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Have Democrats Abandoned #MeToo For Keith Ellison’s Sake?
JOHN SEXTONPosted at 9:21 pm on August 16, 2018
The Washington Post reports that Democrats are taking a “wait-and-see approach” to allegations of abuse surrounding Rep. Keith Ellison. Both Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris apparently have nothing to sayabout the matter:
Does Sanders have an opinion on what Ellison should do?
“Nope, nothing,” the Vermont independent said Thursday, rushing for the Senate doors. “You’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get going.”
Other Democrats expressed support for the DNC review but much less of a rush to judgment as they did last fall when accusations against other members surfaced at the height of the #MeToo movement.
“I know that the DNC is investigating it, so we’ll see and let that run its course,” said Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.).
Wow, don’t knock us out with your concern for alleged victims. In a matter of six months, Democrats have gone from demanding Sen. Franken resign to scurrying away from microphones muttering, “I’ve got to get going” when asked about Rep. Ellison. What happened to #MeToo? As Ed pointed out yesterday, it took 3 days for the DNC to even issue a statement about the allegations. Now it seems whatever vague internal investigation the DNC pursues is going to be more than enough.
One of the leading hypocrites is Senator Gillibrand. When Sen. Franken was accused, she demanded a House Ethics Committee investigation and then called for Franken to resign as allegations mounted. She even threw Bill Clinton under the bus, saying he should have resigned after the revelations about Monica Lewinsky. But so far, Gillibrand has said nothing about Rep. Ellison:
So far no congressional Democrat has called for a House Ethics Committee investigation into Ellison, instead settling for the somewhat vague DNC “review” of the situation. Gillibrand has not issued a statement about Ellison, and her press office did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
You begin to get the impression that #MeToo is just another passing enthusiasm for Democrats. They embraced it because the base was in an uproar over Harvey Weinstein, but now that the media has moved on to other things, they aren’t as eager to apply the new rules they championed just a few months ago.
Of course, it goes without saying that things would look very different if Rep. Ellison had an R after his name. We’ll see the Democrats embracing this with both arms again the very next moment they have a Republican to condemn.
Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison, deputy DNC chair, claimed on Sunday that he hasn’t met with Farrakhan since crossing paths with him at two 2013 meetings
Ellison, a former Nation of Islam member, claimed for years that he cut all ties to Farrakhan since running for Congress in 2006
Ellison disputed Farrakhan’s account that he and Indiana Rep. Andre Carson visited the hate group leader in his hotel room in 2015
Carson has already confirmed his own presence at the 2015 meeting
Under fire over his ties to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, Democratic Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison claimed Sunday that he hasn’t attended any meetings with Farrakhan since 2013 and “never had” a relationship with him.
Farrakhan is a notorious anti-Semite and racist whose organization teaches that white people are inherently inferior to black people. Ellison, the deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), is a former Nation of Islam member who claimed when he first ran for Congress in 2006 that he had left Farrakhan in his past.
New reporting has shown, however, that Ellison attended multiple meetings with Farrakhan while in Congress. That includes a private visit to Farrakhan’s hotel room in 2015 with Democratic Indiana Rep. Andre Carson. Farrakhan referenced the meeting in a December 2016 Facebook video, and Carson has confirmed that he was present. When CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Ellison about that meeting, the congressman did not deny that the meeting took place but instead lashed out at his critics.
Ellison lashed out at his critics again in a blog post on Sunday, claiming that he never had a relationship with Farrakhan and hasn’t met him since 2013, apparently contradicting Farrakhan and Carson’s accounts. Ellison did confirm his presence at two Farrakhan meetings that took place in 2013. Ellison claimed questions about his Farrakhan ties are “a smear by factions on the right who want to pit the Jewish community and the Black community against each other.”
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“I do not have and have never had a relationship with Mr. Farrakhan, but I have been in the same room as him,” Ellison wrote. “About a decade ago, he and I had a brief, chance encounter in Washington, D.C. In 2013, I attended a meeting in New York City with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and nearly 50 others where I advocated for the release of an American political prisoner. I didn’t know Mr. Farrakhan would be there and did not speak to him at the event. Contrary to recent reports, I have not been in any meeting with him since then, and he and I have no communication of any kind.”
