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United Democracy Project, a super PAC recently launched by the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, claimed decisive wins in two races for open House seats in North Carolina on Tuesday, but fell short of delivering similar results in a closely watched congressional contest in Pittsburgh and its suburbs.

That matchup, where UDP had spent most heavily, remains too close to call.

The trio of primaries had been viewed as the first major test of UDPs political muscle as the group which represents AIPACs first foray into campaign politics prepares to engage in a number of upcoming races where opposing approaches to Israel are likely to fuel tension.

It remains to be seen if the pro-Israel outfit will achieve a clean sweep as final votes are tallied in Pennsylvanias 12th District, where progressive state Rep. Summer Lee has already declared victory over UDP-backed attorney Steve Irwin.

But Rob Bassin, UDPs chief executive and former longtime AIPAC political director, summarized the results in a positive light during an interview with Jewish Insider on Wednesday. It was, he said, a very good night for pro-Israel progressive candidates.

In North Carolinas 1st District, state Sen. Don Davis defeated former state Sen. Erica Smith by a two-to-one margin, while in the neighboring 4th, state Sen. Valerie Foushee prevailed over Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam and American Idol star Clay Aiken.

UDP spent $2.1 million backing Foushee and $2.4 million supporting Davis and opposing Smith.

The super PAC topped out at a staggering $2.7 million on behalf of Irwin, a mainstream Democrat who even with backing from the party establishment in Allegheny County had struggled to gain traction until the final weeks of the bitterly contested race to succeed outgoing Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA).

UDP worked aggressively to reverse that dynamic, unleashing a barrage of negative ads casting Lee, a Democratic Socialist aligned with the Squad, as a far-left radical who had attacked President Joe Bidens character and was more interested in fighting Democrats than getting results messaging her campaign rejected as grossly misleading.

In an open letter, Lees allies, including Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, also condemned UDPs attacks, noting that an AIPAC-affiliated political action committee had endorsed more than 100 Republican incumbents who voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election results.

The race came to embody the growing divisions between moderates and progressives that have been thrown into sharp relief in several recent Democratic primaries, not least where opposing approaches to Israel have emerged.

With backing from Justice Democrats, J Street and other progressive groups, Lee, 34, argued in favor of conditioning U.S. aid to Israel and drew scrutiny from Jewish voters in the district for social media comments in which she had harshly criticized the Israeli government last year during the May conflict with Hamas.

Irwin, who is Jewish, described himself as a proud supporter of Israel, emphasizing a deeply held connection with the Jewish state.

He earned support from a number of pro-Israel groups, including Pro-Israel America, a bipartisan organization that listed the race as among its top priorities in the midterms, and Democratic Majority for Israel, whose political arm spent more spent more than $400,000.

The current vote tally shows Lee ahead by some 400 votes. It is likely to be updated as early as Friday.

While Irwin, 62, called for a need to respect the process of counting the ballots in a statement on Wednesday, Lee had claimed victory by late Tuesday night as the vote count inched upward in her favor.

They hit us with everything they had, and we clawed and we ran, and we got the power of the people, she said in a triumphant speech. Were out here in Western Pennsylvania fighting for the future of the whole country.

Bassin, however, scoffed at such declarations.

I think its kind of amazing that Summer Lee is being described as the comeback of the night, he said in the interview with JI, noting that Lee, who rose to prominence in 2018 after unseating an entrenched Democratic incumbent, had launched her campaign as the prohibitive favorite to win the seat.

By late March, Lee who would be Pennsylvanias first Black congresswoman had opened up a daunting 25-point lead over Irwin, according to a poll conducted by an outside group supporting her campaign.

But by late April, following UDPs entry into the race, Irwin had mounted a late comeback and had narrowed the margin to a statistical dead heat, according to polling obtained by JI and conducted for the Irwin campaign.

Bassin confirmed that UDPs own polling had shown a similar trajectory, but drew a different lesson from the outcome. The fact that Steve Irwin went from being a relatively almost completely unknown figure to contesting this race, he said, is rather extraordinary.

