+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Non citizens - do they vote?
And:
When everything else fails blame it on racism. (See 1 and 1a below.)
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Melanie Phillips is one of my favorites. (See 2 below.)
And More on the Gaza rift. (See 2a below.)
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Dick
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1)Do non-citizens vote in U.S. elections?
Jesse T. Richman, Gulshan A. Chattha, and David C.Earnest
Abstract
In spite of substantial public controversy, very little reliable data exists
concerning the frequency with which non-citizen immigrants participate in
United States elections. Although such participation is a violation of
election laws in most parts of the United States, enforcement depends
principally on disclosure of citizenship status at the time of voter
registration. This study examines participation rates by non-citizens using
a nationally representative sample that includes non-citizen immigrants. We
find that some non-citizens participate in U.S. elections, and that this
participation has been large enough to change meaningful election outcomes
including Electoral College votes, and Congressional elections. Non-citizen
votes likely gave Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome
filibusters in order to pass health care reform and other Obama
administration priorities in the 111th Congress.
The full article is behind the usual paywall, but I have managed to get the
whole thing. And surprise, surprise, the authors conclude that illegal votes
by non-citizens heavily favor Democrats, as this chart from the study shows:
Based on survey samples of 32,000 voters in 2008 and 55,000 voters in 2010,
the authors among other things find:
* It is likely though by no means certain that John McCain would have won
North Carolina were it not for the votes for Obama cast by non-citizens.
* A similar analysis reveals that there was one House race and one Senate
race during the 2008 and 2010 election cycles which were close enough for
votes by non-citizens to potentially account for the entirety of the
Democratic victor's margin. As before this analysis merges Census estimates
of the number of adult non-citizens by House district and State with FEC
tabulations of final election results. In 2008 there were 22 House races and
two Senate races in which the Democratic candidate's winning margin was
small enough that less than 100 percent turnout among non-citizens could
account for Democratic victory, and in 2010 there were 24 such House
districts and three Senate races.
* The MN 2008 Senate race is also the race where the smallest portion of
non-citizen votes would have tipped the balance-participation by more than
0.65% of non-citizens in MN is sufficient to account for the entirety of
Franken's margin. Our best guess is that nearly ten times as many voted.
One interesting additional conclusion is that voter ID laws might not make
that much difference:
Our results also suggest that photo-identification requirements are unlikely
to be effective at preventing electoral participation by non-citizen
immigrants: In 2008, more than two thirds of non-citizen immigrants who
indicated that they were asked to show photo- identification reported that
they went on to cast a vote.
The study estimates that as much as 15 percent of non-citizens living in the
U.S. voted in 2008, but only 3 percent in 2010. I wonder what the numbers
look like this year, especially in Arizona, Florida, and Georgia. We have
work to do.
1a)
The Georgia Governor's Race Concludes. Brian Kemp Still Wins.
Barring unforeseen court orders, the Secretary of State in Georgia will certify the race for Governor at 5:00pm today. Brian Kemp will officially be Governor-elect.
There are between 800 and 2500 absentee ballots that will be reviewed against by various counties today. Most of them have actually already been reviewed and either processed or rejected for failure to comply with identity and signature requirements. Stacey Abrams needs 17,594 more votes to get into a runoff. The votes are not there.
A federal judge has ordered Georgia to review its 27,000 rejected provisional ballots to see if any more of those could be counted, but that review is done now as well. A separate federal judge has already ordered...
Read More:
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2)
The distracted obsessions of progressive American Jews
They accuse President Trump of sowing social division, hatred and anti-Semitism. They can’t see that that they are themselves effectively enabling social division, hatred and anti-Semitism by their spurious equivalence, tunnel vision and outright double standards.
Having spent the past week or so in Los Angeles, I have been struck once again by the deep anxiety in the American Jewish community over the intensifying demonization of Israel on campus and over self-styled progressive Jews.
I have also been exposed to the even more intense divisions within that community over President Donald Trump. One of the most bizarre conceits among those who hate him is that he’s an anti-Semite, or at the very least knowingly encourages anti-Semites.
A guest of the Hanukkah celebration at the White House last year told me he had the opportunity to observe the president up close.
Surrounded by Jewish friends and Republican colleagues, Trump said proudly when his family arrived: “Here are my Jewish grandchildren.” It was simply inconceivable, said my informant, that anyone could seriously believe there was an anti-Semitic bone in his body.
For those who hate him, however, it’s as if all the evils and problems in the world are somehow his fault. It’s not simply a question of loathing his uncouthness or finding his personality objectionable. He has become their obsession. He occupies their every waking thought. He is their personal demon.
The same people, however, are overwhelmingly silent about the anti-Semites and Israel-bashers in the Democratic Party, more of whom have been elected to Congress in the mid-terms.
There’s silence from such quarters over Ilhan Omar, elected in Minnesota and who has said: “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”
Silence over Rashida Tlaib, elected for a Michigan seat and who, asked if she would vote against military aid to Israel, replied: “Absolutely … I will be using my position in Congress so that no country, not one, should be able to get aid from the U.S. when they still promote that kind of injustice.”