“But as the attacks on me and my fellow Black representatives in Congress intensify, I want to be clear: this is a smear by factions on the right who want to pit the Jewish community and the Black community against each other, and distract from the hatred and bigotry on display by the president and the white supremacists who stormed Charlottesville this summer with their anti-Semitic chants and Confederate flags. I declined to dignify questions raised about Mr. Farrakhan because I know they are inherently political, and are designed to separate me from people who I work with every day on issues of importance for Americans of all backgrounds,” Ellison continued.
“The critics will not be satisfied. They won’t be satisfied any more than President Obama’s production of his birth documents satisfied his critics, or Hillary Clinton’s eleven-hour testimony before the House Select Committee on Benghazi sated her detractors,” he added.
Ellison’s blog post comes as he is increasingly under fire over his ties to Farrakhan.
Democratic Illinois Rep. Danny Davis, who has repeatedly praised Farrakhan, compared Ellison’s relationship to Farrakhan to a fallen-away Christian’s relationship to Jesus in an interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation earlier this month.
“I don’t know that Keith knows Farrakhan as well as I do — in fact, I know he doesn’t,” Davis said. “I don’t think that Keith is no person who is super engaged with Farrakhan, he just happens to be a movement. Just like many of the folks who are Christians, they’re not super engaged with Jesus, but they say they Christians,” Davis said.
Women’s March organization, a prominent left-wing activist group, has come under fire as well after their leaders expressed support for Farrakhan.
The group’s co-president, Tamika Mallory, attended Farrakhan’s annual Saviour’s Day speech last month where he railed against Jews and white people. Mallory defended Farrakhan after suffering backlash by implying that religious leaders are supposed to consider Jews their enemies.
“If your leader does not have the same enemies as Jesus, they may not be THE leader!” Mallory wrote on Twitter. She has repeatedly declined to condemn Farrakhan.
Women’s March has lost supporters over the Farrakhan scandal, and several regional chapters have slammed the national organization for refusing to denounce him. The group’s social media director, Alyssa Klein, resigned over the group’s support for Farrakhan, the New York Post reports.
Muslims understand fully that to take over America, they must first infest every facet of our society to include our schools, our law enforcement agencies, and the highest levels of government. Barack Obama was integral to their plan, as he worked incessantly to further the goal of Islam around the world and throughout America. Now that Obama is out of office, the Muslim Brotherhood have now found their next pet project in the form of another charismatic young Muslim by the name of Dr. Abdul el-Sayed. And what this young man has planned for our country as he sets to be elected as the first Muslim governor in America is absolutely chilling.
Abdul el-Sayed with his wife as they appear to blend in with western civilization
Meet Dr. Abdul el-Sayed. A 32-year-old Muslim medical doctor who has recently thrown his hat in the race for governor of Michigan. Just like Obama, he speaks without an accent and is charismatic; attributes that divert everyone’s attention away from the fact that he’s a Muslim with the full backing of the Muslim Brotherhood terror organization. If you think this sounds like Obama 2.0 you’d be 100% correct. He too hates Trump with a passion, saying that the president’s decisions “are at odds with deeply held American values.”
With Michigan already transforming into a Muslim cesspool in recent years, Sayed’s win as the governor would put the finishing touches on the state whose citizens are already being threatened by the complete takeover of Sharia Law. Dick Manasseri, who heads a group called Secure Michigan, made a chilling prediction about what’s in store for Michigan should Sayed win, a state he labels a “Sharia swamp.”
Dick Manasseri,
“It is the exact same thing as Barack Obama in Chicago in the early 2000s,” said Manasseri,” Dr. Manasseri stated. “He’s young, attractive, he does not give out a lot of information, he speaks in platitudes about celebrating inclusiveness and diversity.”
“He’s very well packaged,” Manasseri said. “He’s far more accomplished than Barack Obama. Obama was not this accomplished, they connected him to certain foundations and his candidacy took off.”
What’s chilling is that ever since Trump got into office, Democrats have been rallying around their little Obama 2.0, with top Democrats like Elizabeth Warren tirelessly campaigning for Sayed.