He noted that Justice Democrats as well as other groups including the Working Families Party had spent more than $1.7 million on Lees behalf, though that number was dwarfed by UDP.

The fact that she may barely eke out a victory, Bassin argued, suggests that her brand of anti-Israel, far-left, out-of-the-mainstream doesnt resonate with the majority of Democrats.

Lees campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from JI.

UDP has said it is targeting races where there is a clear difference between a candidate who supports a strong U.S.-Israel relationship and a candidate who will seek to undermine that relationship.

But while critics have noted that UDPs ads have so far made no mention of Israel, Bassin dismissed such charges as hypocritical. I think its ironic that the anti-Israel left doesnt complain when anti-Israel organizations run independent expenditures against mainstream pro-Israel Democrats, he said, but find it highly objectionable when organizations supporting mainstream progressive pro-Israel Democrats get involved in politics.

In all of these cases, I think that anti-Israel organizations hope to make an issue out of the candidates pro-Israel support, to no effect.

UDP is currently involved in a runoff for Texass 28th District next Tuesday, where it has spent more than $1 million boosting embattled Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), a conservative Democrat who is facing off against progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros.

Bassin said UDP would be making some additional independent expenditures in another race, but declined to elaborate further.

In the meantime, he suggested that Tuesdays results, while still somewhat unsettled, were an encouraging development for pro-Israel advocacy.

I think its notable, Bassin said, that in a very short period of time, the pro-Israel community has demonstrated it can be a significant political force.

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Rob Bassin on the impact of the United Democracy Project - Jewish Insider

The United States will reduce its aid to Tunisia after its government's "deviation from democracy," the chief of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Samantha Power, warned yesterday.

"Tunisia will receive less money in the 2023 budget," Power told Congress, noting that the move had come after what it described as the Tunisian government's repression of the civil society and violation of the supremacy of law and democratic standards.

The US official pointed out that the financial aid dedicated for Tunisia's Independent High Authority for Elections would be "revisited", referring to the commission's recent reshuffle.

Tunisian President Kais Saied recently issued a decree granting him the authority to appoint the commission's members, sparking a wave of political debate about the independence of the authority.

Saied has held nearly total power since25 Julywhen he sacked the prime minister, suspended parliament and assumed executive authority citing a national emergency.

READ: Tunisia party files grievance to Venice Commission over president's violation of election process

Heappointeda prime minister on 29 September and a government has since been formed.In December, Saiedannouncedthatareferendum will be held on 25 July to consider 'constitutional reforms' andelections would follow in December 2022.

The majority of the country's political parties slammed the move as a "coup against the constitution" and the achievements of the2011 revolution. Critics say Saied's decisions have strengthened the powers of the presidency at the expense of parliament and the government, and that he aims to transform the country's government into a presidential system.

On more than one occasion, Saied, who began a five-year presidential term in 2019, said that his exceptional decisions are not a coup, but rather measures within the framework of the constitution to protect the state from "imminent danger".

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US to reduce aid to Tunisia as it's 'deviating from democracy' - Middle East Monitor

A little more than 20 years ago, I had the pleasure of editing and writing a CliffsComplete volume on Lewis Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland. It was edifying, as the research I conducted led me directly back to the philosophers I had gleaned so much from in my college and literary reference book careers.

I learned from Carroll and the philosophers his book inspired and influenced the inexactitude of human language when compared to mathematics. Languages inherent inability to convey thoughts as clearly as mathematics opens the door to all types of intentional and otherwise charlatanry, which, when paired with a bent moral compass, becomes a toxic mixture. Regular readers of this fish wrap might concur.

Carroll, the nom de plume of Charles Dodgson, was a mathematician, and his childrens book serves as a light-hearted and entertaining tonic to, say, the dialectics of Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx wherein logic is jettisoned in favor of either subverting or reinforcing perceived power structures. Of course, Hegel and Marx werent alone when it came to flummoxing folk with their silver-tongued devilry.

