Munch on this!
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WINNERS AND LOSERS
This week was energy week in the House of Representatives, and President Biden celebrated by doing what he does best – taking consumer choice away from the American people.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a reckless new tailpipe emissions rule, which mandates that 67 percent of all new vehicles be electric by 2032. Here we have an administration that is looking to eliminate gas powered vehicles in eight short years, meaning a lot of Americans will be forced to purchase a more expensive car just because the left wants them to.
Let’s be clear about what this is: it is a plan to eliminate your gas-powered vehicle. What this administration doesn’t understand is that, for most Americans, an electric vehicle (EV) is a luxury good. Not only is it expensive and less reliable than a gas-powered vehicle, but it’s also impractical in many areas. For people who live in rural areas, which includes many people right here in GA-01, the infrastructure for charging EVs simply doesn’t exist. Even urban areas are struggling to keep up; in 2022, California had to ask EV owners not to charge their vehicles to conserve energy, just days after banning the sale of new gas-powered vehicles.
If you want an EV, you should be able to purchase one. I’m very excited about the new EV battery plant coming to our district and believe that there is a huge market for the services it will provide. EVs are good for some, but consumer choice is great for all.
Instead of picking winners and losers, this administration should be focused on unleashing American manufacturing and reforming the permitting process so more clean energy can be produced right here in the United States. If we don’t, then we are ceding our energy leadership to China, which will undoubtedly abuse this power and continue to increase its emissions.
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The 170th Day of Israel’s War Against Hamas
By Sherwin Pomerantz
Today, the 170th day of War in Israel is also the holiday of Purim which celebrates the deliverance of the Jews of Persia (read: Iran) from the attempt to obliterate us there two millennia ago. In many respects the holiday this year is sort of reliving that story once more with some of the same characters in place. As the saying goes, the more things change the more they stay the same.
China and Russia vetoed a U.S.-drafted resolution at the U.N. Security Council on Friday morning, saying the text didn’t go far enough in calling for a ceasefire in the war against Hamas in Gaza. Washington’s resolution, which underwent six drafts, states that an immediate, sustained ceasefire is “imperative” and “towards that end, unequivocally supports ongoing international diplomatic efforts to secure such a ceasefire in connection with the release of all remaining hostages.”
“The American resolution—should it have passed—would have marked a moment of morality for the U.N., a place where good is evil, and justice is injustice,” Gilad Erdan, the Israeli ambassador to the global body, stated after the vote. “It would have been the very first time that this council—or any U.N. body—condemned Hamas and their brutal massacre. Sadly, for purely political reasons, this resolution did not pass, and terrorists can continue benefiting from this council whitewashing their crimes,” he added.
Frankly, Erdan’s comment is a bit puzzling as the wording of the resolution does not specifically link a cease fire to a hostage release, but simply says it supports that concept.
An Israeli delegation to Qatar has agreed to a new hostage release proposal and may consider a ceasefire if Hamas leaders leave Gaza permanently, according to a report on Israel’s Kan Radio Network. The latest iteration of the framework hostage deal would secure the release of women, elderly, and wounded hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners during a 6-week ceasefire. The bone of contention was over the number of Palestinian prisoners Israel would have to free for every hostage. Hamas at first demanded the release of 30 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for every female soldier, but after an objection from Israel, the United States requested that the number be lowered to 5, a compromise Israel agreed to. The Israeli delegation said it was also willing to discuss the return of 2,000 Palestinians to northern Gaza, according to Channel 12 news. According to Al Jazeera, Israel also demanded the release of the bodies of Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul. amas may take several days before giving its answers
The US House of Representatives narrowly passed the “minibus” spending package that combines six appropriations bills, with billions in funding for Israel and other projects supported by US Jewish groups. The $1.2 trillion package, which passed 286-134 on Friday, funds the U.S. Departments of Defense, State and Homeland Security. The bill, which heads to the U.S. Senate next, includes several pro-Israel measures, including $3.3 billion in foreign military financing for Israel; $500 million for U.S.-Israel missile-defense cooperation; and $87.5 million in U.S.-Israel counter-drone and anti-tunneling cooperation. The bill forbids U.S. funding to the U.N.’s Palestinian aid agency UNRWA in the wake of Israeli allegations that agency staffers participated in the Oct. 7 attacks and that a substantial percentage of UNRWA employees are members of Hamas. The bill was passed by the US Senate on Friday night and then signed by President Biden.
Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.) called the legislation “the most pro-Israel State and Foreign Operations bill that we have ever seen.”
To my Jewish recipients, Happy Purim, Purim Sameach, and to those living in Jerusalem where the observance is delayed for a day (applies to walled cities only) enjoy the holiday tonight and tomorrow as well.
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Could a Brokered Convention Replace President Biden?
Both parties prefer it when their conventions are free of genuine political drama. But in a unique election year, there are historical precedents for even the unlikeliest scenarios.
By Edward Achorn
Every four years, the golden dream reappears of a return to a brokered political convention, with all the thrilling drama that a genuine battle for presidential power entails.
This year, the talk revolves around 81-year-old Joe Biden. As his enemies post viral videos of the president’s shuffling gait and sometimes confused syntax, a March 2 New York Times/Siena College poll found that 73% of all registered voters believe Biden is too old to be effective. Though he was the greatest vote-getter in American history in 2020, the president is struggling in many polls and fending off Republican charges of serial corruption.
What would happen if Democrats were forced to pull the plug on President Biden? Might the delegates choose a different standard-bearer in an open fight at the Democratic National Convention, starting on Aug. 19 in Chicago?
The classic example of a brokered convention took place in that very city 164 years ago, when Republicans got the willies about their front-runner, a U.S. senator and former New York governor named William Seward. Though Seward had loads of experience, piles of political money and the support of the Republican base, his strident anti-slavery talk and support for immigrants scared many party professionals, who worried he would turn off swing voters. Still, after days of casting about for an alternative with little success, delegates were on the brink of nominating Seward.
On the eve of the voting, however, a cadre of Illinois men, led by a circuit court judge named David Davis, promised cabinet positions and other public offices in exchange for support for Abraham Lincoln, who had lost two runs for the U.S. Senate and had not held public office for more than a decade. Candidates did not attend conventions in those days, but Lincoln had warned his team to make no deals in his name. “Lincoln ain’t here, and don’t know what we have to meet,” Davis said. The bargains were struck.
Though Lincoln was at least as determined a foe of slavery as Seward and shared his support for immigrants, he was far less known and thus not as scary to crucial swing voters. And his inspiring story of lifting himself from abject poverty played into the intensely democratic zeitgeist of the northern states in 1860.
Though the delegates acted with supreme self-interest—choosing a standard-bearer almost entirely on the basis of who would attract the most votes and provide the party with the most public jobs to fill—they ended up nominating one of America’s greatest presidents, if not the greatest. Lincoln proved to be uniquely qualified to save the nation in its darkest hour, winning the Civil War and eradicating slavery.
More recent brokered conventions have proved less salubrious. In another Chicago gathering in 1968, Democrats grappled with the decision of the incumbent president, Lyndon Johnson, to bail out. While delegates coalesced around Vice President Hubert Humphrey, fierce antiwar protests erupted outside and were met with brute police force. The chaos the public associated with Democrats helped Republican Richard Nixon to win narrowly in November.
Four years later, a struggle over slates of delegates at the 1972 Democratic convention in Miami Beach exposed deep divisions in the party between organized labor and reformers. A protracted squabble over the vice presidential nomination delayed presidential nominee George McGovern’s acceptance speech until 2:48 a.m., long after most of the TV audience had gone to bed. And McGovern’s choice of Thomas Eagleton as his running mate proved to be a disaster, forcing Democratic Party leaders to later switch him out for Sargent Shriver. McGovern lost to President Nixon in a landslide.
