The old Grand Jury Scrub - in secret proceedings shielded from public scrutiny, police brutality and citizen death cases can be presented a grand jury which, however the evidence was presented, fails to vote for prosecution. As was the case with Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, MO, where the enthusiasm of the prosecutor's secret conduct generated extreme controversial public judgment. In the context of such grand jury use in police misconduct cases; MPR published: "Klobuchar didn't prosecute controversial police killings or brutality cases as a county prosecutor." Was it a tendency toward doing a scrub, or bad lawyering, or lack of evidence to charge? Each time, every instance? We don't know. We were not there. Nor were victims' relatives, or lawyers representing the families.

Link:

Over eight years beginning in 1999, the city of Minneapolis paid $4.8 million in legal settlements related to 122 police misconduct incidents. And police officers and county sheriffs were involved in 29 civilian deaths.

Klobuchar, however, chose not to criminally charge any fatalities involving law enforcement. Instead she routinely put the decision to a grand jury, a process widely criticized for its secrecy and for mostly allowing the police version of events. Klobuchar also didn't take on any of the misconduct claims.

The mother of a black teenager who was shot and killed by police in 2004 begged Klobuchar to file charges against the officer instead of presenting the case to a grand jury.

"The grand jury is a way of hiding that the prosecutor is not giving the full information of guilt to the grand jury," Tahisha Williams Brewer wrote to Klobuchar at the time. "I want this process out in the open, where everyone can observe it and make sure that it is fair to my son."

Klobuchar did not directly respond to Williams Brewer and proceeded to present the case to a grand jury, which found the shooting was justified.

Two years earlier, a riot broke out in the predominantly black Jordan neighborhood in north Minneapolis after police accidentally shot an African-American boy during a drug raid. Anger rose and trust fell quickly between law enforcement and minority communities. A federal mediator quickly arrived to try to calm tensions. Klobuchar didn't get involved.

[...] Diverse voters — a critical bloc for Democrats — and African-Americans in particular are scrutinizing the candidates' positions on race-based issues, including criminal justice. As one of two prosecutors in the race for president — U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris from California is the other — Klobuchar has an extensive record of prosecutions, sentencings and enforcement priorities.

Her legislative record today regarding criminal justice matters could be interpreted as an extension of her past: It shows little leadership on efforts to make the criminal justice system fairer. [...]

When Klobuchar was a county prosecutor — from 1999 until 2007 — Black Lives Matter didn't exist, there weren't body cameras or cellphone videos, and cops were rarely prosecuted. Klobuchar's reliance on grand juries was in step with her peers nationwide, and she positioned herself politically as tough on crime and a friend of the police.

During Klobuchar's campaign for prosecutor in 1998, Minneapolis police union leaders enthusiastically supported her during her campaign kickoff. The union backed her that year and in 2002. Records of how much money the union spent on Klobuchar's behalf in those races no longer exist.

Michelle Gross, the founder of Communities United Against Police Brutality in Minneapolis, said Klobuchar routinely sided with police on issues involving police misconduct. [...]

Klobuchar wouldn't be interviewed for this story, responding instead to emailed questions with written statements. She did not answer questions about the death of Williams Brewer's son or the mother's plea for her to not rely on a grand jury. Klobuchar also didn't address how she handled specific cases of police misconduct or her lack of involvement in federal mediation.

[... In another incident] Police went to Burns' house on a domestic disturbance call and put him in a neck hold. Police said that Burns resisted arrest, was thrashing around and difficult to control. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide.

Klobuchar presented the case to a grand jury, which ruled it a justifiable homicide.

A civil suit filed by Burns' fiancée claimed that the officer used "an unnecessary amount of force." The suit resulted in a $300,000 settlement with the city of Minneapolis.

[...] Her successor as Hennepin County attorney, Mike Freeman, ended the practice of presenting officer-involved shootings to a grand jury in 2016, citing the "accountability and transparency limitations" of the grand jury system. He made the decision after civil rights groups worried a grand jury would opt against charging a Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed Jamar Clark in 2015.

[...] When asked about her prosecutorial record on race, Klobuchar quickly highlights her efforts to require police to videotape witness interrogations and change how witnesses identify suspects, and her attempts to diversify her office.

However, the disproportionate number of minorities she sent to state prison isn't a campaign talking point.

Nearly two-thirds of the Hennepin County residents sent to state prison by Klobuchar or her deputies were African-American, according to data from the Minnesota Department of Corrections. That came during a period when African-Americans made up about 10 percent of the county's population, according to U.S. Census data.

[...] During a U.S. Senate hearing in 2014 that focused on civil rights in the months after the protests in Ferguson, Klobuchar reinforced her faith in the grand jury system. Her position came despite withering criticism nationwide that the prosecutor in Ferguson had used the grand jury to avoid charging the officer who shot an unarmed man.

[link in orignal, readers are urged to follow it] Finally, at the MPR link are two radio segments which interested readers may choose to listen to. The MPR item contained much material beyond the admittedly lengthy excerpting.

Anytime excerpting is done judgment is involved, so for fairness concerned readers are urged to follow the link given at the start, and read the entire item.

Ars Technica reports on ROBOCALLS: FCC “fined” robocallers $208 million since 2015 but collected only $6,790 -- Both FCC and FTC fail to collect vast majority of robocall fines, WSJ reports. By: Jon Brodkin - Mar 28, 2019 - 9:17 pm UTC

Without use of teeth, there is no bite. Why no bite? The Trump Justice Department has litigation jurisdiction, the FCC referring its actions to the Trump Justice Department. Ars noted tersely:

The Justice Department declined to comment.

Ars fleshes out:

Since Ajit Pai became FCC chairman in January 2017, the FCC has issued $202 million in forfeiture orders against robocallers but has collected none of it, the Journal wrote. That includes a $120 million penalty issued in May 2018 against a robocaller that was accused of making 96 million robocalls during a three-month period in order to trick people into buying vacation packages.

Separately, the Federal Trade Commission has collected $121 million out of $1.5 billion worth of penalties issued against robocallers since 2004, the Journal report said. An FTC spokesperson told the Journal that it is proud of its 8 percent collection rate.

"The dearth of financial penalties collected by the US government for violations of telemarketing and auto-dialing rules shows the limits the sister regulators [FCC and FTC] face in putting a stop to illegal robocalls," the Journal wrote. "It also shows why the threat of large fines can fail to deter bad actors." Fines can be "a deterrent on legitimate companies that have real assets in the US," but they aren't as effective against scammers and overseas operators, an attorney quoted by the Journal said.

Earlier in the item, an FCC spokesperson is quoted:

"Many of the spoofers and robocallers the agency tries to punish are individuals and small operations, [the spokesman] added, which means they are at times unable to pay the full penalties."

The criminals are ATT, Verizon, etc., the scumbags that sell the robocall capability to the small fry.

Fry the big fish, put the million dollars of penalties on them, consolidate things into a single action, and collect. the fine should be twice the revenue selling the robocall capability produced for the carriers. Biting them would fix things in an eyeblink. Why is it NOT being done, by the Trump Administration and the Senate Republicans? Surely the House Democrat majority would cooperate on bipartisan law, as needed. But the industry runs the agency; and the public suffers while paying the agency salaries - Trump Justice Department included.

UPDATE; Surely readers can dispute that the industry runs the regulators; that the system is captured by the imates running the asylum; however, Ars concludes with this insight [bolded and italics emphasis added, links omitted}:

FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, one of two Democrats on the Republican-controlled commission, wants stronger action.

"I've called for carriers to make free tools to block robocalls available to every consumer," she wrote on Twitter today. She also criticized the FCC's poor record in collecting fines: "It's time for my colleagues [to] join me in this effort."

The lack of follow-through on big fines isn't new to Pai's FCC. The FCC in 2015 proposed a fine of $100 million against AT&T for throttling the wireless Internet connections of customers with unlimited data plans without adequately notifying the customers about the reduced speeds. But AT&T fought the proposed penalty, and the FCC apparently never issued a forfeiture order in that case.

So regarding the capture of the regulators by the perps; is there any doubt which party it is that is allowing robocalling to be a nuisance nationwide, with the blessing of that party's rank and file, from dog catcher to President?

Go figure.

The same perps killed net neutrality which shall remain dead until the Democratic Party gains control; and then we see who is a legitimate Democrat and who is a Republican-lite creep masquerading as a Democrat. At which time it will be a second broom time; first sweep out the actual declared Republicans; then do a second sweep of all the Democrat impostors; i.e., closet Republicans, hiding who they really are.

Haaretz reports, "After 'Boycott' Claims, Four Democratic Presidential Candidates Meet AIPAC Delegates -- Corey Booker, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand and Amy Klobuchar all met with delegations of AIPAC activists from their home states in Washington -- By: Amir Tibon Washington Mar 28, 2019 4:39 AM." After all that Isreal Lobby money, no Beto?

Link. Bernie and Warren not mentioned as being summoned nor attending. Whether the others were summoned or reached conscious parallelism in conduct is unclear. Haaretz posted, in part:

Four Democratic Senators who are seeking their party’s presidential nomination in 2020, met this week with delegations of AIPAC activists from their home states. The meetings took place after eight presidential candidates announced they would not attend AIPAC’s conference, which took place this week in Washington.

enators Corey Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, Kamala Harris, a Democrat from California, Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York, and Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnessota, met with delegations of AIPAC activists from their respective states, according to an AIPAC official. Booker met with the group at the convention center where the AIPAC conference took place. The other Senators hosted the delegations at their Senate offices.