Deceptive trickery endures to this day. In fact, it flourishes. The prevalence of logical fallacies employed by pundits and opinionmakers isnt shocking but is nevertheless disheartening. Carroll presents quite a few pertinent examples in his book. In Wonderland, Alice struggles to differentiate between saying what she means and her assertion that she means what she says, I wrote in my essay, Alice, wordplay, and the nature of language. Alice fails in both instances as pointed out by the Mad Hatter and White Rabbit in Chapter VII.

The character Alice can be forgiven her illogic due to her youthful misunderstanding of language and immaturity. Shes a work of fiction, created to entertain, and serve as a means by which Carroll could discuss the often-absurd nature of language as well as its shortcomings (among other things).

All this as prelude to the Wonderland-based U.S. Supreme Court rantings last week in this real estate. Recently weve been subjected to tiresome diatribes about democracy, which seemingly means any policy outcome favored by the author in question. Anything perceived to alter the status quo or challenge the progressive agenda is maligned as a threat to our democracy.

It must be reiterated we live in a 246-year-old republic rather than a democracy. Laws change all the time. Same with court rulings. Our Constitution has been amended and unamended, too, since it was ratified in 1789. Both Plessy v. Ferguson and Prohibition were tossed on the dust heap of history, which should be celebrated by each one of us as victories for democracy.

But Roe v. Wade? Somehow seeking to roll back this 49-year-old Supreme Court decision is tyranny and a threat to democracy? Methinks the pro-choice advocates doth protest too much. Heck, even the esteemed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg declared Roe a terribly considered ruling, however rock-solid her pro-abortion bona fides. Considering lawmakers had nearly a half-century to make and pass a law to codify the original SCOTUS ruling and didnt well cest la vie.

Further, removing the ruling of a previous federal court to send the final say on abortion back to the states is precisely what our democracy is about, by which I mean our system of federalism. How is top-down de-facto legislation from a Supreme Court majority based on entirely invented legal precedents anything close to democracy? Recall it was SCOTUS in January 1973 that trashed the November 1972 decision by Michigan voters to prevent the legalization of abortion.

It takes either sheer ignorance or a motivation to mislead readers into a Wonderland rabbit hole of obfuscations, dialectical errors, and logical dead ends based on a complete misrepresentation that actual democratic practices arent exactly tyranny and are, in fact, precisely the opposite.

Bruce Edward Walker (walker.editorial@gmail.com) is a Morning Sun columnist.

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Column: Charlatans and the Wonderland of democracy - The Morning Sun

Former president George W. Bush offered his most extensive public comments yet about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and elections at home during an event about democracy on Wednesday.

The event at his presidential center in Dallas, tiled Elections: A More Perfect Union, included a slate of experts on democracy and elections, and it made the connection between the threat to democracy posed by the Jan. 6 insurrection in the capital and by Russia in Ukraine. Bush came with his views on freedom and democracy, and his signature self-deprecating humor.

1. The way countries conduct elections is indicative of how their leaders treat their own people, and how nations behave toward other nations. And nowhere is this on display more clearly than Ukraine.

2. The interesting thing about elections and democracy is, it enables our democracy to heal. If you study American history, you realize that our society has been able to heal itself and improve. Thats because of elections. Im pretty confident well heal ourselves, so long as people vote and take their duty as a citizen seriously.

3. The truth of the matter is, our system works pretty well. Weve got a large complicated country with a variety of different interests and states, and yet weve been pulling off elections for a while Sometimes there are routes, and theres no question about the legitimacy of the election. And sometimes there are nail-biters, if you know what I mean honey.

4. Russian elections are rigged. Political opponents are imprisoned or otherwise eliminated from participating in the electoral process. The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia. And the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean of Ukraine. Iraq too. Anyway. 75. (A joke about his age.)