Sobered by that catastrophe, leaders of both parties have since drained all the drama from their conventions, turning them into little more than tightly scripted infomercials for their candidates. Though voters make choices in primaries, complicated rules dole out convention delegates in ways that give substantial power to party leaders. Particularly among Democrats, they apply pressure to make sure the candidate they prefer wins the nomination.
Could that approach change this year, given President Biden’s troubles? Could, say, popular former first lady Michelle Obama duke it out in Chicago with highly articulate California Gov. Gavin Newsom?
Doubtful. For starters, Democratic strategists seem to believe that abandoning their president this late in the game would be a disaster for the party, shaking public confidence in the Democrats’ competence. And if the party replaced Biden with someone other than Vice President Kamala Harris, it might offend minority voters crucial to the Democrats’ chances in any election.
With hopes of saving Biden, Democratic leaders and their media allies have launched a messaging operation to insist that the president is sharp, energetic and astonishingly youthful for his age. The urgency began after special counsel Robert Hur declined to prosecute Biden for mishandling classified documents, concluding that he was a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Gov. Newsom, positioning himself for a future presidential run, has gone with the flow, carefully praising the president’s vigor and intellectual acuity. Friends of Michelle Obama, meanwhile, have spoken about her dislike of politics, saying it is highly improbable she would step into the fray.
Were President Biden to step aside, delegates would be free to choose another candidate at the convention. The winner, under party rules, would need 50% of the votes plus one. But Democrats could ill afford the division and hurt feelings spawned by a convention brawl less than three months before a general election. Party leaders would surely settle on a new candidate before the convention opened, as well as a new playbook for the delegates, who tend to represent important special interests—particularly teachers unions—and are intensely loyal to the party.
What about the Republicans? Could a successful prosecution and jailing of President Trump open the door to a battle on the convention floor in Milwaukee? That seems almost impossible, given that Trump now dominates the Republican Party. His legal challenges, which he insists are politically motivated, have if anything enhanced his popularity with the base. In any event, it seems increasingly unlikely that prosecutions could be wrapped up by the start of the convention on July 15.
As Abraham Lincoln’s election shows, miracles can happen in American politics. A contested convention would be a political junkie’s ultimate high. But such a contest seems doubtful, even in this political cycle, arguably one of the strangest in American history.
Edward Achorn, a newspaper journalist for 41 years, is the author of “The Lincoln Miracle: Inside the Republican Convention That Changed History.”
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The worm squirms:
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Schumer Says criticism was to save Israel
Democrats call for new elections draws pushback from GOP, Netanyahu himself
By Lindsay Wise
To save Israel, Chuck Schumer decided, he had to denounce its leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
The 73-year-old Senate majority leader spent two months laboring over the wording of a speech he expected would rock Washington and ricochet across America’s Jewish community. He didn’t talk to people about it, other than a small group of staff and his wife. He didn’t know if the politics would help or hurt him, he said. But he said he ultimately decided it didn’t matter.
“A lot of thought and wrestling in my head: Is this the right thing to do for Israel, and for the U.S.-Israeli relationship?” the New York Democrat said in an interview. “And the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced not only that it was the right thing to do, but I wouldn’t, I couldn’t, live with myself if I didn’t do it.”
Schumer’s speech last Thursday, which called on the Israeli government to hold new elections once the Israel-Hamas war winds down, came at a volatile moment as the war roils the Democratic Party and divides American Jews. It was applauded by President Biden, and many senior Democrats have echoed Schumer’s call for a change of course in Israel, reflecting a shift in the party establishment’s tone as civilian casualties continue to mount and concerns grow that calls for Netanyahu’s government to show restraint aren’t being heeded.
While Schumer thinks he is saving Israel, critics believe he is hurting it. His speech was condemned by Republicans and the heads of some Jewish American organizations, who complained that Schumer had inappropriately intruded on a democratic ally’s domestic politics in the middle of a war, and that U.S. lawmakers shouldn’t second-guess Netanyahu’s actions.
Netanyahu rejected Schumer’s call for new elections as “totally inappropriate” and declined to commit to snap elections, saying it would constrain Israel’s ability to fight Hamas in Gaza.