“Elizabeth Warren will be coming to campaign for him, the Democrats in other states will be raising money for him. The DNC number-two man [Keith Ellison] will be raising money for him. Of course this guy is going to be on the Sunday morning talk shows. He’ll be everywhere. A candidate for governor who is Muslim Brotherhood …if that doesn’t tell you there’s a Shariah swamp in Michigan I don’t know what does.”
This would be a massive victory for the Muslim Brotherhood who are rapidly getting their talons into every facet of American society. In a recent raid conducted at a Muslim’s house in Annandale, Virginia, federal agents discovered a dusty bundle of documents in the basement outlining the Muslim Brotherhoods’ secret 5-phase plan for taking down America. This was a closely-guarded secret until the FBI got their hands on this blueprint for taking down our country, authored by Muslim Brotherhood ringleader Yusuf al-Qaradwai.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi (L), Shaker Elsayed (C), and Bassam Estwani (R)
If you aren’t familiar with the documents, they are nothing short of chilling. Twenty-seven years ago, Muslim Brotherhood leader Yusuf al-Qaradwai traveled to America to organize Muslims across America, educating them with his diabolical plan for the compete Muslim takeover of America that would take 30 years to complete. It included a key tactic known as “Muruna,” where Muslims are able to violate Sharia Law in order to convince Americans that they are just like us. Just like an Ebola virus, Muruna is extremely effective, as Muslims are now able to seamlessly integrate into every facet of our society, as they make their way into our public school systems, our federal and law enforcement agencies, and key positions within our government.
Muruna is the tactic that both Barack Hussein Obama used to convince America he was just like us, and now the Muslim Brotherhood is employing the same tactic as they groom Abdul el-Sayed to take over as governor in Michigan. Sayed’s win in Michigan will be one more nail in America’s coffin, as we all know the Muslim Brotherhood’s true intentions for our country, which is a land completely ruled by Sharia Law. Below is the terror organization’s 5-phase plan for taking down America, where chillingly, they are now in the final phase of their plan. Via Shariathreat.org:
• Expanding the Muslim presence by birth rate, immigration, and refusal to assimilate;
• Occupying and expanding domination of physical spaces;
• Ensuring the “Muslim Community” knows and follows MB doctrine;
• Controlling the language we use in describing the enemy;
• Ensuring we do not study their doctrine (shariah);
• Co-opting key leadership;
• Forcing compliance with shariah at local levels;
• Fighting all counterterrorism efforts;
• Subverting religious organizations;
• Employing lawfare – the offensive use of lawsuits and threats of lawsuits;
• Subverting the U.S. education system, in particular, infiltrating and dominating U.S. Middle East studies programs;
• Demanding the right to practice shariah in segregated Muslim enclaves;
• Demanding recognition of shariah in non-Muslim spheres;
• Confronting and denouncing Western society, laws, and traditions; and
• Demanding that shariah replace Western law. Note that many of the foregoing techniques entail, in one way or another, influencing and neutralizing the American government at all levels.
It’s extremely important that we sound the alarm bells about what’s happening right underneath our noses. We have a massive fight on the horizon as these degenerates continue to implant themselves into every facet of our society, as rabid liberals work hand-in-hand to do everything in their power to get Muslim terrorists into power.
Share this story to help expose what’s going on and to help save our country! Muslims are rapidly taking over!
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“Simply put, when employees have an ownership stake in their company, they will not ship their own jobs to China to increase their profits, they will be more productive, and they will earn a better living," Sanders said. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The last few days have been a bit of a whirlwind, politically speaking. Most of it has to do with the onslaught of chaos that followed Donald Trump’s abrupt firing of FBI Director James Comey—a move political scientists agree is off the spectrum of normalcy in the history of the American presidency. Before his termination, Comey was leading an investigation into the Trump team’s alleged ties to the Russian government. Keith Ellison, deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has said “we are witnessing a constitutional crisis.” Calls for impeachment are in the air, along with a good deal of conspiracy theorizing.
