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'Your Life Will End': As GOP's Islamophobic Attacks Continue, Rep. Ilhan Omar Shares Terrifying Reality of Death Threats
"I hate that we live in a world where you have to be protected from fellow humans. I hated it as a child living through war and I hate it now."
Aug 29, 2019
Rep. Ilhan Omar on Wednesday offered her perspective on the threats and threatening political rhetoric targeting her and her family due to her position as one of the first Muslim women in Congress.
After a reporter tweeted an image of Omar speaking at an event in Minnesota with a bodyguard standing behind her, the congresswoman tweeted that recent xenophobic language and threats, coming from anonymous senders as well as from the White House and the halls of Congress, have forced her "to accept the reality of having security."
In her tweet, Omar shared one recent example of an anonymous death threat she received in which the sender wrote that she would be killed during Congress's August recess.
"You will not be going back to Washington, your life will end before your 'vacation' ends," wrote the sender. "Quite likely it will be at the Minnesota State Fair."
Democratic leadership began reviewing Omar's security needs in April after President Donald Trump tweeted a video showing images of the 9/11 attacks intercut with Omar's comments about the treatment of Muslims in the U.S. after the attacks.
Since then, Trump and other high-level Republicans have drawn outrage as they've continued to stoke Islamophobic and anti-immigrant sentiment against Omar.
Trump said in July that Omar and three other progressive women of color in Congress should "go back" to the countries they and their families had come from. Of the four congresswomen, only Omar was actually born outside the United States--emigrating from Somalia as a refugee when she was a child.
Omar shared the anonymous death threat hours after Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore echoed Trump's words, saying the congresswoman "should go back to Somalia from whence she came."
On social media, supporters of Omar decried Republicans' tacit encouragement of the threats against her and applauded her for speaking out about the danger the president and others in the GOP have helped to place her in.
The Jewish-led group If Not Now, which condemns the Israeli occupation of Palestine, also called on government officials to denounce anti-Muslim and racist comments against Omar by public figures with the same vigor they do anti-Semitic comments.
Omar was condemned by leaders of her own party and eventually the subject of an anti-hate speech resolution passed by the U.S. House after she remarked about the indisputable financial ties the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC has with U.S. lawmakers.
As Mehdi Hasan wrote at The Intercept on Wednesday, no such response has been evident from either party or the media since Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) said in a radio interview that Omar is partially responsible for a growing lack of "respect" for the Jewish faith.
"I think it's based on the growing influence of the Islamic religion in the Democratic Party ranks," Brooks told Huntsville, Alabama station WVNN last week. "Keep in mind: Muslims more so than most people have great animosity toward Israel and the Jewish faith."
"Wow," wrote Hasan. "I have been reporting on Islamophobia in U.S. politics for more than a decade, and I honestly cannot remember coming across a more brazenly Islamophobic statement from an elected member of Congress. 'Growing influence of the Islamic religion' among Democrats? ...In an age of rising white nationalism, in which Muslims have been gunned down in mosques by domestic terrorists who believe such conspiracy theories about Islam, these remarks aren't just offensive, they're downright dangerous."
And yet Brooks' remarks received "virtually no coverage" in the mainstream press, Hasan wrote.
"The net result? Omar is hung out to dry while Brooks gets a pass," he added. "Omar is now a household name, and the subject of multiple death threats, while Brooks gets to carry on making offensive and conspiratorial claims about Islam, Muslims, and the Democratic Party without any sanction or censure."
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As Alabama GOP Calls for Ilhan Omar's Expulsion From Congress, Minnesota Dem and Her Allies Hit Back
"Well, the Klan has spoken."
Aug 28, 2019
Rep. Ilhan Omar hit back against the Republican Party of Alabama Tuesday after party leaders at a weekend meeting approved a resolution calling on the state's delegation to initiate proceedings to expel the Minnesota Democrat from Congress.
The resolution was introduced by state Rep. Tommy Hanes, a Republican from Alabama's 23rd state House district, because of what he described to The Washington Post as Omar's "disloyalty" to the U.S. The resolution, which asks the state's congressional representatives to use the Constitution's Article 1, Section 5 to expel Omar, passed during the party's retreat in Auburn.
"Well, the Klan has spoken," tweeted CAIR Arizona executive director Imraan Siddiqi.
For her part, Omar replied to the news by reminding the Alabama GOP that the U.S. is a democracy and pointing out that she won her election with "78 percent of the vote."
"If you want to clean up politics, maybe don't nominate an accused child molester as your Senate candidate?" Omar said, referring to former Senate candidate and alleged predator Roy Moore, a two-time Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court who was removed from office in 2003 and suspended in 2016 on six ethics violations and whose 2017 Senate campaign imploded under accusations of misbehavior.
Moore joined the fray on Wednesday, saying on Twitter that he supported the resolution and that Omar "should go back to Somalia from whence she came" in language echoing President Donald Trump's July call for Omar and fellow Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to go back to the "broken and crime infested places from which they came."