Silence, too, over Women’s March leaders Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour, despite their support for Louis Farrakhan who raves about “satanic” Jews.
This evacuation of morality over American politics has echoes of the way Israel itself is treated: demonized by falsehoods and distortion while Palestinian depravity and anti-Semitism are ignored or even sanitized.
The issues of Trump and Israel intersect among many progressive Jews in a further distressing way.
They hate Trump also for his decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, which they think has somehow prevented peace in our time in the Middle East. And they hate Israel even more because Israel regards Trump as a true friend—not least because he moved the embassy to Jerusalem.
So Trump, himself toxified through an unhinged thought process which casts him as an enabler of anti-Semitism, is therefore in turn toxifying Israel in the eyes of progressive Jews—and all because he’s actually so philo-Semitic, one of the most pro-Israel presidents in American history.
Just how crazy is this?
Meanwhile, the problem remains how to combat BDS on campus. This weekend, despite an outcry, a conference is taking place at UCLA held by National Students for Justice in Palestine.
NSJP has a record not only of advocating Israel’s eventual destruction and supporting pro-terrorism figures, but also bullying and intimidating pro-Israel and Jewish students with vicious and sometimes anti-Semitic rhetoric and even physical violence.
Yet UCLA Chancellor Gene Block has refused to cancel the conference on the basis that all forms of speech must be permitted on campus.
He has acknowledged that anti-Israel statements can turn into “hostility against the Jewish people.” However, he said, NSJP still had a legal right to host its conference even if this was “infused with anti-Semitic rhetoric.”
“Ultimately,” he wrote, “we must combat speech that is distasteful with more and better speech.”
Would he say the same if, say, David Duke or the Aryan Nations group wanted to speak on campus? Of course not; these would rightly be seen as contributing nothing to rational debate but posing instead a threat to minority students.
To put it another way, despite expressing concern about NSJP Block is implicitly accepting there is some validity in what they say. But since he accepts their discourse is “infused with anti-Semitic rhetoric,” he should consider no part of that discourse to be acceptable. He writes of “democracy’s commitment to open debate.” He therefore appears to believe that democracy has a commitment to permit anti-Semitism.
As Judea Pearl, professor of computer science at UCLA and father of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, wrote to the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles: “This is ‘viewpoint neutrality’ UCLA style.” He continued:
“When xenophobic Milo Yiannopoulos requested to speak at UCLA [he was invited by Republican students last February to speak on ‘Ten things I hate about Mexico’] Chancellor Block wrote (paraphrased): I can’t stop you legally but be aware, you are not exactly welcome on this campus, you are in fact disgusting, your values clash with ours.
“When antisemitic-Zionophobic NSJP requested to speak at UCLA, Chancellor Block wrote (paraphrased): I can’t stop you legally, but I won’t stop you even if I could, here’s why, here’s why, here’s why.”
Even Los Angeles City Council unanimously called on UCLA to cancel the conference, with one member telling Block he was “shocked and disappointed” that it was allowing it to occur.
Yet the response by both Hillel and the Anti-Defamation League echoed Block’s feebleness. UCLA Hillel Director Aaron Lerner said: “The Chancellor has made his voice heard, and confirmed his opposition to BDS. That’s a win.”
You wonder what Lerner would consider a loss. As for the ADL, it said it was “deeply concerned about the potential impact the SJP conference might have on the campus climate at UCLA,” and “on the safety and security of all students on campus.”
It called upon the university to ensure “that all UCLA communities are treated with respect, free from vilification and harassment, and to continue to denounce messages coming from SJP that are to the contrary.”
But allowing the NSJP to spread their poison on campus makes all students unsafe. Despite acknowledging this, though, the ADL accepts their right to do so.
Free speech is not an absolute right. It must be limited if it incites harm. Promoting Jew-hatred causes harm.
Yet like other campuses, UCLA permits this while kowtowing to those who want to silence free speech on the grounds of merely sparing people’s feelings—as in the troubling dismissal of conservative communication-studies lecturer Keith Fink, who had expressed robust views critical of UCLA on, of all issues, freedom of speech.
Progressive Jews and others accuse President Trump of sowing social division, hatred and anti-Semitism. They can’t see that that they are themselves effectively enabling social division, hatred and anti-Semitism by their spurious equivalence, tunnel vision and outright double standards.
The more they scream about Trump, the more they create an alibi for that very same ugliness in their own souls. And that, of course, is precisely what anti-Semites do to the Jews and to Israel.
Melanie Phillips, a British journalist, broadcaster and author, writes a column for JNS every two weeks. Currently a columnist for “The Times of London,” her personal and political memoir, “Guardian Angel,” has been published by Bombardier, which has also published her first novel, “The Legacy,” released in April. Her work can be found at her website, www.melaniephillips.com.
2a)
Lieberman’s sudden resignation exposes deep rift over Gaza strategy
Benny Miller, professor of international relations at the University of Haifa, said “this is a classic case of tension between the view of the professional security chiefs, supported by the prime minister, and public sentiments, supported by the defense minister, following a bombing of civilian population by a hostile force.”
