestinian rights and dignity. < . . . . >
https://wapo.st/3MMjNBh
[NOTE: There is much more to this op-ed than I was able to excerpt in four paragraphs. I urge folks to read the original at the link provided -- it's a "gift" link, so there's no paywall.]
For all of the outcry over Rep. Tlaib's use of the phrase, "from the river to the sea" . . .
. . . It is worth noting that the phrase, or at least the concept, does not originate with Hamas or even with the Palestinians. It originated with Netanyahu's own Likud Party, the original, founding platform of which states in pertinent part:
See https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/original-party-platform-of-the-likud-party
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