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3 quotes and a gaffe from George W. Bush about Ukraine, democracy and Iraq - The Dallas Morning News

By Lisa Scott

Since 2015, Christians, Jews and Muslims have come together in dialogue as Abrahams Table of Long Island, seeking understanding, solidarity and common purpose. Recently 100 people attended If You See Something, Say Something Confronting Hate on Long Island Today.

Speakers shared personal stories of how hatred is on the rise, intensifying and escalating here on Long Island. League of Women Voters representatives shared a table with Catholic nuns and Protestant clergy, and we met many social justice group members as well as concerned individuals.

The Suffolk Y Jewish Community Center and the Turkish Cultural Center provided an Iftar dinner breaking the Muslim Ramadan fast for all attending. The speakers reflected this diversity, teaching us that hate knows no bounds and will continue to grow unless each of us takes responsibility and speaks out. Whether or not you identify with an organized religion, the words and experiences shared that evening should move each of us to connect, speak, witness, protest and advocate.

There were calls to action regarding rising hate against Jewish, Black, Latinx, Muslim, Asian and LGBTQ+ people in our communities. Eric Post, LI Director of the American Jewish Committee, noted that Jews are two percent of the American population yet (according to the Suffolk County Police) 61% of hate incidents overall were anti-Semitic and 93.5% of religious hate crimes were anti-Semitic in nature. He then introduced a young Jewish man who suffered a violent assault in Manhattan who spoke of the attack and subsequent trauma.

Tracey Edwards, Long Island Regional Director of the NAACP NYS Conference, said that Long Island has two problems. Residents are reluctant to report hate crimes, and when they do the police departments and district attorneys make a predetermination of intent before they do a proper investigation and charge a hate crime. Thus hate crime data is reported as down or not counted on Long Island while national data shows an increase across the country. We cannot fix the problem if we dont acknowledge that we have a problem.

On a personal level, David Kilmnick of the LGBT Network of Long Island reported a decade of hate letters and threats to the police for investigation, but the FBI was kept unaware during those years. Jocelo Lucero, who has presented programs to thousands of Long Island students, spoke against hate crimes and for tolerance. He is the brother of Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero who in 2008 was fatally stabbed in Patchogue after he and a friend were surrounded by seven teenagers who had gone out looking to attack Latinos; a bias crime that drew national attention to Suffolk County.

Also presenting were Dr. Isma Chaudhry of the Islamic Center of Long Island and Soh Young Lee-Segredo of the Asian Pacific American Council of Educators.

Hate is real and hate crimes are growing whether we hear about them or not, yet all of us are to some degree complicit in tolerating a climate of hate in our communities. Passivity and words and racist jokes have been seeds of violence and even genocide through the centuries. Social conditions give rise to hate, such as the need to scapegoat or blame the other people who look or speak or worship or think or act different for our social and personal troubles.

Economic downturns and inflation; COVIDs myriad effects on health, emotional well-being, and family cohesion; massive migrations of people fleeing violence all over the world; misinformation and magnification of perceived threats to long-held beliefs and values; a personal sense of danger due to increased crime and the prevalence of gun violence; falling status and insecurity leading to feelings of less worthy people taking our place; all are contributing factors to the rise of hate in 2022. Silence is not an option.

Connect with a stranger; teach and live diversity, equity and inclusion in your families, schools, congregations, workplaces and communities; speak up when you hear hateful speech; report acts of hate to school officials or police; demand that government enact laws and policies to stop hate; support organizations that work against hate; participate in public vigils and rallies to protest hate and write letters to the editor that condemn acts of hate on Long Island.

Thanks to Richard Koubek, Chair of Abrahams Table of LI,www.abrahamstableli.org, and to his Steering Committee and program presenters for guidance, inspiration, witness and work. Lets all actively combat hate now the next generation deserves no less.

Lisa Scott is president of the League of Women Voters of Suffolk County, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in government and influences public policy through education and advocacy. For more information, visit https://my.lwv.org/new-york/suffolk-countyor call 631-862-6860.

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Making Democracy Work: Confronting rising acts of hatred on Long Island - TBR News Media