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| Kaine calls for further state budget cuts |
Virginia’s budget belt needs to be pulled a little tighter
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budget, kaine, cuts, state |
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How effective is Obama’s Palestine policy?
I have been among the many criticizing Obama for moving WAYS too slowly on Arab-Israeli and specifically Palestinian-Israeli peacemaking. However, evidence is now emerging that his "slow and steady" approach is bearing some significant fruit: Item #1: Marc Lynch, just back from a quick trip to Israel and the West Bank, blogged this last night:
without much publicity Obama's pressure has already started generating some important results on the ground -- not just Netanyahu's carefully hedged uttering of an emasculated two state formula, but the significant easing of checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank... That Israel has quietly made significant changes to the checkpoints in the last few weeks -- after ignoring six years worth of Road Map commitments, snubbing Tony Blair and the Quartet's persistent demands, dismissing the recommendations of the World Bank and other international development agencies, and greatly expanding them even while negotiating during the Annapolis process -- suggests that Obama's tough love approach has actually been the only one able to achieve real results.
Item #2: On Tuesday, JTA reported this:
According to the survey of 800 registered [U.S.] voters, which was conducted June 9-11 by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, those who believe Israel is committed to peace has dropped to 46 percent this month from 66 percent last December. The poll found that some 49 percent of American voters call themselves supporters of Israel, down from 69 percent last September, and only about 44 percent of voters believe the United States should support Israel -- down from 71 percent a year ago .
Item #3: Rep. William Delahunt's "Sense of the House" bill that spells out support for a two-state solution and for George Mitchell's peace mission, now has 105 co-sponsors , reflecting the success of the campaign that the White House and several pro-peace organizations have undertaken to slowly and steadily build congressional support for thse positions. These are all key pieces of evidence that Obama's strategy is working... Though it has until now been, as I said, a painstakingly slow one. I completely recognize that the removal of, actually, just a handful of the roadblocks with which the Israeli occupation stifles normal life, including normal economic life, in the West Bank is a thin 'achievement' indeed. (The PDF of the UN-OCHA's latest weekly update on the situation is here .) Also, steps like that or, for example, an increase in the number or types of goods Israel allows into Gaza each week, are incredibly easy to reverse. We can recall, too, what the cocky Likudnik strategic thinker Efraim Inbar told me about what he expected from Obama when I spoke with him back in March:
"The Americans may push us some, so we’ll remove one or two outposts or one or two roadblocks. We’ll play with the Americans.”
And meantime, the occupation as a whole grinds on and on and on... and so does Israel's expropriation of additional amounts of Palestinian land, its construction of additional blocks of settler-only housing, and its continued maintenance of military law over the 2.3 million Palestinians of the West Bank and of a punishingly tight siege against the 1.5 million Palestinians of Gaza... It is that big problem of the occupation that Obama has set himself to tackle. And so far he's taken only baby steps toward doing so. But here's the important thing: In taking those baby steps and in presenting the Palestinian-Israeli issue in the way he has to the US public and Congress, Obama has actually succeeded in building up, rather than diminishing, the support his approach in the US public and Congress. That is unprecedented for US Presidents trying to move towards a more even-handed Arab-Israeli peace policy. One of my friends who works this issue intensely reports that Sen. Mitchell has actually spent just as much time "working" key members of Congress on the issues as he has doing fact-finding in the Middle East. However, I don't think anyone in or out of the administration judges that "just" getting a few more West Bank roadblocks removed, or a few settlement outposts theatrically "demolished" (only to be re-erected someplace else the very next day, as has often happened in the past), or "just" getting the Israeli military's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) to add beans into the "diet" of the Gazans this week, or potatoes next week, or whatever, is going to solve this problem. Everyone understands this is above all a political/diplomatic problem; and if Obama and Mitchell don't take some significant steps at the level of authoritative diplomatic engagement pretty soon, then the whole, still perilously fragile balance in the Arab-Israeli region could still, oh so easily, explode. That, at a time when the US military is working overtime to finetune the modalities of a safe exit from Iraq , the situation in Iran remains extremely murky, and NATO's entire situation in Afghanistan/Pakistan is poised on a logistical knife-edge. So the actions Obama and Co. have taken until now-- expressing a firm stand on Israeli settlement construction (though not, actually, doing anything yet to hold Israel accountable on that score), and expressing a firm stand on opening up the crossings into Gaza (again, without any actions to implement it)-- are in a sense an overture to the main, that is diplomatic, act that should, and I believe will, follow. They have also served to both test and prepare public opinion in both the US and Israel for the main act. (And the results of that 'testing' would, I think, encourage them to move ahead even more boldly.) But when will they make the big diplomatic move? Nobody knows. This team has proven incredibly good at holding its cards close to its chest. It's also good at using a little tactical deception when it wants to. For example, until today, nobody has a clue whether Dennis Ross's latest move-- over to the National Security Council, from the State Department, is a move up, sideways or into some form of bureaucratic sidelining. As Politico's usually very well-informed Ben Smith writes : "As for how much influence he'll have, we'll have to wait and see." For my part, I believe Ross will now come more effectively than before under the command of General Jim Jones, who runs a tight ship on the NSC. But as Smith says, we'll have to wait and see.