The meetings proved that despite what Vice President Mike Pence said during his speech at the conference, the Democratic Party is not “boycotting” AIPAC. Pence gave an unusually partisan speech at the conference, in which he directly attacked the Democrats and claimed that candidates who chose not to attend the conference were boycotting the event.

Pence again, being who he is and will always be.

New York Jewish Week editors published: AIPAC And The Two-State Dilemma, dated March 27:

The pro-Israel leadership is caught between an Israeli government that is moving to the right on a range of issues, including decades-old fundamentals of Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy, and an American Jewish community that still supports those fundamentals. The dilemma is all the sharper because President Trump, reviled by many American Jews for his domestic policies and his apparent tolerance for white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups, is in a warm embrace with the Israeli prime minister — an embrace now even tighter in light of the president’s recognition of the Golan Heights as Israeli territory.

Can AIPAC reasonably be expected to advance positions that are in direct opposition to those of the elected government in Jerusalem and a growing proportion of the Israeli public?

But as a group claiming to represent a broad spectrum of pro-Israel Americans, is it prudent for the group to signal endorsement of a shift in Israel that clearly is not supported by the Jewish community here?

That op-ed item links to the outlet's reporting, here. Read it. Read it with knowledge that the "trope" of always alleging "antisemitism" against criticism of any kind, (especially in terms of Minnesota's CD5 Rep. Omar), one has to be cognizant that there is a difference between a horse chestnut and a chestnut horse, so whichever term is used, where's truth, in what Omar said and in the context of her feeling pressures exerted on her by colleagues of the "Don't rock the our boat," wing of the Democratic Party - corporatists, DCCC operatives, and all other impediments to progressivism being recognized as the only future the party has if it is to remain a legitimate opponent to Republicans.

BETO: Following the money, here. Haaretz has a vexing paywall interposition when interesting items are cut short for the non-paying public; e.g., here and here. Beto should have shown up at AIPAC to flesh out that contention reported all too briefly in that second Haaretz item. There is this online. Ted Cruz being oily is no surprise. Other Beto related items, here, here and here.

Beto is not a progressive. But he seems pro-Israel, pro-Zionism in general.

The Michael Pence of the United States spoke at AIPAC 2019.

Times of Israel reporting of Pence mongering identity politics stereotyping:

Addressing AIPAC’s 2019 Policy Conference, Pence excoriated freshman Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s suggestion that the powerful lobby pays for politicians to back Israel, and that it pressures lawmakers to have an “allegiance” to the Jewish state.

He also condemned the Democratic leadership’s response to her remarks, as well as Democratic presidential hopefuls for opposing anti-BDS legislation and not appearing at this year’s AIPAC gathering.

[...] “It’s astonishing to think that party of Harry Truman, which did so much to create the State of Israel, has been co-opted by people who promote rank anti-Semitic rhetoric and work to undermine the broad American consensus of support for Israel… The party that’s been the home of so many American Jews for so long, today struggled to muster the votes to unequivocally condemn anti-Semitism in a resolution.”

American Jews overwhelmingly vote Democrat. In the 2018 midterms, Democratic candidates won over 75% of the Jewish vote for House seats, compared with 73% in 2016 and 67% in 2014.

[...] “As governor of Indiana, I was proud to sign the toughest anti-BDS legislation of any state in the union. But remarkably, today, all but one Democrat running for president voted against the Combating BDS Act in the United States,” he said, referring to Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar.

“And as I stand before you, eight Democrat candidates for president are actually boycotting this very conference. So let me be clear on this point: anyone who aspires to the highest office in the land should not be afraid to stand with the strongest supporters of Israel in America. It is wrong to boycott Israel and it is wrong to boycott AIPAC.”

While the progressive advocacy group MoveOn encouraged Democrats to skip AIPAC’s policy conference, it’s historically unusual for presidential candidates — or aspiring candidates — to address the confab during a non-election year. Indeed, while Hillary Clinton did not attend AIPAC’s conference in 2015, she did in 2016.

Also in his speech, Pence praised Trump for moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, pulling America out of the Iran nuclear deal, and cutting aid to the Palestinians.

[bolding added] As the 75% vote figure and the 2020 Democratic Party candidates declining to be present at AIPAC 2019 shows, it is an antisemitic trope to assert what Pence implies, that all Jews are Zionist or embracing Zionism as a kind of litmus test of U.S. candidate electability and policy decency. As if they should have a dual loyalty. Is Pence asking that if Jews in the U.S. do not slavishly salute AIPAC and its ways and means and biases, they are not good Jews? It seems he gets real close to such a trope.

That the Democratic Party cannot be a good home for Jews, even those holding progressive viewpoints? Is Pence saying that? Pence bends things to appear to be claiming as if they are Jews they should hence by some reach of presumption, feel duty bound to vote GOP because he feels present Isreal lobby opinion is leaning that way. As if some tribal loyalty exists binding Jewish people to bow to AIPAC?

Years back in Minnesota Rudy Boschwitz and Paul Wellstone ran for the Seanate, both Jewish, and the people voted for the candidate with the better policies and the greatest sense of what America should be. Pence now is judging Wellstone's Jewishness? What? It's hard to grasp his exact point, except he misunderstands that someone can support BDS and be Jewish at the same time, in our pluralistic nation.

If that set of Pence assertions is not a trope of a necessity of a blind and unthinking dual loyalty, what is it?

_____________UPDATE______________
Pelosi avoided the insulting trope of - if you're a good Jew you do a lemming lineup for AIPAC, Zionism, and whatever the Israeli government of the day and in power does and wants; but she's self-declared entrenched in the camp even if it's not her litmus test for being a good Jew; see, e.g., Mondoweiss, "Pelosi downgrades Israel from ‘greatest political achievement of 20th century’ to just ‘one of the greatest’," which links back to a post of a host of Pelosi hyperbole going well beyond a courteous "attaboy." An earlier Crabgrass post links to the YouTube video from which the linked-to post opening image was taken.

________FURTHER UPDATE_________
Lest readers conclude from extensive coverage that Israeli mistreatment of the Palestinians is a burning issue of conscience and imperative here; it is not. Yes, the Arabs are as human as I am and should have the same human decency accorded them as I'd want from others; but the entire focus here is the painfully apparent need for the Democratic Party to reform and evolve toward a more progressive entity than at present.

Haim Saban stands opposed to that progressive evolution so his position of biases deserves a full examination, as to his being as much an entrenched status quo Democratic Party lover as is Steny Hoyer; i.e., almost being as Steny as Steny; but using a fat wallet private sector poison rather than the DCCC's dumber and more reprehensible poisoning of their own damned well because it's how they've been.

One exploiting a fat personal wallet; the other a fat institutional wallet; each using it to screw progressives. Likely each thinks the old style ply-'em-with-cash and hope they stay bought way of running a nation is more reliable than having to deal with people of conscience where grassroots action and contributions are more valued than fat wallet creeps waving big checks.

Saban is direct and candid as well as primarily single issue and more admirable than a well tailored empty suit doing great behind the scenes evil including taking a dump on those trending toward progressive decency toward the governed while leaving an oil slick behind him like Steny, everywhere he goes. Or actually, I think of having lived in Seattle where garden slugs leave a slime trail marking everywhere they'd moved; Steny the Garden Slug being my image dripping it as he wends his way. What he did with that Democratic primary contender in Colorado is inexcusable. Inexcusabe in any event, but especially so when progressivism is the only future the Democratic Party has if it has a future at all. Counterproductively inexcusable. As the one joke goes if calling Steny's ways "lacking the intelligence and character of a brick," and getting threatned with a lible suit; and then moving the other way, saying "having the intelligence and character of a brick." Saban seems a cut better but that's faint praise. He did not gratuitously oppose Ellison, not wholly so, having instead the primary motive of holding politicians in line or cast out, over Israel.

Ilhan Omar has a closer sense of Muslim identity and suffering, and when she sequentially gets the Israel lobby dumping on her after the dump on Ellison, there comes a need to to say, Enough, and to speak out. BDS in an ideal world would not be needed to bring Israel to the table in good faith, but we lack an ideal world. Bernie and Warren are working on one, but they are not finding any easy path to Nirvana. Nor will they. But a President Bernie sure sings better than a Pres. Trump, or worse, a Pence.

Yesterday's fish.

I stand . . .

image source

I extend my hand . . .

image source

______________UPDATE_______________
Yesterday's fish, doing yesterday's politics yesterday's way. It lingers, like the odor of yesterday's fish.

The Intercept, April 26, 2018:

Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the House of Representatives, has for years been a prolific campaigner on behalf of current and potential members of Congress. It was no surprise, then, that December found him in Colorado, where the party has hopes of knocking off Republican incumbent Mike Coffman.

Before Donald Trump had even been inaugurated, local resistance groups began deluging Coffman’s public appearances, pressing him not to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and putting him back on his political heels. Levi Tillemann, an author, inventor, and former official with the Obama administration’s Energy Department, moved back home to make a run against Coffman.