In sum, the republic as we know it may be its closest yet to tatters. Enter: Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont and the country’s most popular politician. He—alongside Democratic Sens. Patrick Leahy, from Vermont, Kirsten Gillibrand, from New York, and Maggie Hassan, from New Hampshire—is encouraging workers to take control of the means of production.
This isn’t some right-wing conspiracy theory, but the intended result of two bills introduced to relatively little fanfare Thursday. The first, the WORK (“Worker Ownership, Readiness and Knowledge”) Act, would direct more than $45 million in funding to state-level employee ownership centers, aimed at providing training and technical assistance to current and prospective worker-owners. A second piece of legislation would establish something called the U.S. Employee Ownership Bank, via $500 million in funds for low-interest rate loans and financial assistance for workers who want to buy out the businesses where they work and either incorporate them as worker-owned cooperatives or establish employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), which give workers an ownership stake in their company.
“By expanding employee ownership and participation, we can create stronger companies in Vermont and throughout this country, prevent job losses and improve working conditions for struggling employees,” Sanders said in a statement. “Simply put, when employees have an ownership stake in their company, they will not ship their own jobs to China to increase their profits, they will be more productive, and they will earn a better living.”
Notably, a provision outlined in the second bill would give employees the first crack at taking over their workplace if owners move to offshore their jobs, according to John Duda.
Duda works for the Democracy Collaborative, a research institute that supports cooperative development. He also helped found the worker-owned cafe and bookstore Red Emma’s in Baltimore, Maryland.
“I think it would be a game changer both in terms of accelerating worker-ownership, and discouraging companies from pursuing a race to the bottom in terms of looking for cheaper wages overseas,” Duda said about the legislation.
Cooperative ownership has a long history in the United States, Duda explains. The earliest champions of organized labor in America pushed for cooperatives as a means to shore up employee control over the workplace. As a document officially adopted by the Knights of Labor in 1878 put it, “The recent alarming development and aggression of aggregated wealth ... render it imperative ... that a check should be placed upon its power and upon unjust accumulation, and a system adopted which will secure to the laborer the fruits of his toil.” Later, New Deal initiatives like the Rural Electrification Administration provided start-up funds for people in rural areas to create cooperatives, with rural electric cooperatives now meeting 11 percent of the country’s demand for electricity. Civil rights leaders from Ella Baker to Fannie Lou Hamer would also cut their teeth in cooperative self-help programs.
Today, companies from Cabot Creamery to REI are cooperatives of one form or another. And Publix Super Markets and Wawa convenience stores are just two of many major firms in the United States that offer their employees ESOPs. Worker-owned cooperatives, by contrast—governed by the principle of “one worker, one vote”—tend to be smaller in the United States than either ESOPs or producer and consumer cooperatives, but more widespread throughout South America and Europe. In contrast to the estimated 10.3 million Americans covered by ESOPs, just over 5,000 people are a part of worker-owned cooperatives.
Sanders himself is no stranger to cooperatives. He’s introduced similar billsbefore, and the legislation is partially inspired by the Vermont Employee Ownership Center, or VEOC, of which Sanders has been a longtime booster. Speaking to a forum on workers’ ownership at Burlington City Hall in 1985, then-Mayor Sanders said, “Democracy cannot just mean the opportunity to vote for a Walter Mondale or a Ronald Reagan once every four years ... If we have a vision as to what democracy is about, it’s got to mean the right of a working person to control his or her job, to have some say about what’s being produced, to sit down with the other workers and say, ‘This is what I think we should do.’” (You can watch the full clip here.)
One of the other models for the kind of support programs outlined in the WORK Act emerged out of the closure of the Youngstown Sheet and Tube factory in 1977—a siren song for the kind of deindustrialization that would plague the Rust Belt for years to come. Workers, Duda said, attempted to seize the plant and run it cooperatively in the run-up to the closure. The effort ultimately failed, but captured the attention of Ohioans interested in developing cooperative businesses. Started in 1987, the Ohio Employee Ownership Center (OEOC) has since helped some 90 companies to become employee-owned, creating an estimated 15,000 employee-owners in the Buckeye State. A like-minded push in New York City has seen some initial success after an investment of $1.2 million in worker cooperative business development efforts in 2014.