In a statement, Muslim Advocates public advocacy director Scott Simpson decried the Alabama GOP's resolution.
"Having a state political party officially adopt such a hateful, dishonest resolution is a troubling escalation of the ongoing effort to vilify American Muslims," said Simpson. "The text of the resolution reads like a laundry list of the most common anti-Muslim stereotypes: that Rep. Omar is un-American and anti-Semitic, that she disrespects the troops, that she is an ungrateful immigrant, and that she sympathizes with terrorists."
"These meritless slurs are constantly hurled at American Muslims in public life in order to silence and discredit them," Simpson said, adding that the Alabam's targeting of Omar represents "attacks on an entire community."
"They will not work," said Simpson. "When American Muslims in public life are attacked because of their faith, Muslim Advocates and countless Americans of conscience will stand up for what's right."
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With 'Baseless' Voter Fraud Claim, Roy Moore Challenges Alabama Election Loss
"This entire lawsuit is a taste of what Trump and Kobach's rhetoric and conspiracies lead to, and potentially a preview of what could follow if Trump loses in November 2020."
Dec 28, 2017
Just days after sharing an article from a right-wing website that blamed a "coalition of Muslim and Marxist-led groups" for his loss in Alabama's Senate election, Republican and accused child molester Roy Moore made his denial official late Wednesday night by filing a legal challenge alleging that he was the victim of widespread voter fraud.
The complaint comes just hours before Alabama officials are scheduled to certify the election results, which had Democrat Doug Jones winning by more than 20,000 votes.
At the center of Moore's challenge is the claim that "anomalous" high voter turnout in Jefferson County--where 43 percent of the population is black--constitutes evidence of voter fraud. But as analyst Daniel Nichanian noted, Moore's assertion that Jefferson Country turnout was unusually high is based on a "vast underestimation" of turnout from Alabama's Republican Secretary of State, John Merrill.
Merrill's prediction placed expected turnout in Jefferson County at 25 percent, "an implausibly low number he justified by citing low energy he saw while traveling," Nichanian writes. (Actual turnout was 47 percent.)
In effect, Nichanian concludes, "Moore cites high turnout in a county that's far higher-than-average African-American (a pattern that's not exceptional and is documented throughout state) as evidence of fraud. African Americans voting is apparently inherently suspicious."
On top of claiming that black Alabamians turning out to vote against a candidate who expressed nostalgia for the days of slavery is somehow inherently suspicious, the Moore campaign also cited a widely circulated YouTube video as proof that out-of-state voters propelled his Democratic opponent to victory.
Moore's challenge also quotes a poll worker who said she witnessed a large number of people voting with out-of-state drivers' licenses. (Alabama law allows voters to use photo identification from any state.)
In crying "voter fraud" and refusing to concede defeat, Moore is taking a page straight from President Donald Trump's playbook. Trump repeatedly claimed following last year's presidential election that he would have won the popular vote if it wasn't for millions of "illegal votes."
"This entire lawsuit is a taste of what Trump and [Kansas Secretary of State Kris] Kobach's rhetoric and conspiracies lead to, and potentially a preview of what could follow if Trump loses in November 2020," Nichanian concluded.
In a CNN interview on Thursday, Alabama Secretary of State Merrill--whose office has found "no evidence" of voter fraud--insisted that Moore's challenge would not effect Jones's certification.
"Doug Jones will be certified today," Merrill concluded.
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Alabama Saves The Day. But Not Much Else.
Just look at what it took to beat Republican Roy Moore, no ordinary rightwing barbarian—even for Alabama
Dec 17, 2017
It's an odd day when Democrats have Alabama to thank for their better fortune. Winning a U.S. senate seat in the state that gave Donald Trump a 62 percent victory margin, narrowing the Republican-Democratic split in the Senate to one and scoring a victory for minorities, women's dignity and gay rights, in Alabama, is no small thing. I dusted off my old Alabama Greatest Hits CD this morning and listened to "My Home's In Alabama" with freakish pride. But Democrats are overstating the victory.
Doug Jones should have won by 30 points. He won by one and a half percentage points, a difference of 21,000 votes out of 1.35 million cast in a state with 3.33 million registered voters. Moore won 42 of Alabama's 68 counties, winning 17 of them with 70 percent of the vote or more. In two of them, he won with 80 percent or more. (That would be Blount and Winston counties, where whites make up 87 and 89 percent of the electorate.) Turnout was 40 percent, about right for an off-year election two weeks from Christmas. Calling it a harbinger of next year's mid-terms is wishful at this point.