He focused his campaign on clean elections, combatting climate change, “Medicare for All,” free community college, and confronting economic inequality and monopoly power. Another candidate for the nomination, Jason Crow, a corporate lawyer at the powerhouse Colorado firm Holland & Hart and an Army veteran, meanwhile, appeared to have the backing of the Democratic establishment, though it wasn’t explicit. In November, it became clearer, as Crow was named by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to the party’s “Red to Blue” list, which the committee specifies is not an endorsement but does carry symbolic weight.

With Hoyer in Denver, Tillemann met the minority whip at the Hilton Denver Downtown to make the case that the party should stay neutral in the primary and that he had a more plausible path to victory than the same centrism that Coffman had already beaten repeatedly.

Hoyer, however, had his own message he wanted to convey: Tillemann should drop out.

In a frank and wide-ranging conversation, Hoyer laid down the law for Tillemann. The decision, Tillemann was told, had been made long ago. It wasn’t personal, Hoyer insisted, and there was nothing uniquely unfair being done to Tillemann, he explained: This is how the party does it everywhere.

Tillemann had heard the argument before from D.C. insiders and local Democratic bigwigs, all of whom had discouraged him from challenging the establishment favorite. The only difference was that for this conversation, the candidate had his phone set to record.

The secretly taped audio recording, released here for the first time, reveals how senior Democratic officials have worked to crush competitive primaries and steer political resources, money, and other support to hand-picked candidates in key races across the country, long before the party publicly announces a preference. The invisible assistance boosts the preferred candidate in fundraising and endorsements, and then that fundraising success and those endorsements are used to justify national party support. Meanwhile, opponents of the party’s unspoken pick are driven into paranoia, wondering if they are merely imagining that unseen hands are working against them.

Hoyer bluntly told Tillemann that it wasn’t his imagination, and that mobilizing support for one Democratic candidate over another in a primary isn’t unusual. Rep. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., chair of the DCCC, has a “policy that early on, we’d try to agree on a candidate who we thought could win the general and give the candidate all the help we could give them,” Hoyer told Tillemann matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, I’m for Crow,” Hoyer explained. “I am for Crow because a judgment was made very early on. I didn’t know Crow. I didn’t participate in the decision. But a decision was made early on by the Colorado delegation,” he said, referencing the three House Democrats elected from Colorado.

“So your position is, a decision was made very early on before voters had a say, and that’s fine because the DCCC knows better than the voters of the 6th Congressional District, and we should line up behind that candidate,” asked Tillemann during the conversation.

“That’s certainly a consequence of our decision,” responded Hoyer.

A decision has been made, DCCC-wise, so fuck the opinion of voters. Steny, Steny, Steny. Getting taped being rude.


_______________FURTHER UPDATE________________
Images of a tool used to enforce a consensus. Why this came to mind is unclear to me.

_______________FURTHER UPDATE_______________
The Intercept item contains much more of interest to voters who treasure democracy in fact rather than in rhetoric only, ending:

Hoyer has for years been a mainstay of House Democratic leadership, tantalizingly close to the speakership. Soon after being elected to Congress in 1981, he became a protégé of then-Rep. Tony Coelho, D-Calif., a business-friendly lawmaker who had just become chair of the DCCC. Coelho famously transformed the DCCC into the big-money operation it is today, rebuking the Democratic Party’s longstanding alliance with labor unions and activists in favor of raising millions of dollars from corporate lobbyists.

Under Coelho, one DCCC brochure assured donors “courteous and direct access to” Democratic lawmakers. The DCCC encouraged candidates to focus on raising cash from corporate PACs and building relationships with business executives as the easiest path to office. Coelho resigned in 1989 following an ethics scandal, but not before giving a boost to Hoyer, his lieutenant who was quickly rising through the ranks of leadership.

Hoyer, exploiting his own role as the caucus point person for K Street, won the election as House Democratic whip in 2002. According to reports in Roll Call and the Washington Post, Hoyer regularly invites corporate lobbyists for weekly lunches with the caucus and helps to headline private donor retreats for the party. During the 2006 midterms, he worked closely with the DCCC to raise prodigious sums of corporate PAC cash for party election efforts, further cementing his role as a power player in the party.

For the 2018 midterm cycle, the party has not only courted moderate Democrats and formed a renewed partnership with the conservative Blue Dog caucus for candidate recruitment, but has discouraged candidates from embracing populist ideas, such as single-payer health care.

For Tillemann, however, the party’s closeness with the corporate elite is the very reason why the DCCC continues to lose general elections.

“They squash progressive candidates. They destroy the diversity of ideas in their caucus. They keep ideas like ‘Medicare for All,’ free community college, or impeaching Donald Trump from having a significant role in the national conversation,” says Tillemann. “The issues that resonate most with voters are not the issues that the DCCC is telling candidates to focus on.”

Is he worried that even if he is successful in his campaign, that he’s already betrayed one of the most powerful Democrats, making him an outsider as soon as he arrives in Washington?

“To a certain extent, people like Elizabeth Warren and people like Bernie Sanders have been ostracized by the party, and they have been marginalized by the establishment to the extent that is possible,” says Tillemann. “But the fact of the matter is that the people are crying out for genuine leaders, and the people are crying out for a solution to inequality and systemic injustice, and to the extent that I am fighting for those solutions, then I think there will be a powerful constituency for that.”

“I’m proud to be on the side of truth,” he added. “I’m proud to be on the right side of democracy, and I’m proud to be on the right side of free and fair elections.”

So, the difference between Hoyer and a bag of dirt? We all know that old one, but if the shoe fits, Hoyer wears it.

LAST: Common Dreams sees little to like in Hoyer - AIPAC kissing up. A KOS writer says, "a jackass," but that judgment arguably shows too much kindness, by questioning only conduct apart from motivation.

________________FURTHER UPDATE________________
Arguably, an earlier KOS writer headlined things better, in a must-read, see also the truthout.org publishing of a full Democracy Now! interview with the candidate Hoyer pressured to drop out of the Colorado primary in deference to the DCCC anointed corporate lawyer, as linked to in the KOS item.

Worth a look about DCCC decision making, this Politico item, ending:

“I don’t know that a person can tape a person without the person’s consent and then release it to the press. That’s what I’m more concerned about,” Pelosi said.

But Colorado law doesn’t require both parties to consent to a recording.

Progressives are already fundraising off of The Intercept’s report.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee sent an email Thursday morning encouraging donors to give to Tillemann and two liberal candidates in Nebraska and Pennsylvania the group says have been targeted by the DCCC.

PCCC and Democracy for America, a progressive PAC, later called on Hoyer to resign from Democratic leadership.

“Steny Hoyer and his corporate cronies already lost,” PCCC co-founder Stephanie Taylor said in a statement. “They don’t represent the future, and it’s time for them to step aside and make room for a new generation of leadership — one that inspires and motivates the base instead of depressing it.”

That Taylor statement is another way of saying "Yesterday's fish."

Next; a video. At seven and a half minutes, this video - Pelosi, "... if the Capitol were to crumble ...". At ten and a half minutes - Schumer "... he calls me all the time ..." plus extended remarks - watch the entire thing - from Schumer at the earlier time up to sixteen munutes - about we need a campaign for the young people. Telling statements, Saban being a wealthy regular contributor to Dem Party regulars; not to Ilhan Omar, not Bernie, not Warren; perhaps a token amount, I've not fully researched it. Readers are urged to comb over opensecrets.org. With the video of Dem leadership of both Houses of Congress speaking pro-Israel at a pro-Israel event, AJ publishes about AIPAC and spending dimensions of the Israel lobby. A spectrum of opinion is always best for open minds. Last thing about the video, at 34:30 Saban segues into it a question, "In one sentence ...", posed to two politicians; get what? What would you expect? Several sentences. WATCH THE VIDEO. APPROACH IT WITH AN OPEN, INFORMED MIND. (With Autoplay on, YouTube rotors to another video. It too is worth watching.)

One last thing that puzzles me, why Beto is not speaking at the AIPAC conference. Hoyer in a prettier, younger packaging? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But financing and then not inviting, wha's 'appening?

Actually, that and another last thing, this one wholly factual, having a factual answer, but where online is that answer published? The question, the Palestinians, the Arab Muslims between the Mediterranean and the Jordon River; are they exclusively or predominantly Sunni, or Shiite? Research it. Find an online answer if one exists. That the answer might be irrelevant seems fanciful. So why is the question not being a subject of interest to mainstream media? The geopolitics of the situation seems to hinge in some measure on the answer. Why a mystery?

______________FURTHER UPDATE_______________
The unfairness of life. Beto, seventy-five grand ahead of Eliot Engel, No. 1 vs No. 5, on Isreal lobby 2018 giving. (It is hard to read that top of the chart wrongly.) And Engel's bound to show up at AIPAC 2019 to give a solidarity speech (Speakers: Members of Congress) while Beto is free to fart around Iowa giving cornier but easier speeches to mid-westerners. Moving around, no stifling meeting room with artificial lighting, instead getting fresh air, sunlight, cooking up his Vitamin D. Today's fish.