For several weeks, outgoing Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman had made his dissatisfaction with Israel’s approach to Hamas in Gaza public—very public.
Assuming the position of the internal dissenter, Lieberman made it clear that his call for the use of decisive military force was being rejected by the diplomatic security cabinet. In addition, his assessment was that attempts to reach a more stable arrangement with Hamas are futile.
But it wasn’t just the cabinet that rejected Lieberman’s propositions. It was also, reportedly, the senior command of the Israel Defense Forces, which didn’t see the Gazan challenge eye to eye with Lieberman. While the IDF has drawn up detailed plans on how to defeat Hamas, it is not rushing to activate them, due to major concerns regarding who would take over running Gaza’s 2 million people, among a host of other issues.
On Wednesday, after Israel reached an unpopular truce with Hamas that ended a brief yet highly intense round of combat, Lieberman announced his resignation.
“The question is, why now? From my perspective, what happened yesterday, the ceasefire yesterday, combined with the whole arrangement process with Hamas is a surrender to terrorism. There is no other definition or significance. We as a country are buying quiet in the short term in exchange for severe harm to national security in long term,” Lieberman said during a dramatic press conference.
He described clashing last month with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu over allowing Qatari fuel into Gaza—one of several steps Israel took to try and stabilize the Gazan arena, prevent an economic collapse and delay the outbreak of war.
For Lieberman, the breaking point came when Israel allowed Qatar to transfer suitcases filled with $15 million as payment for Hamas’s civilian government. “Those who say the money is being supervised are not being accurate,” he said. The truce with Hamas and Israel’s military responses were, “to put it lightly, inadequate, and I could not accept it,” he explained.
Lieberman dismissed comments by Netanyahu, who said that classified information relating to Israel’s strategic-security situation played a decisive role in the truce.
“I know all of the excuses and reasons, all of the intelligence. There is always something [going on] in the north and south, east and west. Near circles and distant circles. It is all excuses,” said Lieberman. “We had to first of all finish the story in the south. That comes first. The weakness we exhibited will certainly project to other arenas.”
With that, Lieberman left his post, creating political upheaval and destabilizing the ruling coalition in Israel—something that Hamas has celebrated as an achievement.
The more important front: the north
Analysts had mixed responses to Lieberman’s moves.
Professor Eyal Zisser, chair in contemporary history of the Middle East in the Middle East History Department at Tel Aviv University, expressed deep skepticism over taking Lieberman’s comments at face value.
“I do not accept Lieberman’s explanations,” he told JNS. “To my understanding, he resigned due to political reasons—the desire to be depicted as strong to his voters,” said Zisser. “One can decide to drop a thousand tons of bombs on Gaza and not a hundred, but in the end, we will reach the same point that we are in today.”
Israel’s aversion to reinvading Gaza is the main factor in its dealings with Hamas, Zisser argued, saying, “It all starts and finishes here.” In addition, Israel is seeking to avoid damaging itself in international public opinion, according to Zisser.
As a result of these factors, “the government did not rush into a conflict, but preferred an arrangement and a truce,” he added. “I don’t think Hamas views Israel as weak, but at the propaganda level, they are certainly exploiting this. So the issue is not real deterrence, but the image in Israeli and Gazan public opinions.”
Nevertheless, Zisser agreed with the idea that linking considerations regarding other strategic arenas, like Syria and Lebanon, to the Gazan situation, is “a little shallow,” describing it “mainly as an excuse for those who, from the beginning, do not want to act in Gaza.”
Benny Miller, professor of international relations at the University of Haifa, said “this is a classic case of tension between the view of the professional security chiefs, supported by the prime minister, and public sentiments, supported by the defense minister, following a bombing of civilian population by a hostile force.”
The defense chiefs are driven by a number of considerations, such as the lack of real utility in a military operation in Gaza, said Miller.
“It will not change the current situation much,” he assessed, though such an operation could bring with it considerable costs. He also expressed doubts about the Israeli public’s ability to “tolerate high levels of casualties in a land operation in Gaza.”
In addition, he said, the involvement of Egypt and Qatar in arranging the ceasefire will increase its chances of holding, “at least for a while.”
Miller viewed the linkage of other arenas as a relevant factor, stating that “the more important front—from a strategic perspective—is the northern front.”
In Lebanon, Hezbollah has amassed an arsenal of surface-to-surface projectiles, estimated at between 120,000 to 150,000, which is larger than that of most NATO militaries. According to Israeli assessments, it is also working to build underground factories for turning rockets into guided missiles in Beirut. Hezbollah has also gained extensive combat experience in Syria, learning how to launch large raids, and coordinate firepower – experience it could employ in any potential future conflict with Israel. In neighboring Syria, Iran continues to try and create weapons production sites and attack bases, and to mobilize Shi’ite militias under its control in a manner that threatens Israel.
As such, Miller noted, “Israel should avoid a two-front war.”
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