And look at what it took to beat a Republican. Moore is no ordinary barbarian, even for Alabama. Before you get to his teen-addled and mall-rat lechery there were the more civil scandals of his tenure posing as a judge but acting like Mullah Omar's Christian doppelganger. This is the judge who defied several state and federal court rulings with his Ten Commandment displays and illegally used proceeds from films about the controversy to pay his legal expenses. He was twice removed from the bench for breaking the law, the second time for ordering Alabama's equivalent of our clerks of court not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
He was-he is-not just a bigot, but a cliche of bigotry. Think of anything or anyone non-white, non-evangelical and you're pretty much on his shit list, though Muslims, gays and transgender people get him particularly excited. He thinks homosexuality is an American export, like Boeing jets and George Lucas movies. His idea of women is stuck somewhere in the backwoods of Winston County, predators being predisposed misogynists. Of course he thought Barack Obama was an East African Muslim impostor. Still does. Confederate monuments are his civic centerfolds, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin his post-Confederate heroes.
That was before the allegations of his pedophiliac interests. And until then, he was cruising to victory in his Senate race.
So that's what it takes for a Democrat to defeat a Republican anymore. A Republican opponent's racism, love of violence, hatred of anything not hetero, predatory pussy-grabbing and inability to tell the truth isn't enough, as Trump triumphantly reminds us. The opponent must also have lusted after children. That crosses the line, if barely so, at least in an off-year election not too many days removed from the arrival of Baby Jesus. That's a pretty damn low bar to clear for Republicans. It essentially adds up to this: Be breathing and keep your hands out of the knickers of kids and you should be fine. If you have any doubts, look to the White House as every Republican wiseguy's North Star.
Not that Republicans should give up on pedophiles just yet. There were a couple of twists in this race that could have saved Moore's candidacy. Trump miscalculated when he went ahead with another one of his white-man's-burden rallies, that one in Pensacola a few days ago, not fooling anyone that it was a big ad for Moore smack in the middle of one of Alabama's most important media markets. (Ron DeSantis, allegedly the congressman who represents Flagler County, lent his face and contralto voice to the pro-Moore orgy but managed not to mention the guy's name. The appearance was message enough.) It was a shove too far. And Democrats, in a rare flash of strategic savvy-it reminded me of those parts of "Awakenings" when Robert DeNiro's character comes out of his catatonic state for a while-managed to get Sen. Al Franken and his wandering hands booted off just in time to make it count against Moorland. Discount those two factors and we might have had a sequel to Charlottesville's Unite the Right rally in the guise of Moore's victory party.
His loss may also be Democrats' bigger loss in the long run. In Jones they win an additional but still irrelevant seat in the Senate, where Republicans still control the majority. In not having Moore to kick around, they lose what would have been the most potent demolition charge under Trump's rickety Republican Party in the run-up to the mid-terms. The fact that congressional Republicans are celebrating Moore's loss at least as much as Democrats should tell you all you need to know.
Sanity won the day. It may even have won Alabama, that old cradle of civil rights and prophet of the occasional mockingbird song. Sanity is not winning elsewhere. Not by any measure.
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'Wake Up Call': Charles Barkley's Wise Words to Democrats on Alabama
How long can Democrats count on being rescued by the very people our government is failing?
Dec 14, 2017
Before he became one of the great basketball players of his time, Charles Barkley was a son of the Alabama soil. He went home to help Doug Jones pull off his upset victory against Roy Moore in this week's special Senate election. Here's what he had to say on CNN after Jones was declared the winner:
This is a wake-up call for Democrats. Democrats, I told Mr. Jones this, and I love Doug, they've taken the black vote and the poor vote for granted for a long time. It's time for them to get off their ass and start making life better for black folks and people who are poor. They've always had our votes and they have abused our votes .. This is a wake-up call for Democrats to do better for black people and poor white people.
Professional Democrats were not nearly as insightful. They overlook some of the most critical lessons of this election, including this one: They might not have won this election at all if Alabama Republicans like Richard Shelby had not encouraged voters to write in other names rather than vote for Roy Moore. As of this writing, the number of write-in votes is greater than Jones' margin of victory.
In other words, Democrats were rescued by a conservative Republican politician. How often is that likely to happen?
And instead of acknowledging this vote as a "wake-up call" for their party after a decade plagued by losses, however, centrist insiders are seizing on it as an opportunity to fortify their hold on an institution they're slowly strangling - and to take cheap shots at the left.
The Cornerstone
Charles Barkley is right: Black voters did play a critical role in Jones' victory. Without them, an accused pedophile would be preparing to assume one of the highest offices in the land. But this begs the question: Why did African American voters turn out in such heavy numbers, despite the barriers thrown in their way by Republicans eager to thwart democracy?
The answer is not yet entirely clear, but a clue can be found in an observation by Washington Post reporter Eugene Scott:
More than two dozen black voters here said they did not feel inspired to show up for a candidate who they felt did not aggressively pursue their vote. They were moved to wait in line -- some people for hours -- with the goal of keeping Moore from winning.
Their antipathy for Moore certainly understandable. The defrocked judge commented in the runup to the election that the last time America was great was "at the time when families were united - even though we had slavery - they cared for one another. Our families were strong, our country had a direction."