_____________FURTHER UPDATE_____________
Those two videos, Haim Saban. Not a favorite person, here. Fobbing Clinton off ahead of Bernie. Per CNN, here. Then knifing Ellison in the back with help from elsewhere in the Isreal lobby - advocacy bloc. E.g., again CNN, here, here and here. Even after Schumer had publicly signed off on Ellison to head the DNC. Schumer! So DNC had Tom Perez given a hand up and now DNC will take mega-PAC and mega-donor money. Something Ellison opposed to boost grassroots importance over fat wallet politics. Thank's a lot Haim. Progressives may think Haim's yesterday's fish, for all he's meant to them. Certainly the man can spend his money as he pleases, but then he's trusted by whom, for what, and how far? Ilhan Omar in an arguably inartful but public limelight way has shown a sincere will to help people who are having their civil rights as human beings beaten down with barely the hope of BDS helping level a severely tilted playing field - IDF occupation, forced settlement policy, grossly disproportionate use of force.

Fairness counts, and progressives are fair.

Bibi, how fair has he been? Ask Romney.

____________FURTHER UPDATE_____________
Machiavelli wrote:

But when states are acquired in a country differing in language, customs, or laws, there are difficulties, and good fortune and great energy are needed to hold them, and one of the greatest and most real helps would be that he who has acquired them should go and reside there. This would make his position more secure and durable, as it has made that of the Turk in Greece, who, notwithstanding all the other measures taken by him for holding that state, if he had not settled there, would not have been able to keep it. Because, if one is on the spot, disorders are seen as they spring up, and one can quickly remedy them; but if one is not at hand, they are heard of only when they are great, and then one can no longer remedy them. Besides this, the country is not pillaged by your officials; the subjects are satisfied by prompt recourse to the prince; thus, wishing to be good, they have more cause to love him, and wishing to be otherwise, to fear him. He who would attack that state from the outside must have the utmost caution; as long as the prince resides there it can only be wrested from him with the greatest difficulty.

The other and better course is to send colonies to one or two places, which may be as keys to that state, for it is necessary either to do this or else to keep there a great number of cavalry and infantry. A prince does not spend much on colonies, for with little or no expense he can send them out and keep them there, and he offends a minority only of the citizens from whom he takes lands and houses to give them to the new inhabitants; and those whom he offends, remaining poor and scattered, are never able to injure him; whilst the rest being uninjured are easily kept quiet, and at the same time are anxious not to err for fear it should happen to them as it has to those who have been despoiled. In conclusion, I say that these colonies are not costly, they are more faithful, they injure less, and the injured, as has been said, being poor and scattered, cannot hurt. Upon this, one has to remark that men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.

But in maintaining armed men there in place of colonies one spends much more, having to consume on the garrison all the income from the state, so that the acquisition turns into a loss, and many more are exasperated, because the whole state is injured; through the shifting of the garrison up and down all become acquainted with hardship, and all become hostile, and they are enemies who, whilst beaten on their own ground, are yet able to do hurt. For every reason, therefore, such guards are as useless as a colony is useful.

SO - Settlement policy is as old as Old Nick (That being Nicolo Machiavelli). Ditto, moving the Capital, apart from any biblical writings, just move there. Things stand as they are, as facts, rhetoric being cheap and hence plentiful. Including rhetorical name-calling at the slightest of offenses.

______________FINAL UPDATE_____________
Anything going beyond this will be a new post. It is a semi-screed against Haim Saban primarily, Haim, whose Hollywood fortune was made via god-awful scklock kids programming, e.g., the Mighty Morphing Power Rangers brand of crap, and who'd rather propagandize our nation and buy pliant fully-corporatized politicians like Steny Hoyer instead of exporting something of Israel that IS worth notice and praise and desirable by far over whining and lobbying against BDS and for continuation in perpetuity of $3+ billion in U.S. taxpayer money given annually to his favored nation-state when it could be used here for getting what Israel's got:

Israel’s public healthcare system is well-advanced by international standards. Israel spends 7.5% of its GDP on the public healthcare system, providing a universal healthcare coverage to its entire population via four health management organizations and a network of hospitals, community clinics and specialized doctors. Israeli healthcare facilities are modern and are open to adopt new, cost effective technologies and procedures. Many Israeli doctors receive training in the United States and maintain personal and professional relationships with U.S. colleagues at major medical centers. Israel’s healthcare policy makers have been focusing on promoting healthy nutrition and lifestyle, preventive medicine and screening.

Israel is a global technology research and development center. Its strength in this sector stems from inter-disciplinary capabilities, which bring together medicine, clinical expertise, materials science, electronics, software expertise and engineering know-how. Israeli development centers of multinational companies have an annual turnover of billions of dollars.

[emphasis added] The bastard's nation has a fine humane healthcare policy toward its citizens, and Haim, bless him, is perfectly happy with the politicians he buys shoveling on all of us a substandard sack of crap, courtesy of the U.S. of A. pharma-industrial complex.

What's fine and in place and humming along like bees making honey in Israel is too good for us; and in the course of propagandizing us, not worth mention because it might make the natives restless; or how else should that be explained?

If Netanyahu monkeys in our elections, and we get less citizen benefits from it than his Israeli citizens get from his government, Netanyahu, Saban, and their entire lobby can fuck themselves and each other until they behave better.

BOTTOM LINE: Haim, buy me a better set of politicians, or go away. If you are not going to be helpful to this nation, Haim, get the fuck out of the way of the progressives who have ideas beyond lapping up propaganda and taking campaign contributions and giving Israel annual free billions. Knifing Ellison in the back after Schumer had signed off on his heading DNC apparently was your top accomplishment over the years, and no thanks to you for that, bro. End of screed.

Strib carries an AP feed about after Barr gained access to Muller's report. The item states in one later paragraph, "Democrats seem more likely to focus on their multiple investigations of the president, calls for transparency and frustrations with Barr rather than engaging in the talk of impeachment that has been amplified on Pelosi's left flank. As the release of Mueller's report loomed, she recently tried to scuttle that talk by saying she's not for impeachment, for now." It seems she should be open-minded on that question beyond her own feelings. She should ask to hear from others.

Strib link. Specifically Pelosi should say she'd like to hear from Pence on the question of impeachment. Can you imagine his biting his tongue while left no option but reciting chapter and verse of overreching, wrongly motivated, ill-concieved, premature, and such, all the while wanting Trump cast aside as the only thing between him and his burning ambitions. God and Jesus on his side that way, time to cast away stones, etc. after stones have been gathered about. For every thing there is a season, and there is that one big stone in Pence's way, and a new season is upon us.

Make Pompeo should be made to wear a clown suit for the rest of his Israel trip if it is still going on.

BBC reports, yes any lesser source you'd stand in disbelief, but BBC does not make shit like this up:

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said it is "possible" that President Donald Trump was sent by God to save Israel from Iran.

In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network during a high-profile trip to Israel, he said it was his faith that made him believe that.

He also praised US efforts to "make sure that this democracy in the Middle East, that this Jewish state, remains".

The comments came on a Jewish holiday celebrating rescue from genocide.

The holiday, Purim, commemorates the biblical rescue of the Jewish people by Queen Esther from the Persians, as the interviewer noted to Mr Pompeo.

What did Pompeo say?

He was asked if "President Trump right now has been sort of raised for such a time as this, just like Queen Esther, to help save the Jewish people from an Iranian menace".

"As a Christian, I certainly believe that's possible," said Mr Pompeo, a former member of Congress for Kansas and CIA director.

"I am confident that the Lord is at work here," he added.

Mr Pompeo came under fire during his tour of the Middle East for holding a conference call and only inviting "faith-based" members of the media to join.

How often do US officials invoke religion?

Mr Pompeo is not the first Trump official to suggest a divine will behind Mr Trump's actions: In January, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told a religious television network that God "wanted Donald Trump to become president".

Vice-President Mike Pence and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions have also referenced Christianity or bible verses in official remarks.

His administration is also the first in 100 years to have a Cabinet member bible study group - of which Mr Pompeo was a member.

[links and bolding in original] Then what about Beelzebub for Natanyahuish election destiny, or perhaps Bibi reaching for ultra right-wing Knesset help just being Big B. simply enjoying a good laugh?

And, Moloch being behind the Kushner 666 Fifth Ave. shenanigans?

Sinclair Lewis wrote of folks like Trump's circle. And these people are not the first highly placed DC species of big-time biblical bullshitters.

Vice.com carries the same Pompeo story, a partially expanded version:

President Donald Trump is many things: U.S. president. Wealthy businessman. Father of Tiffany Trump. A Gemini. A biblical savior.

Well, that last one is up for debate, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said it’s at least a possibility, in an appearance Thursday night on the Christian Broadcasting Network.

“Could it be that President Trump right now has been sort of raised for such a time as this, just like Queen Esther, to help save the Jewish people from the Iranian menace?” host Chris Mitchell asked Pompeo.

“As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible,” Pompeo replied.

“I am confident that the Lord is at work here,” he added.

Pompeo’s interview coincided with Purim, a holiday that celebrates the salvation of the Jewish people from genocide under Haman, the main antagonist in the Book of Esther, who works as a minister in the Persian empire. In the Old Testament, Esther, the wife of Persian King Xerxes I, persuades her husband to rescue the Jews.

Pompeo also visited Israel on Thursday, where he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s running for re-election despite facing criminal charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust related to gifts he allegedly gave to foreign billionaires. Earlier in the day, Trump tweeted that the U.S. should “fully recognize” the Golan Heights as an Israeli territory, but Pompeo made no reference to the president’s words. The Golan Heights are a Syrian territory that Israel captured during the Six-Day War in 1967.