Schumer said he gave the speech because he felt the policies of Netanyahu and his hard-right allies were causing an alarming decline in support for Israel in America, a trend borne out in recent polling, particularly among young voters. The message he wanted to send, he said, was that it is OK to still love Israel, even if you strongly disagree with the actions of Netanyahu and his government.
“There was almost no one who could say what I did,” said Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in U.S. history.
Schumer said his fear is that Israel could become politicized as a red-blue issue, thereby jeopardizing the broad bipartisan support the country has long enjoyed in Congress—and threatening Israel’s very existence. “That’s what motivated me—if Israel becomes a pariah state, I don’t know if it can survive,” he said.
Already the erosion of support for Israel among Democratic lawmakers can be seen in the House, where some are declining to back a $95 billion measure containing aid for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, which passed the Senate last month, over concerns about the continuing war in Gaza. Progressive activists have for months demanded a cease-fire and called for the U.S. to stop providing military aid to Israel, or to place conditions on it. Schumer said he is now focused on trying to get that aid bill passed in the House.
In the speech last week, Schumer said Netanyahu had “lost his way,” charging he had put his political survival over the best interests of Israel. He also suggested that if Netanyahu’s current coalition didn’t change course, the U.S. might have to take a more active role by using its leverage to shape Israeli policy, without offering specifics. When Schumer finished speaking after 44 minutes on the Senate floor, Sen. Peter Welch, a progressive from Vermont, gave him a hug.
Schumer said he knew his speech wouldn’t go far enough for some on the left, and would offend others on the right. He said he wasn’t speaking to them but rather to the “broad middle” that anchors U.S. support for Israel.
In the wake of the speech, “there’s been a huge sigh of relief from I think the vast majority of friends of Israel, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, most of whom disagree with Bibi’s policies,” he said, using the Israeli prime minister’s nickname.
Republicans see it differently and have leapt to Netanyahu’s defense, using Schumer’s speech to cast the Republican Party as pro-Israel and the Democratic Party as mistreating a close ally.
“Our Democratic colleagues don’t have an anti-Bibi problem. They have an anti-Israel problem,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.).
Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, said the speech showed that Schumer and other Democrats hate Israel. “Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion, they hate everything about Israel and they should be ashamed of themselves,” he said.
Schumer called Trump’s comments antisemitic and dismissed other Republicans’ criticism, saying he gave the speech precisely because he cares deeply about Israel and its long-term future.
Yair Lapid, who leads the Israeli parliamentary opposition against Netanyahu’s government, said that Schumer’s pointed words were “proof that one after the other Netanyahu is losing Israel’s biggest supporters in the U.S.” Lapid accused Netanyahu of driving the wedge “on purpose.”
The majority of Israelis polled this month by an Israeli broadcaster said they want early elections, ahead of the current government’s term ending in 2026. Elections can only be forced from within Israel’s parliament, if a sufficient number of Netanyahu’s political allies defect from their coalition.”
While Netanyahu denies any partisanship in his relations with the U.S., his own choices over the years have contributed to widespread perception that he has hewed closer to the Republican Party, alienating Democrats.
Many Democrats on Capitol Hill still resent Netanyahu’s acceptance of an invitation from then-Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) in 2015 to address Congress in opposition to the Iran nuclear deal, without coordinating with the Obama White House. More recently, he campaigned based on his personal relationship with then-President Trump. His relations with Biden are tense.
Schumer said he had warned Netanyahu years ago, in a private meeting at the U.S. Capitol, that his embrace of the Republican Party and Trump could endanger Israel.
He said he told Netanyahu that he agreed that the biggest short-term danger to Israel at the time were the rockets that Iran gave Hezbollah. But, he said, “the greatest long-term danger to Israel is if you lose half of America, either the half that’s young or the half that’s more progressive,” Schumer recalled. “So I knew this was happening. I sort of knew it before. But obviously it’s intensified after October the 7th,” when Hamas attacked Israel.