He went on to say he thought all constitutional amendments except the first ten should be repealed - including the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery, and the 14th Amendment, which guaranteed citizenship and equal rights to former slaves. And Moore said he had doubts about President Obama's citizenship, echoing Donald Trump's racist "birther" theory.
African-American voters were also aware of the well-documented claims that Roy Moore sexually abused teenage girls, and they undoubtedly heard his bigoted remarks against Muslims and Jews. Black Alabamians turned out in impressive numbers to save the country from the scourge of a Sen. Roy Moore, and they undoubtedly did so for a number of reasons.
Thank you.
The Poor Vote
Barkley is also right when he says this vote is a "wake-up call" for Democrats. They will not always have the good fortune to run against a candidate who reaches Moore's staggering levels of venality, ineptitude, and moral perversion.
Barkley's meaning couldn't have been clearer: Democrats can't take black voters, or poor voters of any race, for granted. They must offer concrete policies to improve their lives. There's not much time to waste, either, either in Alabama or nationwide.
More than 40 million Americans live in poverty, according to the Census Bureau. The U.S. has a higher rate of poverty than any other Western, developed country. And Philip Alston, the UN's Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, recently told a reporter that Alabama's sewage disposal conditions were the worst he'd seen in a developed country. As AL.com reported:
On Thursday, Alston visited communities in the Black Belt's Butler and Lowndes counties, where residents often fall ill with ailments like E. Coli and hookworm - a disease of extreme poverty long eradicated in most parts of the U.S. - in part because they do not have consistently reliable access to clean drinking water that has not been tainted by raw sewage and other contaminants.
Jones carried that part of the state decisively. But how long can Democrats count on being rescued by the very people our government is failing?
Suburban Surprise
Interestingly, Alabama's GOP-friendly suburbs also went for Jones. Is that a sign of their growing discontent with Donald Trump, or was it a one-time effect -- the result of Moore's views, which are extreme even by Republican standards, and the impact of the stories of his sexual predation on family voters in these areas?
It's too early to know for sure, but Democrats shouldn't rush to assume this is a sign of victories to come. Some of them did anyway.
Throwing an Elbow
And yet, despite Barkley's clarity, a few short minutes later Democratic politician Bakari Sellers offered a completely different interpretation of his words. Sellers insisted that he and Barkley were friends, affirmed the former athlete "spoke the gospel," and added that he wanted to shout "amen" as Barkley spoke. But then Sellers said:
You have, you know, the Bernie Sanders, the Elizabeth Warrens, Joe Biden who are focusing specifically on the Trump-Obama voters and white working class voters, saying bring them back into the fold. There's a group of us who think we need to make sure that we're speaking to the base and giving them a reason to come out, because the country's getting browner and the way to electoral victories is through that.
That's a gross mischaracterization of Sanders, Warren, and Biden. None of them are "focusing specifically" on Trump-Obama voters or white working-class voters. Quite the opposite, in fact. The Democratic Party's progressive wing has taken the lead in addressing the social issues that plague black and brown Americans, as well as the economic issues that are hurting middle-and lower-income people of all races.
If any faction of the party places too much emphasis on Trump-Obama voters, it's the so-called Blue Dog Democrats who lean right on economic issues ranging from the minimum wage to Wall Street reform. They consider the Sanders/Warren wing of the party their nemesis - and they're right.
The Left Side of the Road
Sellers had already taken a swipe at the party's progressive faction earlier in the CNN broadcast, when he said, "What Doug Jones showed tonight is that there's a wing in the party that wants a litmus test. And Doug Jones doesn't fit anybody's litmus test."
That's not entirely accurate. Jones did say that he won because he was "center of the road," but that's a ritual disclaimer for any red state politician. While he wouldn't represent the leftmost wing of the party in Vermont or California, Doug Jones is quite progressive for a Southern Democrat.
His website includes this declaration, for example, which comes straight out of Bernie Sanders' platform: "Health care is a right, not a privilege limited to the wealthy and those with jobs that provide coverage." It celebrates the New Deal's impact on Alabama, while touting Jones's support for the Lily Ledbetter Act and a higher minimum wage.
Sellers appears to be defending his own faction within the party, but he does a disservice to progressives - and to Charles Barkley - in the process.
Waving Goodbye
But Sellers isn't the only professional Democrat to read this election result incorrectly. "The recriminations have been tough and stupid," says longtime Democratic operative Robert Shrum, "(and) the Bernie Sanders people arguing with the Hillary people has been counterproductive. Jones sends a powerful signal not to do that."
Does he? Jones' victory was by a far narrower margin than it should have been, because the national party has neglected states like Alabama for years. Part of the intraparty struggle that Shrum dismisses is a struggle to ensure that the party fights for all voters, in all states, with policies that will appeal to precisely the kind of white/black alliance Charles Barkley describes.