Netanyahu called Trump’s statement a “Purim miracle.”

An image, twin sons of different mothers:

Image source, JPost.com: " Is Donald Trump campaigning for Netanyahu? Benjamin Netanyahu, facing a credible challenge on April 9 from Benny Gantz, is about to get a cascade of earned media thanks to Donald Trump. By RON KAMPEAS/JTA March 21, 2019 17:20".

_____________UPDATE_______________
Trump's Golan Heights bit, timed as it is before April elections in Israel may be a Purim miracle to Bibi, it's his status at risk in the election and he likely expects like minded "Purim miracle" responses at the Israeli ballot boxes; but otherwise the Trump stunt fails to pass muster; failing big time; see, e.g., here, here, here and here. Bibi interferes in our elections, Trump interferes in Israel's, and the band plays on. Now that Mueller's run out the budget on sniffing at Russia, what about Ukraine and Clinton? The band playing on has to master a new tune, eh? The whole Russia thing began because Clinton would not admit losing the election to Trump was simply her own damned bad campaigning helped that way by Podesta's choice of email password simplicity - truth hurting but the Mueller thing plays out like Hamlet deciding at the end of the play to do nothing but to accept a status quo and collect antiques as a hobby into old age. Ending not with a bang but a whimper, as T.S wrote? How it is with hollow men.

IF THIS IS NOT AN ADMISSION OF BEING SHABBY AND KNOWING IT, WHAT IS IT? "Cable lobbyists don't want to be called cable lobbyists anymore. The nation's top two cable industry lobby groups have both dropped the word "cable" from their names. But the lobby groups' core mission—the fight against regulation of cable networks—remains unchanged."

YES. HATE THE CABLE COMPANY. (YOUTUBE-TV IS NOT AS BAD AS CABLE)

BEFORE THE STORY LINK/EXCERPT, THIS

https://tv.youtube.com/welcome/

Now, ArsTech, with the headline quote first paragraph of the story, which continues:

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) got things started in 2016 when it renamed itself NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, keeping the initialism but dropping the words it stood for. The group was also known as the National Cable Television Association between 1968 and 2001.

The American Cable Association (ACA) is the nation's other major cable lobby. While NCTA represents the biggest companies like Comcast and Charter, the ACA represents small and mid-size cable operators. Today, the ACA announced that it is now called America's Communications Association or "ACA Connects," though the ACA's website still uses the americancable.org domain name.
Further Reading
Cable lobby tries to make you forget that it represents cable companies

"The new name reflects a leading position for the association in the fast-growing telecommunications industry, where technology is rapidly changing how information is provided to and used by consumers," the cable lobby said.

"It's all about the communications and connections our members provide," said cable lobbyist Matthew Polka, who is CEO of the ACA.

The "ACA Connects" moniker "explains what our association and members really do," Polka continued. "We connect, communicate, build relationships and work together with all, and that will never change."

They’re still cable companies

[...]

You can follow the ArsTech link to see what the [...] entails. A hint - if you want "shabby" as a judgment backed up, the [...] contains the term "net neutrality." Also, the word "Pai" which is synonymous with "shabby."

Merchandising Beto - What no Beto Board? No chance to Banister with Beto?

Image. Websearch, -- so is there a suggestion skateboarding at a very amateur level is presidential? What would Lyndon Johnson say? Fellow Texan and all . . . LBJ would suggest a board placement.

What triggers the inquiry, once before encountering something about the man and his board, is the big merchandising kick,
https://store.betoorourke.com/

But no board. What's happening? All sorts of other junk, no Beto Board. Perhaps a Beto Breakin tool kit? Beto Breathalyzer?

Missing merchandising mistakes might quell the campaign.

Ramp up those products. It's unAmerican to sell less. What about an MBSA hat, Make Beto Smile Again. He smiles so much, so nicely. Ask policy, get smile.

Jim Abeler, get off your foot-dragging butt, and do the job.

That's a concept, isn't it, a foot-dragging butt. But he's a Republican, and any ideological contortion is possible rather than straightforwardly funding the fixing of roads needing it. If you are not truly dedicated to fixing Hwy 47, sir, then retire so somebody so motivated can take your place.

Sure, funds are there if your district's road were top priority, but everyone has top priority aims for their district, the entire legislature is full of such top priorities. I recall Carol Molnau during Pawlenty days, and the highway in front of her home became a top priority cramdown item of the then state government, driven by the ideological Guv + Lt. Guv. combo, while Ms. M was wearing a second hat as Dept. of Transportation boss.

Look it up.

Republicans. Exasperation personified to where GOP should be EOP, Exasperating Old Party.

Matt Look quoted in the item, agreeing with his friends. He wants lights off Highway 10, bigger, better, to him a priority but when having a chance to goad things along via needed gas tax money, MIA.

And back to Molnau days, a quick web search - Feb. 10, 2008:

Carol Molnau, Minnesota’s transportation commissioner and lieutenant governor, has a spectacular view of the state Capitol from her corner office in the Transportation Building.

But Molnau hasn’t been paying much attention to the Capitol lately, at least not to what’s going on under the dome.

When the Legislature, where she served for 10 years, convenes Tuesday, one of its items of business will be to decide whether to dump Molnau from her transportation job.

Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Steve Murphy, DFL-Red Wing, plans to ask the Senate to vote against confirming Molnau’s appointment before the session adjourns in May. If the Senate votes not to confirm her, she will, in effect, be fired as head of the Minnesota Department of Transportation. She still would be lieutenant governor.

Murphy and Assistant Majority Leader Tarryl Clark, DFL-St. Cloud, said last week that the Senate will take up the confirmation issue only after senators pass a transportation funding bill.

Democrats control the Senate 45-22, and Murphy said, “I don’t know of anybody in our (Democratic) caucus who is going to vote against throwing Carol Molnau (a Republican) out of her job.”

Asked why, he quickly ticked off a list of 10 delayed bridge and highway projects, construction cost overruns and personnel and financial problems at MnDOT.

But the underlying reason DFLers oppose her seems to be that she he has resisted their proposals to increase taxes and fees for transportation.

“Carol Molnau is not an advocate for transportation,” Murphy said. “If it costs money, she ain’t gonna do it.”

Molnau’s allies say she’s getting a bad rap. Republican Rep. Mary Liz Holberg, of Lakeville, a longtime friend, said Molnau shouldn’t be blamed for not advocating more transportation spending, because she is carrying out Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s policies. “It’s her job to support the governor’s budget,” Holberg said.

A frequent MnDOT critic, Sen. Dick Day, R-Owatonna, said that while he’s concerned about some of Molnau’s policies, “I think she’s doing better than she’s getting credit for.” He noted that in the past five years, MnDOT has carried out the most expensive highway construction program in state history. Proposed by Pawlenty and Molnau and passed by the 2003 Legislature, the program cost $825 million, with the state borrowing half of the money and getting the rest from advanced federal funding.

Critics have disparaged Molnau’s performance since the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed Aug. 1 – even though the National Transportation Safety Board has not yet determined the disaster’s cause.

A Minnesota Public Radio-Humphrey Institute poll released last week showed that Minnesotans disapproved of her job performance by almost a 2-1 ratio.

Yep, Republicans. Holberg saying don't blame Molnau because it's Pawlenty's budget. Nobody wanting blame, but if it's praise . . .

Finger pointing at each other instead of doing the job does not get the job done. The job is governing the state for needs of the people who elected them. Provision and maintenance and upgrading of public goods.

Finger pointing back then. And the Hwy 35 bridge fell, etc. From inadequate attention during Pawlenty days and prior DFL and Ventura occupancy of the Governor's office. Nobody is blame-free. Transportation is never funded enough, but at least the Democrats acknowledge the purpose of governing is to provide and maintain pubic goods whereas the Republicans contend government exists to pay their legislative salaries and to meddle in reproductive rights decisions others want to make without meddling. Which is why DFL people are at least sane and responsive to what's needed.

BOTTOM LINE: Jim Abeler, get off the duff and govern, please. You did it once and there was squealing and hollering but you survived and prospered, moving from the House to the Senate. The sensible people understood, back then, when you did the right thing. It's not that hard. And tell Michelle Benson the same, would you? Raise the gas tax or risk disappearing and drowning in one of those massive underwater potholes on the unmaintained access road behind the KwikStop shop running in front of the KMart Church. An even bigger bottom line for readers, if you voted for Abeler and/or Benson, read the Channel 9 item. The tooth fairy does not leave bridge funding money under the pillow when the baby tooth gets removed from there. Other reliances are needed.

It's time. Past time. Do the job. Or step aside.

____________UPDATE_____________
The Molnau feather-your-own-nest mode of highway priority decision making happened before her Lt. Gov. days. But the story is worth retelling because it is indicative of everyone having his/her local priorities so that while surely one local project will not bankrupt MnDOT, that begs the question. Something Abeler is doing, in this current gas-tax increase debate, which is why he needs to be called out. On the Molnau personal prioritization, see, Wikipedia here, and Strib, archived, here. The Molnau family farm was sold for development "for 3.3 million dollars near the Highway 212 project she had backed passed through the House of Representatives," per Wikipedia. Strib reported:

In early 2000, as real estate development boomed in Chaska, then-state Rep. Carol Molnau authored a bill that ensured a long-delayed plan to build a new Hwy. 212 there would be put on a fast track.