On Wednesday, Netanyahu reinforced his alignment with the GOP when he addressed Republican senators by video call at their weekly closed-door lunch. Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) said Republicans told Netanyahu that Israel “has every right to defend themselves, and he said that’s exactly what they continue to do.” Netanyahu also repeated his criticism of Schumer’s speech, calling it “wholly inappropriate and outrageous,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.).
Schumer’s office said he declined an offer by Netanyahu to speak to Democrats separately because any such briefing shouldn’t happen in a partisan manner. House Republicans have also discussed this week inviting Netanyahu to address Congress, and Schumer said he would always welcome the opportunity for the prime minister of Israel to speak to both parties in Congress. The U.S.-Israel relationship “transcends any one president or any one Prime Minister,” Schumer said in a statement Thursday.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D., Hawaii), who is Jewish, said he believes Schumer’s speech shook up Netanyahu.
“He’s not accustomed to pushback, because no one has ever really made it crystal clear like Chuck did that there’s plenty of space to be an ardent supporter of Israel and be frustrated with its leadership,” Schatz said. “And the truth is that’s how most American Jews feel, left, right and center.”
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Biden’s Dangerous Cease-Fire Game at the United Nations
The U.S. baits vetoes from Russia and China at a cost to Israel.
By The Editorial Board
The Biden Administration got what it wanted Friday at the United Nations, and Israel will pay the price. Tired of being criticized for supporting an ally, the U.S. proposed a cease-fire resolution that was anti-Israel enough to draw 11 of the Security Council’s 15 votes while still baiting Russian and Chinese vetoes.
To garner meaningless votes, the Biden Administration revised its initial resolution to introduce more daylight between the U.S. and Israel. The final U.S. draft “determines the imperative of an immediate and sustained cease-fire” to protect civilians and facilitate more aid but not necessarily to free Israeli hostages. That direct linkage was dropped from a prior draft.
Instead, the linkage comes only at a remove, in expressing support for diplomacy “to secure such a cease-fire in connection with the release of all remaining hostages.” The U.S. couldn’t “demand” the release of hostages if it wants to be popular at the U.N. In case President Biden forgot, among the 134 hostages left in Gaza are five U.S. citizens who may still be alive.
Despite all the word games, Russia and China vetoed the resolution, as all knew they would. The resolution includes several obvious poison pills for these nations, including condemnation of Hamas. The U.N., for all its posturing, won’t do that.
This allowed the U.S. Ambassador to comment right after the veto that “Russia and China still could not bring itself to condemn Hamas’s terrorist attacks on Oct. 7. Can we just pause on that for a moment?” It’s worth reflection, but at the U.N. condemning Hamas for Oct. 7 is a way of trying to draw a veto, not get a text passed.
After that veto, the Council passed a resolution demanding more delivery of humanitarian aid, with no condemnation of Hamas and no cease-fire. The U.S. and Russia abstained.
In the end, the U.S. gets a minor diplomatic win while locking in the “immediate cease-fire” wording as the starting point for future negotiations. That’s a strategic loss for Israel, which still needs to finish destroying Hamas. The Biden threat to Jerusalem of a cease-fire call without caveats has also been enhanced; the U.S. has already covered half the distance.
The larger story here is that the U.N., with its long, continuing history of hostility to Israel, is the worst venue for solving the Gaza conflict. Mr. Biden’s pressure on Israel could even harden Hamas’s resolve to reject a hostage deal, trusting that the U.S. will eventually stop Israel from finishing its Gaza campaign by clearing out Rafah even if there is no deal. In that scenario, the cease-fire would hold only until Iran decides the time is right to unleash its proxies for another strike at Israel.
Mr. Biden’s public criticism and distancing from Israel signals to other nations that they can go even further and the U.S. likely won’t oppose it. Will he condemn Canada’s grandstanding decision this week to stop selling arms to Israel? Crickets from the White House so far. The President’s fading support for Israel is a message to all American allies that the U.S. can’t be trusted if their cause runs afoul of the Democratic Party’s left wing.
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