December 15, 2023

Corruption in New York's Redistricting Plans

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-12-15-corruption-new-york-redistricting/



Progressives and Democrats were cheered last week when New York state’s highest court tossed out the 2022 congressional district map and ordered the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission to draw a new one. A fairer map could flip as many as five seats back to Democratic. But what sort of Democrat? In New York’s 16th District, a nasty primary fight is brewing between incumbent Congressman Jamaal Bowman, an African American progressive, and Westchester County Executive George Latimer, who is white and centrist.

Before the 2022 redistricting, more of Bowman’s district was in the Bronx, which is heavily Black and Latino. Now, most of the seat is in affluent, largely white Westchester County. Following Bowman’s criticism of Israel’s policy in Gaza and the West Bank, the Israel lobby in the form of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) recruited Latimer to challenge Bowman and promised him scads of money. And Latimer is not shy about pointing out how the new district map will determine the winner. In an interview with the publication City & State, Latimer said that if the new district should include more of the Bronx and less of Westchester County, he’s “not gonna win that race.”

And here’s where the plot thickens. Latimer has a fat thumb on the scale. The chair of the Independent Redistricting Commission is Latimer’s own deputy county executive, Ken Jenkins. If Latimer wins the seat, Jenkins would move up to county executive. He’d be the first African American to hold the post. The New York Working Families Party, a strong backer of Bowman, has issued a demand that Jenkins recuse himself. But unless the power of public opinion shames Jenkins into stepping aside, it’s not clear who if anyone has the power to remove him.

And it gets worse. Jenkins was appointed to the post by the state Senate president, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, who is also from Westchester. Stewart-Cousins is a close ally of Latimer and Jenkins, and is the first African American woman to lead the Senate. So don’t expect her to ask Jenkins to step aside. Redistricting is all about horse trading. Other members of the commission will want changes in other districts and they need to corral votes. It is unlikely that they would cross Chairman Jenkins on the map of the Bowman seat.

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December 15, 2023

Condition U.S. Aid to Israel on a Modicum of Israeli Realism

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-12-14-condition-us-aid-israel-netanyahu/



For more than 30 years, the official policy of the American government (with some deviation during the Trump presidency) has been to support and promote a two-state solution to the problem of Israel-Palestine. The Oslo Accords, which established a process by which a viable and independent Palestinian state could be established alongside Israel, was one of the genuine achievements of Bill Clinton’s presidency. But for a right-wing Israeli’s assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who championed the accords, they might have led to something like a durable peace or at least a modus vivendi in that vexed land.

Neither the Israeli far right nor the Palestinian extremists ever accepted Oslo; each favors a religiously homogenous regime that runs from the river to the sea. The Israeli far right now dominates Israel’s government, and that government’s leader, Bibi Netanyahu, is now more explicit than he’s ever been that no Palestinian state will ever be established. Down in the polls—very down in the polls—after having Hamas’s October 7 murder raid occur on his watch and after refusing to accept any responsibility for having had that happen, Bibi plainly hopes his extreme anti-Palestinian posture will at least win him back the support of the Israeli right. As Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea noted in the centrist newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, “He failed as Mr. Security and he failed as Mr. America. Maybe he’ll succeed as Mr. Never Palestine.”

Which raises a question for the Biden administration and the United States more generally: Why should we support Israel so long as its policy is fundamentally at odds with ours, and with our general support for legitimate national aspirations? Why should we continue to give it aid? Why should we continue to veto United Nations resolutions premised on promoting two-state solutions?

I don’t regard such a shift in policy as anti-Israel; I regard it as a necessary form of tough love. Plainly, Israel’s policy of opposing a Palestinian state has not worked, as numerous acts of terrorism, two intifadas, and the October 7 raid have made all too bloodily clear. There’s no reason whatever to believe that it will work going forward. To the contrary, were Israel to accept a viable Palestine on the West Bank, it’s clear that its leading Arab neighbors, most particularly Saudi Arabia, would normalize relations with it, and the global “Kick Me” sign that Israel has affixed to its butt could be removed. (Some kicks would surely continue, due partly to the endurance of antisemitism, but they’d be fewer in number.) Such an accord would require Israel to relinquish a number of its West Bank settlements, but the majority of Israelis (those who live within the nation’s Green Line accepted borders), having experienced the rule of the settler and ultra-Orthodox extremists in Bibi’s Cabinet, don’t appear all that keen on forfeiting their lives and livelihoods to the demands of those zealots.