Molnau, as chairwoman of the powerful House Transportation Finance Committee, guided the bill to passage. But she did not disclose Hwy. 212's proximity to the land she owned in Chaska or that she was negotiating to sell the property to a national housing developer, state and local records show.

The transportation bill provided for rapid construction of what Molnau called "mega-projects." One that fit the bill's criteria was Hwy. 212, which would run less than a mile from her farm.

This is on a scale different from a situation where Abeler is credited here as faultless and public need oriented, for advocating a traffic signal on U.S. Hwy 47 that would benefit his own home's ingress/egress opportunity per that highway. That stretch of road is a chaotic mess, with few present neighborhood options - fairgrounds and all, and if a mega project is delayed because the gas tax situation is flummoxed by EOP politics, than the "bandaid" inexpensive traffic signal alone instead of "fixing the broken leg" has sense to it. However doing things piecemeal is more costly than one single major overhaul, but if the latter is forestalled by Minnesota Republicans being themselves yet again, the light is a low cost palliative. Not best, but better than the wholly screwed up status quo where a tiny town road segment has been made to carry more traffic than ever earlier imagined. But it is Anoka, in Anoka County, and the tiny-town decisionmaking history and mentality there is illustrative. Republican dominated over the years. Tiny town mentality, and proud of it.

FURTHER: The Repuboican bankruptcy of leadership thinking in my mind is best shown by my House District, after Abeler shifted to the Senate, electing Abigail Whelan who famously during a House debate about a tax haven question expounded at extreme length about Jesus; a situation that went viral on the Internet and reflected poorly upon the district I happen to live in. Don't blame me, I voted DFL. But that is illustrative of tiny embryo Angst supplanting doing the job of governing sanely with sound judgment. Bless Whelan wherever she is now, having left the legislature in order to snag her Mrs. degree. We've got another one of the embryo-Angst crowd in the House, Rep. for the other half of the Abeler Senate district, who "graduated from Lowthian College, in Minneapolis, in 1983, majoring in fashion merchandising." And the potholes proliferate, while the bottleneck road-rail dangers remain unfixed.

FURTHER: Abeler is entrenched. He could again do the right thing without his empire shaking apart. He did it once, declines now, when being a good party man apparently this time trumps being a good man. The last one time and done challenger Abeler faced offers "nothing to see." That entrenched, yet champion of a traffic signal?

Strib publishes local op-ed content, "U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar: Apply universal values to all nations to achieve peace With respect to Israel and Palestine, I believe in a two-state solution, and my goal in speaking out has been to move both sides toward that. By Ilhan Omar March 18, 2019 — 5:37pm."

Link.

UPDATE: It appears that a two state solution, in the abstract, has support. However, BDS is how it can be forced into existence when one side of the two has a strong existing state, the IDF, and nukes; and the other side has occupation troops on its soil, colonies forced on it, and separation walls evidencing an aparthied policy and intent. With all the power, Israel wants to enforce all the rules. That may be a workable outcome of power, but it is not just.

FURTHER: Airbnb litigation. NPR. JTA. Bloomberg. NPR, a second item, and two NewYorker items, here and here.

Give BDS a chance?

One more link.

FURTHER: Same website as last, this item with a comment stream. A year earlier.

Getting realistic; two examples.

AJC on Twitter has posted this image, or it is believed to be an official post of that Twitter account. It was a gesture not demanded in any sense, but volunteered, and it is recognized as it should be, and applauded. Moving from that to the heart of the post:

A second image on the AJC Twitter account, ambiguously posted but in context possibly suggesting "dual loyalty" can be a two-way street, when the "ambiguous loyalty" "don't know who they represent" charge arguably may have been wrongly leveled one way:

One interpretation is pride in one's roots. Which is always a questionable thing to ever belittle or fault, and is separate from say Marco Rubio's sponsorship of anti-BDS legislation as clearly not a part of his ethnic roots; where his bill sponsorship is out of conscience or from a perception of what many in his constituency might wish of him.

Comparable to the Tlaib photo embracing, is reporting of Sheldon Adelson's first steps on Israeli soil, intentionally wearing his father's shoes because his father died before ever having the opportunity himself. If that is to be faulted, one would have to explain to me why. In both instances feelings appear strong but not rationally nor sensibly subject to reproach.

It brings to mind the dislike felt here for the term "antisemitic" as a wrong usage. There can be anti-Jewish, anti-Zionism, and criticism for actions or policies of the government of the State of Israel, which has existed since 1948 as a matter of Zionist conquest, with a green line having been long established, but with land subsequently conquered beyond that via subsequent warfare. Those three things clearly differ, while in some minds there may be overlap; and the term Semite relates to Semitic languages and ethnicity; where - look it up - Ashkenazim Jews are European in ancestry and Yiddish is not a Semitic language, unlike Arabic. Technically the Palestinians are "Semites" by actual heritage more than Jews who after the Hitler war fled Europe and took a major role in conquering territory. The usage, "antisemite" has however gained a meaning, but unfortunately one that has been fuzzed greatly by being much abused in instances of over-use. And the term fuzzes wrongly the difference between anti-Jewish, anti-Zionism, and criticism of Israel's government and things it does.

The two most reasoned post-Ilhan Omar's speaking online writings are believed here to each be authored by Jewish persons, one of each gender; WaPo, "How U.S. politicians use charges of anti-Semitism as a weapon;" and Vassar Political Review, "No, Ilhan Omar’s AIPAC comments were not anti-Semitic." Neither is a screed, each being civically worded and analytical. Each suggests how entrenched the term "anti-Semitic" has become, as well as how fuzzed it's been bandied about to where any discerning analysis has to spend much ink on differentiating and defining what sense and reach the author is attributing to the word. In truth, Omar's criticism was primarily directed at the Israel lobby and how it has been dominantly successful in toning down U.S. general population understanding of the "settlement" colonization of war-seized land and how Palestinian rights have been abridged, at times by overbearing IDF cruelty. When you cannot honestly dispute a message, shoot the messenger is an old adage, which was proven valid in use against Rep. Omar.

Full circle, back to the two key takeaways - Tlaib and Adelson each properly prideful in heritage are two sides of the same coin; reflecting the difficulty of any sane and nuanced viewing of the Israeli treatment of its Palestinian population, presently, and long term as to whether a two-state solution is honestly in play or whether the game is colonization of the occupied territory to achieve an aim of Greater Israel, ocean to Jordon River; single state, like it or love it. That is why it was a landmark event to see disqualification by Israel's top court of a candidacy openly wanting the forced single state "over all territory" eventual outcome, sooner rather than later. It was a top-judiciary redeclaration of dedication to the two-state prospect.

_____________UPDATE______________
Worth reading tcjewfolk.com, here and here. From the extended comments of Omar posted in the second linked item it seems there was more a dual loyalty touch than needed. In total the comment seemed responsive to the question, but the line between a dual loyalty claim, and one of pride in a heritage can be blurred. Not being Jewish, the edge that dual loyalty wording carries to those who are is not a matter of ingrained feeling, but an outside viewpoint. There is a gap between Israel a homeland for Jews as a place of pride, and Israel, right or wrong beyond judgment of others outside of the involved lands and as issues get boosted and advanced by the Israel lobby being never at fault or if at fault somehow excused; things are subtle and lines are indistinct if drawn. From outside of Jewish upbringings the Omar comment seemed innocent enough. Yet concern over it can be felt as actual and strong, depending on having been a troubled people from outside actions. Sensitivities to wordings can vary, legitimately. Yet the two state promise and the idea of settlements being inexorably implemented by Israel in occupied territory conquered by war is troubling. As if colonizing is intended by state government as a prelude to annexation. The judicial reaffirmation days ago of two state policy via foreclosing a candidacy clearly inimical to it was a helpful current step, in time.

A business relationship which says much about each side to the contract: Strib carrying an AP feed, "Fox News hires Donna Brazile as political contributor."

Strib link, beginning:

NEW YORK — Former Democratic National Committee chief Donna Brazile, who was fired by CNN for tipping off the Hillary Clinton campaign about debate topics in 2016, has joined Fox News Channel as a political commentator.

Brazile said Monday she knows fellow liberals will criticize her for joining Fox, but that it's important for people not to retreat to "safe spaces" where they just talk to people who agree with them.

"There's an audience on Fox News that doesn't hear enough from Democrats," Brazile said in a statement.

Her conduct at CNN was revealed as part of emails exposed by Wikileaks. She had contacted the Clinton campaign about topics that would be covered in a March 2016 town hall when the competition was Bernie Sanders.

Brazile initially denied the accusation, but admitted to it after the election. She wrote in March 2017 that sending emails to the Clinton campaign was "a mistake I will forever regret."

Neither then nor after, has Secretary Clinton expressed any comparable remorse over taking unfair advantage over her better, Senator Sanders. It was a low point, but indicative of how Senator Sanders was marginalized; DNC chief Wasserman-Schultz having been complicit in things. Yet Bernie's policies are what's grown legs, while the two DNC co-conspirators and the candidate who lost an election to Trump are fading away. (Joining FOX being fading away, no matter what the salary.)

Major news from Israel which most might regard as very good news. Multiple outlets carry the story.