"We're looking at a wave election next year," says Shrum. But then, he has lost so many races that people sometimes talk about the Democrats' "Shrum curse."
Sadly, Shrum is far from the only party insider peddling bad advice to Democrats.
Double Negative
Writing for Fox News on the morning after Jones' victory, the serially incorrect Douglas Schoen asserts that if they want to win, "Democrats will need more than a message of resistance or opposition. They will need a centrist, pro-growth agenda of their own."
Schoen correctly notes on Alabama that "early indications from exit polling indicate deeply negative favorability and approval ratings for both major parties." This is also true at a national level, where Republicans are unpopular and support for Democrats recently fell to a 25-year low.
A reasonable person might conclude that these low approval numbers reflect a lack of faith in either party's ability to improve people's lives. But Schoen, like other veterans of the party's failed leadership, has yet to learn this lesson.
Insanity
Instead, Schoen proclaims Democrats will only "succeed in 2018'' if they implement an alternative governing strategy that is fundamentally different from what the most progressive voices in Washington are advocating."
That's exactly what Democrats have been doing for the last ten years. In the process, they've lost two thirds of state houses, two thirds of governorships, both houses of Congress, and the presidency. These failures were produced by 25 years of "centrist" leadership. They say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
To hear these folks talk, you'd think they've been out of power for decades. But they've been in charge, and they're the ones who got us into this mess. Sure, they might win the day in 2018 or 2020 - but only if Republicans cooperate by running a slate comprised entirely of proslavery advocates and accused child molesters. Otherwise, Democrats better be prepared to learn how to win.
One thing's for sure: These aren't the people who can teach them.
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Christmas Comes Early to Dixie
We're relieved to have been wrong in expecting Roy Moore to win. But there's still a hard road ahead of us.
Dec 14, 2017
We spent Monday and Tuesday in "Dewey Defeats Truman" mode, fully preparing to write a piece on the election of Republican Roy Moore to the United States Senate. We had even dusted off a 1925 quote from the great H.L. Mencken during his coverage of the Scopes monkey trial in Tennessee in which he excoriated the fundamentalist Southern foes of evolution: "Neanderthal man is organizing in these forlorn backwaters of the land, led by a fanatic, rid of sense and devoid of conscience."
How relieved we are then to have been wrong, not only about Tuesday night's election result but also our false and smug assumption that the majority of voters in the usually red and deeply conservative Alabama would do the wrong thing and pull the wrong lever, fueling the high-octane, blood-thirsty aspirations of Donald Trump's Rasputin, Steve Bannon. When last we saw Bannon in the wee hours of the morning he was staggering down a back alley struggling to pull the stake out of his heart.
Last month in Anniston, Alabama, Democrat Doug Jones, the senator-to-be, said, "We've got a real opportunity here to put Alabama's best foot forward, instead of taking a step or two back." And so Alabama has. Still, it was close.
There were so many factors at play: Roy Moore was for years a familiar figure roaming Alabama's rural areas like Elmer Gantry, calling on the lost to repent and mend their ways while keeping the collection plates filled. Turns out that between revivals Moore may also have been stalking teenagers for purposes other than choir practice.
What's more, the twice-deposed judge -- bounced both times from the bench for refusing to enforce federal laws (he always seemed a secessionist at heart, an early advocate of Make America As Great As It Was Before Lincoln) -- ran a poor campaign. He assumed victory and was AWOL much of the time as he sought to avoid human and media contact, while the Jones operation was textbook: well-organized, with a strong get-out-the-vote operation and a homegrown candidate with a creative ad campaign who was constantly on the hustings, moving from town to town, shaking hands and making contact with as many voters as he could.
Add to this the sentiment among many of Alabama's citizens that they were tired of and disgusted with their redneck, reactionary image and a belief pushed forward by, most importantly, the state's senior Republican senator, Richard Shelby, that Moore's election would be bad for business.
But the big news in the results was turnout, especially among African-Americans and women -- numbers the Democratic Party should take to heart.
As our friend John Nichols at The Nation reported:
African-Americans formed 28 percent of the Alabama electorate on Tuesday. Doug Jones won 96 percent of their votes statewide, as compared with 31 percent of the white vote, according to exit polls.
And Jonathan Allen at NBC News wrote:
Fifty-eight percent of Alabama women voted for the winner, Democrat Doug Jones, including 35 percent of white women, according to exit polling. While that latter figure might not sound like much, it's more than twice the 16 percent of white Alabama women who voted for President Barack Obama in 2012, the last presidential race in which exit polling was conducted.
By the way, don't be hard on us if we return to the humbled but richly bankrolled Bannon (by the billionaires-many-times-over Mercer family longing with misty eyes for a return to the feudal system) who appeared at two Moore rallies in Alabama, railing without a trace of irony about "outsiders" coming into the state. Oh, to have seen his face when he read the tweet from former Mitch McConnell aide Josh Holmes, who said: "I'd just like to thank Steve Bannon for showing us how to lose the reddest state in the union."