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‘White’ settler power structure digging in
... and yes, this is Arizona, USA I'm talking about: the state that recently passed a law mandating its police to check the immigration status of anyone they judge just might be an undocumented immigrant, and that this week passed one prohibiting the teaching of any "ethnic" (read Mexican-American) studies in state classrooms. Hey, it's starting to sound just like Israel down there... The WaPo's Gene Robinson (an African-American and a strong supporter of civil rights for all Americans) wrote today that the new law was designed as "a weapon against a program in Tucson that teaches Mexican American students about their history and culture." He goes on:
The education bill begins with a bizarre piece of nonsense, making it illegal for public or charter schools to offer courses that "promote the overthrow of the United States government." Then it shifts from weird to offensive, prohibiting classes that "promote resentment toward a race or class of people," that "are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group," and that "advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals." When you try to parse those words, the effect is chilling. Is it permissible, under the new law, to teach basic history? More than half the students in the Tucson Unified School District are Latino, the great majority of them Mexican American. The land that is now Arizona once belonged to Mexico. Might teaching that fact "promote resentment" among students of Mexican descent? What about a class that taught students how activists fought to end discrimination against Latinos in Arizona and other Western states? Would that illegally encourage students to resent the way their parents and grandparents were treated? The legislation has an answer: Mexican American students, it seems, should not be taught to be proud of their heritage.
It really does sound just like Israel's law prohibiting commemoration or study of the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe). Like the Palestinian citizens of Israel, 'Mexican'-Americans in Arizona and a broad swathe of other southern and western states are the remnants of the populations who were there long before the 'white' (Anglo) settler colonists and ranchers moved in. Here are a couple of interesting aspects of the Arizona situation. First, many institutions and bodies-- even city governments-- from all around the rest of the U.S. reacted to Arizona's anti-'Mexican' measures by rapidly announcing an economic boycott of the state. As Katrina Vanden Heuvel wrote today ,
This week, the Los Angeles City Council voted 13 to 1 to ban most official city travel to Arizona and to avoid future contracts with Arizonan companies. With its resolution, Los Angeles joins San Francisco and Oakland as major cities that have passed similar anti-Arizona resolutions.
That's interesting! Responding to policies you don't like by imposing an economic boycott... H'mm, it could prove catching. BDS against Israel, anyone? Second interesting thing: Here is Rabbi Marvin Hier, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, speaking out against the boycott of Arizona. Yes, that would be the same Simon Wiesenthal Center that's trying to build a so-called 'Museum of Tolerance' atop the gravestones of an ancient Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem. Plenty of other Angelenos take a view different from Hier's however. AP tells us that,
Last month, Cardinal Roger Mahony, head of the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archdiocese, said the law encourages people to turn on each other in Nazi- and Soviet-style repression. ... References to fascism also came up on Wednesday as the Los Angeles City Council voted to boycott Arizona businesses. Councilman Paul Koretz likened the law — and other Arizona laws such as one that curbs high school ethnic studies programs — to the beginnings of Nazi Germany when Jews were singled out for persecution. "We can't let this advance any further," said Koretz, who said he lost relatives in the Holocaust. "It is absolutely dangerous."
He's absolutely right.
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Kaine’s DNC travel revealed via FOIA.
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A FOIA request to the state police has been successful in teasing out Gov. Kaine’s travel schedule. He’s refused to release it, under logic that is legally sound, but basically bullshit. But since he’s always got a state-assigned bodyguard with him (as all Virginia governors have for many years), and since he’s reimbursing the state [...]
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Newsweek gives us the scoop…
... in the form of the whole (PDF) text of the "Not for distribution or publication" real Hasbara Handbook from "The Israel Project" . For anyone who's followed the various interventions of Israel's ever-eager army of international hasbaristas (propagandists) here or elsewhere, the actual handbook for their efforts that's produced by TIP makes hilarious reading. My main take on the portions I've read of the 116-page tome-- full name "The Israel Project’s 2009 GLOBAL LANGUAGE DICTIONARY"-- is that the authors seem fully aware they have new challenges to face in trying to justify Israel's actions to (predominantly) a US audience. Hence, such advice as (p.7) "Don’t pretend that Israel is without mistakes or fault." Their reasoning for the advice they give on p.12 not to talk about religion is also interesting:
Americans who see the bible as their sourcebook on foreign affairs are already supporters of Israel. Religious fundamentalists are Israel’s “Amen Choir” and they make up approximately one-fourth of the American public and Israel’s strongest friends in the world. However, some of those who are most likely to believe that Israel is a religious state are most hostile towards Israel (“they’re just as extreme as those religious Arab countries they criticize”). Unfortunately, virtually any discussion of
religion will only reinforce this perception. Therefore, even the mention of the word “Jew” is many Israel contexts is going to elicit a
negative reaction—and the defense of Israel as a “Jewish State” or “Zionist State” will be received quite poorly. This may be hard for the Jewish community to accept but this is how most Americans and Europeans feel.
These people are fairly smart in the way they advise their supporters to work to bend the public discourse in a pro-Israel direction. Anyway, big thanks to the friends at Newsweek who brought us this gem.
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Bolling, Wagner spar on finances
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Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, running for re-election, is blaming Democratic challenger Jody Wagner, a former state finance secretary, for Virginia’s budget woes.
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I want my MTV: Borderline
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This week starts a new thing I’ve been wanting to do — a weekly look at some of my favorite videos from the 80s. After all, this era gave us some doozies, not to mention that it was back when the videos tended to be big budget (all that hair spray and eye makeup) and [...]
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