Two major outlets report; WaPo and Reuters. With the reports cumulative, the WaPo item detail is used as a focus:

Israel’s top court bans far-right candidate from election, allows Arab slate to run
By Ruth Eglash -- March 17 at 5:03 PM

JERUSALEM — Israel’s Supreme Court on Sunday disqualified a far-right candidate from the April 9 national election and overturned a decision by the Central Election Committee to block a joint Arab slate and a candidate from a leftist alliance from the race.

Human rights groups and representatives of the Arab-led parties welcomed the court’s ruling rejecting last week’s vote by the election committee, a body made up of representatives of each political faction in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.

[link omitted ...] At the same time, Michael Ben Ari, leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit faction, called the decision to prevent his candidacy anti-democratic.

“There is a legal junta here who wants to take over our lives,” Ben Ari said in a statement. “This is not democracy.”

Ben Ari accused Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit of scuttling his political plans. The country’s top lawyer had written a legal opinion that Ben Ari not be allowed to run, citing an incitement of racism.

Parties and individuals can be disqualified from running for office for three reasons — rejecting Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, inciting racism, or expressing support for an enemy state or for terrorist organizations.

Ben Ari and his party, which translates as Jewish Power, have argued for the forcible transfer of Israel’s minority Arabs unless they swear an oath of loyalty. The faction had been given a shot at entering the Knesset thanks to a deal it reached with two other far-right parties. The agreement was encouraged by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israeli commentators and U.S. Jewish groups condemned the move, viewing Jewish Power as an offshoot of Kach, a group once led by an extremist rabbi, Meir Kahane. Israel outlawed Kach several decades ago, and the United States considers it a terrorist organization. The U.S.-born Kahane was assassinated in New York in 1990.

[...]

With AIPAC soon convening in DC with leading Israeli candidates for top office, Netanyahu the incumbent and Gantz, the challenger both set to be AIPAC speakers, it is possible public (vs side-rooom) discussion might touch upon the top court's decision and rationale. From Reuters:

[...]

The premier’s partnership with Jewish Power also drew rare censure from the U.S. pro-Israel lobby and normally staunch Netanyahu backer AIPAC, which branded the party “racist and reprehensible”.

A poll aired by public broadcaster Kan on Sunday put Likud narrowly in the lead to form the next coalition government with a projected 31 of parliament’s 120 seats against 30 for Gantz’s Blue and White party.

If reelected, Netanyahu will become Israel’s longest-serving premier in July. That bid was dealt an unprecedented blow last month when Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit announced a plan to indict Netanyahu for bribery and breach of trust. Netanyahu denies wrongdoing and could forestall formal charges in a review hearing after the election.

Raam-Balad, which held eight seats in the last parliament, said the Supreme Court had upheld its “fundamental right to represent our electorate while Netanyahu and Gantz compete to see who can incite more powerfully against the Arab public”.

Presuming the Israeli court functions as our appellate courts; there likely was a formal opinion issued stating the rationale and reasoning of whatever the majority constituted; possibly per curium if unanimous or individually authored, with or without dissenting or concurring opinions. Present limited web study has not found an English online version of any such opining, if any. The news reports are all that were considered, and they were discovered only because a Google Alert was set = Israel lobby. The two cited reports were in the day's return list.

___________UPDATE____________
Less promising news of language nuance carrying heavy non-nuanced implications; Lara Friedman, President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, writes.

The land in question was seized as a prize of war; promises of reasonableness were made; and ongoing steady colonization of the conquered and IDF occupied territories has been Israeli action; causing international scorn, but with the best the U.S. of A. would muster being a U.N. Security Council abstention allowing a 14-0 vote to pass critical of the colonization of wartime seized land treated as if annexable spoils of war. Ms. Friedman writes of "occupied" being eroded as the only fair term to be used about the Israeli conduct re the land.

Setting a recent Google Alert = anti-BDS -- two returned links.

Here and here; the first item also linking to Guardian, here. That first item is detailed and informative. Readers are urged to toggle the link and have a look.

Twenty-two million dollars, as Guardian reported Israel lobby spending in the US during the 2018 election ramp-up might be a sizable stack of Benjamins. How thick is one, and to make twenty-two million, how many would need to be stacked?

OpenSecrets.org data: Something about the Benjamins?

2018.

2012 [presidential election year]. 2016 [ditto].

2017 [DNC election, Ellison vs Perez]. Vox links, here and here. Real or imagined ginned up Islamophobia? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

First Ellison, then Omar, perhaps meaning that MN CD5 has a target on its back? A problem of those not sufficiently schooled on how a lobby would have them behave?

One of the Vox items links to two Twitter posts of letters: One from a "Dan Fendel, Piedmont" (whatever that affiliation means); and a more troubling one from "Jack Rosen, President, American Jewish Congress." Each is pro-Israel, anti-Palestinians, and imploring DNC voting persons to vote against Keith Ellison, then House Rep. from MN CD5. Coincidentally, Ilhan Omar, herself drawing criticism, has succeeded Ellison as House Rep. from MN CD5. At a guess there may be many residents of MN CD5 who feel they can make decisions on their own without input from the Israel Lobby. And have made such decisions. And might dislike Islamophobia ginned up against their choices of representation. Perhaps not, but the vote counts in initial Democratic Party primaries re Ellison's first run for that office, and Omar's, seem to objectively speak for themselves.

Exactly who the American Jewish Congress - AJC is and how it operates are not at all well known here, it being their decision making, not anyone else's, and not something seeming to have a great web transparency.

The feeling here is Ellison would have been a far better DNC leadership choice than Tom Perez, and that lobbyist thumbs on the scale against Ellison over things half a world away from our nation were counterproductive to a better party governance.

___________UPDATE____________
ADL also had a role in Ellison criticism and Omar criticism; see, e.g., here, here, and here re Ellison; here re Omar. ADL seems a better known, more open, and more public an operative than AJC. Yet that is a guess without any extended web research to back it up. Readers are urged to research such a question as deeply as felt appropriate.

Millennial Angst, if reduced to one concept; exploitation of labor by those who've attempted the murder of unions and largely succeeded, and have structured the labor market their way. Think Ronald Reagan. Read an item, agree or disagree.

Vox link. No excerpt. Read it.

UPDATE: The item text here focuses on 1973 as the trend start; Nixon's second term. But even though while the divergence held through the "stagflation" years of Ford and Carter it did not precipitously diverge. What the chart clearly shows is the divergence had not taken off like hellfire until 1980 onward and we all know that was Reagan, Bubba, and the Bushes in the oval office when the situation worsened tremendously - wages even for a while decreasing as productivity rose steadly. So blame Reagan most, the Republicans in toto, and the Bubba triangulation BS which was nothing more than Republicanism in drag.

About a year ago, circumstantial evidence and inferences published, Think Progress, about Harvard graduate Jared Kushner, Qatar, money, and 666.

666 Fifth Ave. in New York City. Real estate mogulship at play.

It is something to remember November 2020. The report makes clear nobody had ordered anybody to hand out a top secret security clearance to anyone, yet, back then.

UPDATE: The post cannot be left without fleshing out, "Harvard graduate." Leaving that out of a post about money would be like a body with its heart removed.

"Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said Trump’s deal with Carrier offered a partial solution to a broader problem." Is that just another way to say all gimmick, no substance? It is Trump after all.

It is not a new story. It is one that is not come and then gone. It is one to linger, into 2020, as to honesty and any notion of effectiveness being more than a circus stunt.

WaPo:

Trump said he would save jobs at Carrier. The layoffs start July 20.
By Danielle Paquette - May 24, 2017

This story has been updated to include Carrier's response

Carrier, the company President Trump pledged to keep on American soil, informed the state of Indiana this week that it will soon begin cutting 632 workers from an Indianapolis factory. The manufacturing jobs will move to Monterrey, Mexico, where the minimum wage is $3.90 per day.

That was never supposed to happen, according to Trump's campaign promises. He told Indiana residents at a rally last year there was a "100 percent chance” he would save the jobs at the heating and air-conditioning manufacturer.

About 1,400 positions were on the chopping block, per company estimates. Over the past year, Trump has claimed he could maintain at least 1,100 of those jobs in the United States. But on Monday, the company gave official notice to Indiana officials that it would start laying off workers at the factory on July 20 and keep slashing staff until approximately 800 factory employees remain.

[...] Trump’s saga with Carrier began last spring, when he declared to an Indianapolis crowd that he would stop the company from uprooting in search of cheaper labor.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Trump said at the rally. “They’re going to call me, and they are going to say, ‘Mr. President, Carrier has decided to stay in Indiana.’”

He kept going. “One hundred percent,” Trump said. “It’s not like we have an 80 percent chance of keeping them or a 95 percent. 100 percent.”

[...] A celebratory Trump visited the factory in December and announced that, thanks to his negotiating, more than 1,100 of the jobs would stay in the heartland.

“Carrier stepped it up, and now they’re keeping over 1,100 people,” Trump told an audience of cheering factory workers.

He said those numbers could go even higher, noting that United Technologies had agreed to invest roughly $16 million into updating the plant.

“And by the way, that number is going to go up substantially as they expand this area, this plant,” Trump said. “The 1,100 is going to be a minimum number.”

But later that month, Greg Hayes, chief executive of United Technologies, admitted that the $16 million investment would go toward automation.

“What that ultimately means is there will be fewer jobs,” he told CNBC's Jim Cramer.