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December 14, 2023

UK bans entry for those responsible for settler violence against Palestinians

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-bans-entry-those-responsible-settler-violence-against-palestinians-2023-12-14/



LONDON, Dec 14 (Reuters) - British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said on Thursday that those responsible for settler violence against Palestinians would be banned from entering Britain, following a similar plan by the European Union.

U.N. figures show daily settler attacks in the Israeli-occupied West Bank have more than doubled since the Palestinian militant group Hamas's deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel from Gaza.

"Extremist settlers, by targeting and killing Palestinian civilians, are undermining security and stability for both Israelis and Palestinians," Cameron said on social media site X, formerly known as Twitter.

"Israel must take stronger action to stop settler violence and hold the perpetrators accountable. We are banning those responsible for settler violence from entering the UK to make sure our country cannot be a home for people who commit these intimidating acts."

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https://twitter.com/ashoswai/status/1712792570856718847

December 14, 2023

Toni Basil - Mickey (BBC Special + Official - 1981) ReMastered

Label: Radialchoice – VSX 1148, Virgin – VSX 1148
Format: Vinyl, 12", Single, Limited Edition, 45 RPM
Country: Canada
Released: 1981
Genre: Electronic, Rock, Pop
Style: Synth-pop

December 14, 2023

BREAKING: Israeli ambassador @TzipiHotovely rejects the idea of a two-state solution "The answer is absolutely no"

https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1734982762208113039

Israel-Hamas latest: IDF determined despite heavy losses in Gaza; ambassador says two-state solution not possible

The Israeli ambassador to the UK has rejected the idea of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Meanwhile, Israel has vowed to continue its bombardments in Gaza in the face of wavering international support - despite heavy losses.

https://news.sky.com/story/israel-gaza-latest-hamas-war-updates-sky-news-blog-12978800

December 13, 2023

Rory Stone, a Scottish cheesemaker, claims to have made the world's stinkiest cheese. Customers can't get enough.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/world/europe/stinkiest-cheese-minger-scotland.html

https://archive.is/9er7N



There is a cheese that may stand alone. In proud fetidness, that is. Rory Stone, a 59-year-old cheesemaker at Highland Fine Cheeses in Scotland, has been overrun with orders for a washed-rind cheese called the Minger, which he is billing as the most putrid-smelling cheese in the world.

“Everybody is still asking for samples, and it just hasn’t stopped,” Mr. Stone said in an interview. “And I find it really bizarre. I mean, it is a smelly cheese, but it is quite a lovely flavor. So the only problem now is I’ve run out of cheese.” Mr. Stone, whose parents were also cheese makers, began selling the Minger seven years ago. (“Minger” is slang for someone who is ugly or smells bad. “There are some Urban Dictionary definitions which are a bit rude,” Mr. Stone said.)

Supermarkets initially rejected it, dismissing it as a gimmick. But it sold well enough in independent shops, and it has won several awards, including best specialty cheese at the Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh in 2019.

This week, however, Asda, a British supermarket chain, announced that it would stock the cheese in its stores, making it widely available for the first time. The Asda news release, which described the Minger as “pungent,” gave rise to a low-grade media frenzy, with Mr. Stone giving interviews to The Telegraph, Sky News and the BBC.

https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1732148007351492721
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December 13, 2023

The Crucifucks - s/t (1984)

Label: Alternative Tentacles – VIRUS 38
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 1984
Genre: Rock
Style: Punk

December 12, 2023

New research is uncovering the hidden differences in how people experience the world. The consequences are unsettling

https://aeon.co/essays/the-moral-imperative-to-learn-from-diverse-phenomenal-experiences





On 26 February 2015, Cates Holderness, a BuzzFeed community manager, posted a picture of a dress, captioned: ‘There’s a lot of debate on Tumblr about this right now, and we need to settle it.’ The post was accompanied by a poll that racked up millions of votes in a matter of days. About two-thirds of people saw the dress as white and gold. The rest, as blue and black. The comments section was filled with bewildered calls to ‘go check your eyes’ and all-caps accusations of trolling.

