Attention to the Unseen

The Daily Beast reports: The white nationalist group Identity Evropa is so cozy with the Republican Party that members led their College Republican clubs and campaigned in support of GOP congressional candidates. At least one Identity Evropa fan, who is not a member of the group, attended CPAC last weekend where he demanded an autograph from a leftist podcaster who, tripping on acid, signed the book “eat shit.” Identity Evropa is a fascist organization. Its members have been involved in…

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Chris Cillizza writes: Even as the 2020 race begins in earnest, President Donald Trump is already suggesting that Democrats cannot beat him fairly — raising the specter that if he loses next November, he will suggest that the election was not legitimate. “The Democrats in Congress yesterday were vicious and totally showed their cards for everyone to see,” Trump tweeted Tuesday, referring to House Democrats’ launching of a broad-scale investigation into him. “When the Republicans had the Majority they never…

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The New York Times reports: Has Aipac — founded more than 50 years ago to “strengthen, protect and promote the U.S.-Israel relationship” — become too powerful? And with that power, has Aipac warped the policy debate over Israel so drastically that dissenting voices are not even allowed to be heard? Those questions have grown louder with the controversy around Ms. Omar and will grow louder still in the run-up to this month’s annual Aipac policy conference — a three-day Washington…

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Mairav Zonszein writes: While freshman Minnesota Congresswoman Omar’s alleged antisemitism has been dominating the headlines in the US in recent weeks, in Israel, the controversies have barely been reported on in Hebrew media, and you’d be hard-pressed to find many Israelis who even know who she is. Yet much of the attacks and condemnations she is facing originate in talking points and policies created by the Israeli right, specifically under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the last decade. Omar has…

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Ben Ehrenreich writes: History has been curling back lately in the most uncomfortable ways. Nearly 125 years ago, a French military court convicted the artillery captain Alfred Dreyfus of treason for handing military secrets to the Germans. Dreyfus, who was Jewish, would eventually be exonerated, but not before his case was turned into a national referendum on the nature of loyalty to the state and the place of Jews in French society. Leading the charge against Dreyfus was the journalist…

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Hanna Alshaikh writes: [Rep. Ilhan] Omar has experienced firsthand how innocent humans pay the price for militarism, warfare, and systemic injustice, and is using her platform to protect the most vulnerable. She challenges the Democratic Party to adopt a more progressive and humane foreign policy, one that will not inflict upon others the type of suffering she has faced. Instead of dismissing her, or questioning her role on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, we should defer to her expertise…

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CNN reports: Democratic presidential candidates Sens. Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday defended Rep. Ilhan Omar against the backlash to her comments slamming pro-Israel groups and politicians, which have been called anti-Semitic. Sanders, who is Jewish, said criticism of Omar and efforts to get her taken off the House Foreign Affairs Committee, primarily from House Republicans, are aimed at stopping a discussion about American’s foreign policy toward Israel. “What I fear is going on in the House…

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The Washington Post reports: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross acted in “bad faith,” broke several laws and violated the constitutional underpinning of representative democracy when he added a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. In finding a breach of the Constitution’s enumeration clause, which requires a census every 10 years to determine each state’s representation in Congress, the 126-page ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco went further than a similar decision on…

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Wajahat Ali and Rabia Chaudry write: The firestorm around Rep. Ilhan Omar’s recent tweets about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and criticism of Israel has drawn attention to what language rises to the level of anti-Semitism, the shameful double standards for Muslims and people of color, and how anti-Semitism is often hypocritically used as a political bludgeon. GOP leadership has called for an official censure and her removal from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and House Democrats called…

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Carla Hill writes: American white supremacists are facing a dilemma: They want to share their hateful ideology, but they don’t want to face the consequences. They want to find an audience for their racism and anti-Semitism, but they don’t want to get caught. Under increased scrutiny from law enforcement and the media, how do they disseminate their racist ideas and recruit new members, but also limit the risk of doxing, firing and ostracism that comes with public exposure? Within the…

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I'm a Jew. I'm not a Zionist. I believe Israel is a key ally. I also believe the current gov't of Israel is a menace & a serial human rights violator & many of its policies are not in the U.S. interest. Being critical of that gov't is in the interest of both the US & Israel. — David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) March 5, 2019