I'm reading a book called, Munich. If I were reading it ten years ago, I would
have said that it's a book about the time in 1938 when England is attempting to
stay out of a war with Germany. There are some descriptions of Hitler and how
he behaves, of how his staff and others around him try to placate him, of
advice given to people who are meeting him for the first time about what and
what not to say. There are descriptions of swastikas all over the place and
cheering crowds. Reading it is a terrifying experience because I don't feel
like I'm reading about 1938 at all. I feel like I'm reading about the present
as prelude to a not so distant future.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Monday, January 14, 2019 10:29 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] U.S. Senate’s First Bill, in
the Midst of the Shutdown, Is a Bipartisan Defense of the Israeli Government
From Boycotts
We are living in disgusting times.
Carol Burnett had a skit on her TV show called, "As the Stomach Turns". This
title is the most appropriate one I've seen, covering our present political
tangle.
Carl Jarvis
On 1/12/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
What is important in this story, and was not reported anywhere else,
is that the House, with its new Democratic majority, described as
progressive, had precisely the same bill as the Republic Senate as its
first order of business. This is a bi-partisan bill to prevent people
from boycotting Israeli products from the Occupied Territories, and
was blocked by the Democrats only, to show disapproval of Trump's government
shutdown.
Miriam
U.S. Senate’s First Bill, in the Midst of the Shutdown, Is a
Bipartisan Defense of the Israeli Government From Boycotts
Ryan Grim, Glenn Greenwald
January 5 2019, 4:09 p.m.
Chuck Schumer speaking at the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington,
D.C., on March 5, 2018. Photo: Sipa USA via AP
When each new Congress is gaveled into session, the chambers attach
symbolic importance to the first piece of legislation to be
considered. For that reason, it bears the lofty designation of H.R.1
in the House and S.1 in the Senate.
In the newly controlled Democratic House, H.R.1 — meant to signal the
new majority’s priorities — is an anti-corruption bill that combines
election and campaign finance reform, strengthening of voting rights,
and matching public funds for small-dollar candidates. In the 2017
Senate, the GOP-controlled S.1 was a bill, called the “Tax Cuts and
Jobs Act,” that, among other provisions, cut various forms of corporate taxes.
But in the 2019 GOP-controlled Senate, the first bill to be considered
— S.1 — is not designed to protect American workers, bolster U.S.
companies, or address the various debates over border security and
immigration. It’s not a bill to open the government. Instead,
according to multiple sources involved in the legislative process, S.1
will be a compendium containing a handful of foreign policy-related
measures, the main one of which is a provision — with Florida’s GOP
Sen. Marco Rubio as a lead sponsor — to defend the Israeli government.
The bill is a top legislative priority for the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee.
In the previous Congress, that measure was known as S.170, and it
gives state and local governments explicit legal authority to boycott any U.S.
companies which themselves are participating in a boycott against
Israel. As The Intercept reported last month, 26 states now have
enacted some version of a law to punish or otherwise sanction entities
that participate in or support the boycott of Israel, while similar
laws are pending in at least 13 additional states. Rubio’s bill is
designed to strengthen the legal basis to defend those Israel-protecting laws
from constitutional challenge.
Punishment aimed at companies that choose to boycott Israel can also
sweep up individual American citizens in its punitive net because
individual contractors often work for state or local governments under
the auspices of a sole proprietorship or some other business entity.
That was the case with Texas elementary school speech pathologist
Bahia Amawi, who lost her job working with autistic and
speech-impaired children in Austin because she refused to promise not
to boycott goods produced in Israel and/or illegal Israeli settlements.
Thus far, the two federal courts that have ruled on such bills have
declared them to be unconstitutional violations of the First Amendment
speech rights of American citizens. “A restriction of one’s ability to
participate in collective calls to oppose Israel unquestionably
burdens the protected expression of companies wishing to engage in
such a boycott,” U.S. District Court Judge Diane Humetewa of Arizona
wrote in her decision issuing a preliminary injunction against the law
in a case brought last September by the American Civil Liberties Union
on behalf of “an attorney who has contracted with the state for the
last 12 years to provide legal services on behalf of incarcerated
individuals,” but lost his contract to do so after he refused to sign an oath
pledging not to boycott Israel.
A similar ruling was issued in January of last year by a Kansas
federal judge, who ruled that state’s Israel oath law unconstitutional
on the ground that “the Supreme Court has held that the First
Amendment protects the right to participate in a boycott like the one
punished by the Kansas law.” In that case, a Mennonite who was a
longtime public school teacher lost her independent contract as a
school curriculum developer after she followed her church’s decision
to boycott goods from Israeli companies in the occupied West Bank and thus,
refused to sign the oath required by Kansas law.
These are the Israel-defending, free speech-punishing laws that
Rubio’s bill is designed to strengthen. Although Rubio is the chief
sponsor, his bill attracted broad bipartisan support, as is true of
most bills designed to protect Israel and supported by AIPAC. Rubio’s
bill last Congress was co-sponsored by several Democrats who are still
in the Senate: Bob Menendez of New Jersey, Joe Manchin of West
Virginia, Ben Cardin of Maryland, Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Gary Peters and
Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.
The support among Democrats for bills that would punish supporters of
the Boycott Israel movement is now particularly awkward given that two
of the most prominent newly elected Democratic members — Ilhan Omar of
Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, the first two Muslim women in
Congress — are both supporters of that Israel boycott.
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Last year, Cardin introduced a bill that would have criminalized
participation in international boycotts of Israel, and it was on the
verge of passing with significant bipartisan support until the ACLU
sounded the alarm on how gravely unconstitutional that bill was. Once
The Intercept reported on the mechanics of the bill and the covert
effort to enact it with little attention, numerous Democratic senators
announced that they were reconsidering their support, stalling the
bill’s enactment. Though Cardin attempted to pass a watered-down
version in the lame-duck session, it is now Rubio’s Israel-defending bill
that has taken center stage even as the U.S.
government is in the midst of a shutdown for American citizens.
That the newly elected U.S. Congress would choose to prioritize
protection of this foreign nation — at the expense of the
constitutional rights of American citizens and over countless bills
that would help Americans — was only one of the stinging criticisms
voiced to The Intercept by ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel Kathleen Ruane:
In the midst of a partial government shutdown, Democratic and
Republican senators have decided that one of their first orders of
business next week should be to sneak through a bill that would weaken
Americans’ First Amendment protections. The bill, Combatting BDS Act,
encourages states to adopt the very same anti-boycott laws that two
federal courts blocked on First Amendment grounds. The legislation,
like the unconstitutional state anti-boycott laws it condones, sends a
message to Americans that they will be penalized if they dare to
disagree with their government. We therefore urge senators to vote no on the
Combatting BDS Act next week.
With the seven Democratic co-sponsors, the bill would have the 60
votes it needs to overcome a filibuster. Senate Minority Leader Chuck
Schumer, D-N.Y.
— who supported Cardin’s far more draconian bill of last year and is
one of the Senate’s most reliable AIPAC loyalists — also plans to
support the Rubio bill, rather than whip votes against it, sources working on
the bill said.
Schumer’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
If the bill does pass the Senate, the major question will be whether
the Democratic House — now led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a longtime
Israel advocate but also as a supporter of the First Amendment — takes
it up and passes it into law.