Nor can you blame us for being amused by the reaction of the president to Moore's loss. Trump, who in the last days of the race came out forcefully for his gun-toting fellow groper, rallied on Moore's behalf in nearby Pensacola, Florida, tweeted for him like a kid with a pea shooter and made robocalls urging support, now backpedals: "I said Roy Moore will not be able to win the general election. I was right!"
So as Doug Jones stood at the podium Tuesday night, claiming victory while surrounded by his family and a racially diverse coalition of women and men, secessionists took it on the chin, as did the sexual predators, our corrupted president and the white supremacist lemmings led by the anarchist Bannon and the Bible-misquoting Moore, now a deflated messiah.
Yes, a victory is celebrated, but while the right-wing populists lost, the Republican plutocrats kept winning. Back in his gilded quarters in Washington, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who doubles as consigliere and concierge for the ultrarich, can breathe more easily now that he doesn't have to face the awkward challenge of an accused sexual predator at each end of Pennsylvania Avenue and trying to expel a newly elected Moore from the US Senate. McConnell can press full-speed ahead with his main mission of enriching big donors and big business with a huge tax deal that redistributes wealth in America further up the ladder, while vastly expanding inequality.
After Tuesday's election, there was a call to delay the final votes on the tax "reform" legislation until Jones has been seated -- much as Democrats delayed the Obamacare vote until Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown was seated after the death of Ted Kennedy. But if you think McConnell would even consider such a bipartisan gesture, we've got a reminder for you: This is the man who after the death of Justice Scalia refused to act on then-President Obama's widely acclaimed (by both parties) nominee to the Supreme Court and left the seat empty for almost a year until Trump's election secured it for a Republican guardian of plutocracy.
Nor will Jones' success impede the GOP Senate's relentless rush to place on the federal bench right-wing and often woefully subpar judges. In fact, while voters went to the polls in Alabama, the Senate confirmed the appointment of Leonard Steven Grasz to a lifetime seat on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Grasz is one of only three appointees in history to have been deemed "unanimously unqualified" by the American Bar Association (ABA). At HuffPost, Jennifer Bendery writes:
Among other things, Grasz served on a nonprofit board that backed so-called conversion therapy for LGBTQ kids, and in a 1999 article argued that lower courts should be able to overrule Supreme Court decisions on abortion rights because "abortion jurisprudence is, to a significant extent, a word game."
The reaction of Republican senators has not been to reconsider the appointment of Grasz and other ideological warriors, but -- you guessed it -- to attack the ABA, just as Republicans, conservatives and the far-right are now attacking special prosecutor Robert Mueller in yet another partisan effort to undermine the rule of law.
So congratulations, Doug Jones -- and hold on to your hat. You have quite a ride ahead of you and need all the luck you can get. So do we.
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It's Not Just Scandal: Moore Lost In Alabama Because The GOP Agenda Is Toxically Unpopular
Republicans are now in trouble everywhere.
Dec 13, 2017
The easy thing for Republicans to tell themselves after the stinging loss of a Senate seat in Alabama is that they only went down to defeat because the party had the misfortune to nominate someone accused of preying on teenage girls.
And there is something to that. But the Republican Party nominated a man accused of sexual misconduct to run for president in 2016, and that didn't stop him from winning 62 percent of the vote in Alabama. Donald Trump didn't just win Alabama a year ago -- he won by a larger margin than Mitt Romney, John McCain, or George W. Bush. So while it's undoubtedly true that the allegations played a role in the race, they hardly work as a comprehensive explanation of the outcome.
The larger issue is that the Republican Party is led by an unpopular president and unpopular congressional leaders who are pursuing an unpopular agenda, and it's putting them in massive electoral peril.
Republicans have been ignoring warning signs all year
It is entirely normal for the party that occupies the White House to lose ground down ballot during midterm elections. That said, the GOP's results in 2017 have really been quite bad:
- Across about 65 special elections for House and state legislature, Democratic candidates have run 9 points ahead of Hillary Clinton on average.
- Republicans lost the governors' mansions in Virginia and New Jersey last month, while losing ground in both state legislatures.
- Trump's net approval rating is lower today than it was for any previous president on record at this point in his term, and, remarkably, that's been true for every day of his presidency.
- The Republican tax bill is less popular than any previously passed tax bill.
- Polling on all the different health care bills the GOP has tried and failed to advance has been dismal.
- Democrats are currently 10 points ahead in generic congressional balloting, which would be enough to win the House despite significant gerrymandering.
Republicans in Washington are aware of all these facts, but seem, strangely, a bit indifferent to them. The experience of watching Trump -- whom they all expected to lose as late as 7 o'clock on the evening of the 2016 election -- triumphing against the odds has them dazzled. And the fact that in office, Trump, despite considerable speculation that he wouldn't, has pursued a very orthodox Republican Party agenda has them pleased.