“It’s hard stuff getting all the legal ducks in a row, getting all the financing lined up, figuring out how to take advantage of the tax incentives that exist. Having technical assistance and having grant support for technical assistance is incredibly key,” Duda said.
He wasn’t overly optimistic about the bills’ chances in Congress, but thought their introduction represented a step forward in terms of bringing cooperatives further into America’s economic mainstream.
“We have a lot of drama going on, and it’s vitally important to pay attention to,” Duda told In These Times, “but we need to not forget that we are seeing historic levels of inequality. We need to be thinking about solutions and a transition to a broader-based ownership of the economy that allows us to tackle that question. We may not be able to pass this legislation today, but there’s going to be a time at which policymaking is possible again and we need to be ready.”
Sean Spicer made a serious mistake when he compared Bashar Al-Assad to Hitler, and to make matters worse, he got his facts wrong. He quickly and fully apologized. There was no hint of anti-Semitism in his historical mistake and his apology should have ended the matter. But his political enemies decided to exploit his mistake by pandering to Jews. In doing so, it is they who are exploiting the memory of the six million during the Passover Holiday.
The Democratic National Committee issued a rebuke with the headline "We will not stand for anti-Semitism." Its content included the following: "Denying the atrocities committed by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime is a tried and true tactic used by Neo-Nazis and white supremacist groups that have become emboldened since Donald Trump first announced his campaign for president." By placing Hitler and Trump in the same sentence, the DNC committed a mistake similar to that for which they justly criticized Spicer. Moreover, the DNC itself, is co-chaired by a man who for many years did "stand for anti-Semitism" -- namely Keith Ellison who stood by the notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, while denying that he was aware of Farrakhan's very public Jew-hatred. It is the epitome of Chutzpah for the DNC to falsely accuse Spicer of standing by anti-Semitism while it is they who are co-chaired by a man who committed that sin.
Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority leaders, falsely accused Spicer of "downplaying the horror of the Holocaust." But by leveling that false accusation, Pelosi herself is exploiting the tragedy.
Steven Goldstein, a hard-left radical who heads a phony organization that calls itself "The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect," accused Spicer of "engage[ing] in Holocaust denial." He called Spicer's mistake a "most evil slur" against the Jewish people. Goldstein claims to speak for the Jewish people, but he represents only himself and a few handfuls of radical followers who are not in any way representative of the mainstream Jewish community. He repeatedly exploits the Holocaust in order to gain publicity for him and his tiny group of followers. Shame on them!
These over the top reactions to a historical mistake made by Spicer that was not motivated by anti-Semitism represents political exploitation of the Holocaust. Spicer was wrong in seeking to bolster his argument against Assad by referring to Hitler, and his political opponents are wrong in exploiting the tragedy of the Holocaust to score partisan points against him.
The difference is that Spicer gaffe was not in any way pre-meditated, whereas the exploitation by his enemies was carefully calculated for political gain. All sides must stop using references to Hitler and the Holocaust in political dialogue. Historical analogies are by their nature generally flawed. Analogies to the Holocaust are always misguided, and often offensive, even if not so intended.
On CNN the other night, Don Lemon asked me if I was "offended as a Jew" by what Spicer had said. The truth is that I was offended as someone who cares about historical accuracy by Spicer's apparent lack of knowledge regarding the Nazi's use of chemicals such as Zyklon B to murder Jews during the Holocaust. But it never occurred to me that Spicer's misstatements were motivated by anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial or an intent to "slur" the Jewish people. Nor do I believe that those who have accused him of such evil motivations actually believe it. They deliberately attributed an evil motive to him in order to pander to Jewish listeners. That offends me more than anything Spicer did.
Extreme right wing anti-Semitism continues to be a problem in many parts of Europe and among a relatively small group of "alt-right" Americans. But hard left and Muslim extremist anti-Semitism is a far greater problem in America today, especially on university campuses. So those of us who hate all forms of anti-Semitism and bigotry, regardless of its source, must fight this evil on a non-partisan basis. We must get our priorities straight, focusing on the greatest dangers regardless of whether they come from the right or the left, from Republicans or Democrats. The fight against bigotry is a bi-partisan issue and must not be exploited for partisan gain.
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