Vision scientists were quick to point out that the difference in appearance had to do with the ambiguity of ambient light in the photograph. If the visual system resolved the photograph as being taken indoors with its warmer light, the dress would appear blue and black; if outdoors, white and gold. That spring, the annual Vision Sciences Society conference had a live demo of the actual dress (blue and black, for the record) lit in different ways to demonstrate the way the difference of ambient light shifted its appearance. But none of this explains why the visual systems of different people would automatically infer different ambient light (one predictive factor seems to be a person’s typical wake-up time: night owls have more exposure to warmer, indoor light).

Whatever the full explanation turns out to be, it is remarkable that this type of genuine difference in visual appearance could elude us so completely. Until #TheDress went viral, no one, not even vision scientists, had any idea that these specific discrepancies in colour appearance existed. This is all the more remarkable considering how easy it is to establish this difference. In the case of #TheDress, it’s as easy as asking ‘What colours do you see?’ If we could be oblivious to such an easy-to-measure difference in subjective experience, how many other such differences might there be that can be discovered if only we know where to look and which questions to ask?

Take the case of Blake Ross, the co-creator of the Firefox web browser. For the first three decades of his life, Ross assumed his subjective experience was typical. After all, why wouldn’t he? Then he read a popular science story about people who do not have visual imagery. While most people can, without much effort, form vivid images in their ‘mind’s eye’, others cannot – a condition that has been documented since the 1800s but only recently named: aphantasia. Ross learned from the article that he himself had aphantasia. His reaction was memorable: ‘Imagine your phone buzzes with breaking news: WASHINGTON SCIENTISTS DISCOVER TAIL-LESS MAN. Well, then, what are you?’

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December 12, 2023

The shadow of austerity--and authoritarianism

European trade unions are mobilising today in Brussels against the austerity which would follow reimplanted fiscal rules.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/the-shadow-of-austerity-and-authoritarianism



The shock victory of Geert Wilders in the recent Dutch elections has been spoken of in Brussels as if a natural disaster. Some politicians have been clutching their pearls, in complete detachment from its social determinants. But the rise of the far right across Europe is a direct consequence of political decisions taken at European Union level. The austerity imposed following the financial crisis of 2008 created a ‘doom loop’ of enhanced mistrust in the political system and more extreme voting behaviour, according to recent research. It finds that the far right is the main beneficiary of ‘fiscal consolidation’—a trend whose impact is heightened by a fall in turnout.

Austerity 2.0

Leaders should keep that in mind as they consider new fiscal rules for the EU—the pre-existing version having been suspended during the pandemic. The current proposal would require member states with a deficit above 3 per cent of gross domestic product to reduce their budget deficit by a minimum of 0.5 per cent of GDP every year. That would mean 14 member states having to cut spending or raise taxes to the tune of €45 billion next year alone. This is austerity 2.0 and the outcome can only be fewer jobs, lower wages and further underfunding of public services. What a gift that would be to the far right, with the European elections due in June—especially Marine Le Pen and her Rassemblement National. France is among countries that would need to cut even harder and faster to meet the new—and still totally arbitrary—targets. In its case, around €30 billion would need to be raised annually, a study by the Bruegel think-tank found.

Real concerns

The Identity and Democracy group in the European Parliament, which includes RN and Alternative für Deutschland, is already set to win its highest ever seats tally and could become the third largest group. All democrats should concentrate on the real concerns of working people. In Eurobarometer surveys carried out since the last European election, the economy and climate change have consistently emerged as citizens’ priorities for the EU. It is however precisely these two issues—central to delivering a fair deal for workers—which the EU will not be able to address effectively under the reformed fiscal rules as envisaged. They are incompatible with the European Green Deal: when all member states need to scale up investment, they would prevent half of them from making the investments needed to meet the EU’s own targets for reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions. Just four would have the ‘fiscal space’ to realise their climate commitments under the Paris Agreement. At a time when private investment is already in freefall due to record interest rates, strangling public investment—with its multiplier effects—would ensure another recession, with devastating social consequences. Recessions driven by austerity lead to a ‘significantly larger increase in the vote share for extreme parties than other recessions’, according to the research on its political costs.