Chuck Jones, president of the United Steelworkers Local 1999, which represents Carrier employees in Indianapolis, [...] told The Washington Post days later that Trump had “lied his a-- off.” He suspected the then-president-elect was including in his count design and engineering jobs that were never going to leave. Trump responded on Twitter by saying Jones had done a “terrible job” as union president.

--snip-- The headline quote comes in sequence -

“I wouldn’t even call it a deal,” Strain said. “It seemed to be that Carrier was responding to political pressure and did so in a way that allowed them to make it through a political moment.”

Trump, he said, benefited from the optics.

“The president,” Strain said, “took the opportunity to position himself as a champion of American workers.”

---
Likely Trump is not the first bullshit specialist to gain the oval office. He is merely the latest; as well as the one so inept and inconsistent that his bullshit really wafts an odor. An odor of mendacity, crudly perfumed. An Ivanka brand purfume, keeping the family involved? "Smells fine," Mike Pence is quoted as saying.

--------------
stretching it a bit, on the Pence thing - something he may have thought but no web item says he articulated the thought
- "Smells like Republican deep Indiana - etc.

France these days. Something the US press largely ignores.

Yellow Vest Angst has not evaporated.

A video of disorder, and showing people with cell phones can hold them up and stream. The video is a kind of stream of consciousness. Not Bloomsday.

AJ coverage is vague. There is unrest, and it is unclear if Macron knows good steps or wants to take them.

More. Again.

Frexit? Unlikely.

____________UPDATE____________
U.S. mainstream media have posted coverage; NYT, CNN, WaPo, Wapo again, and LATimes. The reporting fails to capture the bystander street presence after much window smashing which the long video displays.

CNN and RT are two outlets reporting antisemitism as a dimension of or belief factor among yellow vest protesters. The RT item does distinguish anti-Zionism from antisemitism, which deserves note because the sentiments may overlap but are nonetheless distinct, as is dislike for some politics and behaviors of the Israeli state. Such remote coverage may be trustworthy, or editorially biased. At a distance it is hard to know what is happening beyond the French Police appearing more disciplined and less bloodthirsty than the U.S. putdown of the Occupy Movement months ago. The brutality and universal press propaganda here about that popular expression of dissatisfaction with wealth running the nation badly was beyond anything shown in the extended film of the French streets.

With a Minnesota Congressperson mentioned in news as a BDS supporter, a look at the Israel lobby not being totally in the Netanyahu-Trump back pocket.

Published from Florida, a carry of a New York report of a split over policy and politics in one part of the lobby conglomerate, with AIPAC convening soon this month and Israel having April elections; this link, stating in part:

NEW YORK (JTA)-At the end of March, the National Council of Young Israel, an Orthodox synagogue association, will hold a gala dinner hosted by Pete Hegseth, the co-host of "Fox & Friends."

The invitation advertises that Rep. Kevin McCarthy and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, both Republicans, will speak. Tommy Hicks, the co-chairman of the Republican National Committee, will receive the Guardian of Israel award. The chairman of the dinner, Rabbi Yechezkel Moskowitz, has tweeted that

"#DemocratsAreDestroyingAmerica."

Moskowitz has also trained his Twitter fire on Young Israel rabbis who object to their group's rightward tilt.

"Everyone of the Rabbis on this list from reconstructionist lover @RabbiStarrYITH to tree hugger Barry Kornblau should be ashamed of themselves joining with liberal progressive groups like @IfNotNowOrg in attacking @NCYIYoungIsrael for defending Israels democracy," he tweeted Monday.

Moskowitz told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he speaks only for himself, not Young Israel.

[...] For years, the National Council of Young Israel has issued public statements largely supporting right-wing policies and politicians, including President Donald Trump. But now a group of Young Israel rabbis and leaders are protesting the group's political positions. They say the statements do not necessarily represent their views and are made without consulting member synagogues. Some synagogues have floated leaving Young Israel, in part over this issue.

"I would have liked an apology for speaking on our behalf, with divisive issues that are not representative," said Rabbi Adam Starr, who leads Young Israel of Toco Hills in Atlanta. Starr was one of the rabbis Moskowitz called out in his tweet.

The report goes well beyond that, so readers are urged to follow the link. Of note, a forum bias, surely Republican, but omitting mention of Florida's own Senator Rubio as a participant, (Trump's "Little Marco"), is strange when Rubio is the key bill sponsor this session of the anti-BSD part of the opening Republicans' Senate S.1 omnibus bill. Opposing BDS either is a point of conscience to Senator Rubio, or he feels it is service for his constituency, or an influential part of it.

It is his party in the spotlight, but Senator Rubio declines a touting and taking a bow? This is an interesting posture of events; a politician declining taking a bow toward a likely friendly audience. Add to it that from the report it appears this event will be contemporaneous with, or shortly after the March AIPAC confab in DC.

LAST: With a media hack of Hegseth's dimension hosting the thing, it will be less than it might be; that being a certainty.

With Hegseth a known commodity, that opinion needs little fleshing out beyond noting clarity being always better than smoke, mirrors and heated shallow bloviation.

Perhaps Sen. Rubio is familiar with Hegseth, while having other demands then on his time.

____________UPDATE______________
As to foreign state apparatus/operatives monkeying around with U.S. Presidential elections; oh, my, those Russians, Mondoweiss, N.Y.Times. Readers can read, so no quote.

As to Islamophobia blame casting, apart from antisemitism quick on the trigger blame casting; RT reporting on "Blame Trump."

As to antisemitism as real vs as politically ginned up to quell, castigate or intimidate, Holocaust Remembrance boxes a tidy operative definition, "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” In explanatory notes, this is the top posted explanatory item:

To guide IHRA in its work, the following examples may serve as illustrations:

Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic. Antisemitism frequently charges Jews with conspiring to harm humanity, and it is often used to blame Jews for “why things go wrong.” It is expressed in speech, writing, visual forms and action, and employs sinister stereotypes and negative character traits.

The gist there seems that pointing out how BDS fixed mistreatment of a major part of people on controlled enclaves within controlled borders in South Africa, should be a fair usage in discussion of BDS as a potential incentivisation toward Isreal to not forget decades ago Oslo Accord two state promises in favor of some ocean to Jordan greater Isreal thinking some have displayed, outwardly or implicitly by tedious incessant incremental settlement expansion without what some would call reasonable due restraint. On the other side, it would be questionable, a look yourself in the mirror thing, to question Palestinian mistreatment in Israel while saying Chinese putting millions of Muslim Xinjiang Uighur minority people into reeducation concentration camps is not a problem, ditto for any blind eye toward Saudi Sunni treatment if its Shia minority, which concentrates in the eastern oil rich parts of that nation. IN SHORT: There has to be a perspective.

A second example, the cited text notes later stating antisemitism would entail:

Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.

There the example coming to mind would be with regard to the opiate abuse crisis; with Sackler family greed on the causation side, (Oxycontin falsely promoted as time release and hence non-adictive, in order to pump the bottom line of Purdue Pharma), while on the other side Dr. Adelson runs a well regarded Vegas treatment clinic after having graduated from Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University. She bears no Sackler stigma in that she had no say in picking the the Jewish donor-benefactorss for the med school at which she studied and excelled, while now being a forefront person on the remediation end of that addiction spiral. Neither Dr. Adelson nor any others of the Jewish faith are conjoined in fault with the family which happened to be Jewish and which played a feature role in profiting immensely because medical practice stood blind to clear things that were overlooked because the pharma salespeople told them false information. The Sacklers are the Sacklers and will deal with litigation and accusation, apart from their faith, which is not relevant to their pharma circumstances.

A third item in the cited notes:

Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.

That is the one that got Rep. Omar a load of disproportionate scorn, in that her remark seemed intent on stating she had felt pressured to go along with policy of not in our halls of Congress questioning greatly Israeli settlement policy and disproportionate military responsiveness, when the fact is the entire voting U.N. Security Council found the settlement practices of that state unacceptable, which happened because the U.S. ambassador to the UN abstained instead of following a past practice of using veto power to shield Israel from official condemnation for its actions.

Some may say the entire voting 14 states in that anti-settlement vote were being antisemetic, but the credibilty of any such contention is a separate thing.

LAST: Had Rep. Omar from my home state of Minnesota not been made a lightning rod for disproportionate scorn and accusation for speaking out as she did, BDS and such might have not been brought to a helpful personal focus; but now that it has the sentiment here is that while much of Intel low-power microprocessor design arose from Israeli work for the firm, I am not personally about to boycott Intel in the next computer I may buy in favor of AMD processors; nor do I think such a step would Make America Great Again.

However, BDS as a right and as a principle and collectively pursued incentivizing force is separate from what actions I as a consumer might or might not take regarding consumer products.

Not being a manufacturer or services vendor the part of BDS at issue in that sphere does not touch me personally although my belief is that freedoms of ones so placed in commerce are wrongly under attack, unconstitutionally so, by anti-BSD promoters, bill sponsors, and activism; wherever it originates or arises, coordinated and lobbied for or independently conceived. Lawyers will prosper via the spinout from that question, bless them and their briefs and billing records.

BOTTOM LINE: The Claiborne Hardware case got the First Amendment reach stated correctly on the right to boycott as a matter of conscience, so that obstructionists may deny that repeatedly, but not credibly, in my view.