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Monday, March 18, 2019

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.