Taking to the streets

The reimplanted fiscal rules would be bad for the economy, bad for the environment and bad for democracy. That is why thousands of working people from across Europe are taking to the streets in Brussels today to oppose a return to austerity and demand macroeconomic rules which put people and planet first. The EU’s response to the pandemic showed what was possible when the political will exists. The suspension of the fiscal rules ensured, through investments which saved jobs and companies, that a health crisis did not become a long-lasting economic malaise. We need to build on the NextGenerationEU programme, which was an economic and political success, by making the investments required to ensure European companies are at the cutting edge of the green and digital revolutions. Public investment must be protected by a golden rule, which provides fiscal space for the spending necessary to meet the EU’s own targets under the Green Deal and the European Pillar of Social Rights. Where they are necessary, debt and deficit adjustments need to be made in a sustainable way that does not sacrifice all other economic, social and environmental aims.

Sustainable solution..................

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December 12, 2023

Republicans say they believe in free speech. Except when it comes to Israel.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/11/congress-commission-antisemitism-palestinians-israel-free-speech/

https://archive.is/Cy64Q

Cancel culture is back. The difference this time is that the targets are on the left. Republican officials and right-wing commentators are working overtime to criminalize and punish pro-Palestinian speech they disagree with, indiscriminately charging anyone who is insufficiently supportive of Israel’s war in Gaza with antisemitism. In this expanded understanding of the word, something as simple — and moral — as support for basic Palestinian rights is suspect. When the current conflict began, there was understandable outrage over the pro-Palestinian advocates’ unwillingness to condemn Hamas’s grisly attacks on Israeli civilians. Dozens of student groups issued reprehensible statements excusing Hamas and blaming Israelis for their own deaths. These incidents were then used — and continue to be used — to more broadly delegitimize pro-Palestinian sentiments.

Republican officials have released a stream of congressional resolutions and public statements that conflate support for the Palestinian cause with support for Hamas. In October, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and his co-sponsors introduced a resolution that lumped Hamas’s “full-throated Jew hatred” with what they called “the subtle anti-Semitism that holds the State of Israel to a different standard than any other nation.” These efforts are intensifying. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) recently called to suspend a CIA official for posting a picture of the Palestinian flag, comparing it to waving a Nazi flag during World War II. And in a charged congressional hearing last week, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) grilled the president of Harvard University, Claudine Gay, about antisemitism on campus.

https://twitter.com/SenTomCotton/status/1729947363232408047
In an exchange that went viral, Stefanik zeroed in on students’ use of the word “intifada” and claimed it was tantamount to a call for genocide against Jews. Unfortunately, Gay did not challenge the premise of Stefanik’s question. “Intifada,” which means “uprising” or “rebellion” in Arabic, came into popular use in the late 1980s during the first Palestinian intifada, which included mass protests, general strikes and economic boycotts against the Israeli occupation. Some uprisings have been violent, but this doesn’t mean the word entails violence. This would be akin to claiming that activists who call for “revolution” are endorsing terrorism because the Russian and French revolutions involved prolonged reigns of terror.

https://twitter.com/shadihamid/status/1732419156828463382
But lost in Republican grandstanding is perhaps the most far-reaching effort yet to punish pro-Palestinian speech — a seemingly innocuous bill in Congress to establish a commission to investigate antisemitism in the United States. The legislation uses verbatim the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.” The bill doesn’t specify what constitutes “a certain perception of Jews” and neglects to mention the alliance’s own elaboration, which includes the “targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity” and “applying double standards” to Israel as examples of potential antisemitism. Under this reasoning, the commission will have broad powers to investigate any criticism of Israel that could be deemed unfair or overly exacting — including calls for a cease-fire or citing Israel’s disregard for Palestinian civilians in its targeting.

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