At the nexus of these two factors, they've decided to bank as many policy wins as they can and then hope to hit a stroke of good luck.
Republicans in Washington are aware of all these facts, but seem, strangely, a bit indifferent to them. The experience of watching Trump -- whom they all expected to lose as late as 7 o'clock on the evening of the 2016 election -- triumphing against the odds has them dazzled. And the fact that in office, Trump, despite considerable speculation that he wouldn't, has pursued a very orthodox Republican Party agenda has them pleased.
At the nexus of these two factors, they've decided to bank as many policy wins as they can and then hope to hit a stroke of good luck.
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After Black Voters Drive Historic Win for Doug Jones in Alabama, Demand Grows for Policies That 'Do More' To Serve Them
"Doug Jones and the grassroots who powered him to victory showed us a path out of the darkness of 2016 and gave us an ideal boost of momentum as we work to take back Congress in 2018."
Dec 13, 2017
Preliminary exit polls show that black voters in Alabama were vital to Senator-elect Doug Jones's victory over his Republican challenger Roy Moore on Tuesday night--but alongside a flood of praise and gratitude for the people of color who "saved" the U.S. Senate seat from a right-winger accused of child molestation came calls for delivering policies and societal progress to the voters in heavily black counties who turned out en masse for Jones.
Polling by Edison Research for the National Election Pool, The Washington Post, and other media organizations revealed that 93 percent of black men and 98 percent of black women voted for Jones, compared with 26 percent of white men and 34 percent of white women.
While poll results generated an outpouring of appreciation for black voters, and particularly black women--who "carry this nation on their backs" by "saving the world and the Democratic Party"--the social media frenzy in turn provoked demands to recognize that black voters were casting ballots in their own interest, and as activist Bree Newsome noted, "protecting themselves by pushing back against systemic racism within their state."
Calls for recognizing black voters' abilities to discern what was at stake with this special election were coupled with declarations that, as Charlene Carruthers, national director of Black Youth Project 100 put it, "No amount of verbal appreciation will do us justice." Instead of mere thanks, many used the moment to urge those who were celebrating Jones's win to "do more" to support and serve black Americans.
Trust Black women enough to donate to our campaigns, support our organizations and get out the way so we can win.
-- Charlene Carruthers (@CharleneCac) December 13, 2017
"Doug Jones would not have won today without the turnout we saw from African-American voters," Symone D. Sanders, a Democratic strategist, told Newsweek. "Black women have been absolutely clear in their support for Democratic policies and Democratic candidates. It's high time for Democrats ... to invest in that effort."
Sanders acknowledged the impact that grassroots organizing had on bringing black voters to the ballot box while also emphasizing that if Democrats want see similar victories 2018 midterms, they can't count solely count on black women. That "black women have been attempting to save America since the dawn of time," she added, "doesn't mean we should allow the fate of America to be laid at the feet of black women--it has to be a multicultural effort."
"By building a campaign that delivered unprecedented turnout from the new American majority and especially among black women, Doug Jones and the grassroots who powered him to victory showed us a path out of the darkness of 2016 and gave us an ideal boost of momentum as we work to take back Congress in 2018," said Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America.
Praise for black voter mobilization efforts, and the overall organizing effort, also came from Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee, who tweeted:
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As Final Tax Scam Vote Looms, Demands for McConnell to Seat Doug Jones 'Immediately'
"Alabama voters deserve to have their voices heard in this fight."
Dec 13, 2017
After "bigotry and hatred were defeated at the polls" in Alabama on Tuesday, progressives turned their sights toward defeating the GOP's attempt to deliver a trillion-dollar tax cut to the wealthy, demanding that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) "immediately" seat newly elected Sen. Doug Jones before a final vote on the Republican tax bill.
"Doug Jones should be seated immediately--before we vote again on the tax bill."
-- Kamala Harris (D-Calif.)
Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF), said in a statement late Tuesday that Jones's victory represents a repudiation of "the Trump-GOP agenda" and implored Republicans to "re-evaluate their support for the monstrous tax bill that will rip healthcare away from millions while raising taxes on middle class families."
"The Senate should slow the process down and allow the nation's newest senator to have a vote on this legislation that will affect the next generation," Clemente concluded. "It would be inappropriate for massive legislation rewriting the nation's tax code to be decided by a lame-duck senator who was just voted out of office."
ATF's call was echoed by several Democratic lawmakers Tuesday night--demands that came just hours after McConnell made clear that he has no intention of seating the winner of Alabama's special election until next year.
Senate Republicans would be left with just one vote to spare in their push for massive corporate tax cuts if Jones were to be sworn in ahead of a final vote.
In a tweet late Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called on McConnell to "listen to the people of Alabama and seat Doug Jones without any delay."
"Doug Jones should be seated immediately--before we vote again on the tax bill," added Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). "Alabama voters deserve to have their voices heard in this fight."
On Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) will hold a press event to demand that Republicans delay a final vote on their tax bill until after Jones is seated.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) also weighed in:
Moore's loss in the race to fill the seat left vacant by Attorney General Jeff Sessions was a "humiliating" blow to President Donald Trump, alt-right provocateur Steve Bannon, and the national Republican Party, which ended up backing Moore after withdrawing support early in November.
Now that a Democrat is set to fill a Senate seat Republicans once viewed as securely theirs, the GOP is likely to move even more aggressively to get their tax bill to Trump's desk as soon as possible, notes Vox's Dylan Matthews.
"The GOP will now focus obsessively on passing their tax scam bill before Doug Jones is sworn in. It's up to the rest of us to focus just as obsessively on stopping them."
--Ben Wikler, MoveOn.org
"The tax bill has so far relied on speed and the GOP's desperate desire for a 'win,'" Matthews writes. "That could still carry the plan through. If Republican leaders have their way, they won't wait around for Jones to become a senator or for [Maine Sen. Susan] Collins to have a change of heart. They're trying to send a tax overhaul to Trump's desk in less than a week's time. Just in case."
Ben Wikler of MoveOn.org highlighted this fact Monday morning and urged the tax bill's opponents to be prepared.
"The GOP will now focus obsessively on passing their tax scam bill before Doug Jones is sworn in," Wikler concluded. "It's up to the rest of us to focus just as obsessively on stopping them."
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Trump, Bannon, and Roy Moore Rebuked as Doug Jones Claims Victory in Alabama
"A crushing blow to [president's] agenda of bigotry, hate, and division... and a powerful reminder that progressives can win anywhere and everywhere if we stand up for an inclusive populist political agenda."
Dec 12, 2017
In a striking repudiation of President Donald Trump, his former top strategist Steve Bannon--and, of course, Republican candidate Roy Moore himself--Democratic candidate Doug Jones claimed victory Tuesday night in Alabama's hotly contested special election for the state's open U.S. Senate seat.
"I have said throughout this campaign that I thought that Dec. 12 was going to be a historic day," Jones declared in his victory speech to cheering room of supporters. "We have shown the country the way that we can be unified."
"This historic win is more than just a crushing blow to Donald Trump's agenda of bigotry, hate, and division. It's also a powerful reminder that progressives can win anywhere and everywhere if we stand up for an inclusive populist political agenda and build campaigns that welcome, energize, and mobilize the new American majority of Black, brown, and progressive white voters." --Charles Chamberlain, Democracy for AmericaDespite Moore's history of bigotry, outlandish religious extremism, and the credible accounts of sexual misconduct and assault levied against him by multiple women--both Trump and Bannon had campaigned aggressively on his behalf and said getting him to the Senate was vital for the president and the GOP in Congress to carry out their agenda.
Networks began calling the race for Jones shortly after 10 PM local time after it was clear that high voter turnout in key areas was the key in delivering a rare victory for a Democrat in a state that leans heavily Republican. But even with 100 percent of precincts reporting--with Jones winning 49.9 percent and Moore at 48.4 percent--as of this writing, Moore was still refusing to concede his defeat.
But as Jones was calling for a night of celebration and thanking his supporters, Trump's most ardent backers and the GOP establishment didn't wait to start pointing figures at one another, as Sean Hannity immediately said Senate Majority Mitch McConnell "deserves a lot of the blame" for Moore's loss while a former aid to McConnell blasted Bannon "for showing [Republicans] how to lose the reddest state in the Union."
Democrats, however, wanted to make sure it was on the record that it was the entirety of the Republican Party apparatus that ultimately backed Moore:
Meanwhile, the takeaway being offered by many progressives was that Jones' win proves the base of support for Trump, and the political strategy espoused by Bannon, is not only flawed but seriously vulnerable:
Former NBA star and Alabama native Charles Barkley, who had campaigned hard for Jones in the days leading up to the election, suggested the victory is not so much a rebuke of Trump, but said it should be "a wake-up call for Democrats to do better for black people and poor white people." Watch:
And Barkley wasn't alone in sharing that sentiment and numerous voices acknowledged the importance of black turnout and coalition building in Tuesday's victory.
"Make no mistake, this is a victory for the 50 state strategy, and it's a victory led by the new American majority," said Democracy for America's executive director, Charles Chamberlain, in an email Tuesday night. "Black, brown, and millennial voters--and Black women in particular--turned out in historic numbers to send a Democratic candidate to the Senate from Alabama for the first time since 1992."
"This historic win is more than just a crushing blow to Donald Trump's agenda of bigotry, hate, and division," Chamberlain continued. "It's also a powerful reminder that progressives can win anywhere and everywhere if we stand up for an inclusive populist political agenda and build campaigns that welcome, energize, and mobilize the new American majority of Black, brown, and progressive white voters."
And as the Progressive Change Campaign Committee said in a statement, "This shows what happens when Democrats compete everywhere."
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