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Last week Erik Wemple at the Washington Post wrote a really solid story about the firing of James Bennet from the NY Times. In case youve forgotten, Bennet was fired after he presided over the publication of an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton back in 2020. Cotton argued that the National Guard should be called out to deal with riots which were taking place in locations around the country in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. There was a huge backlash on Twitter and within the Times newsroom led by black staffers who argued (if you can call it that) that Cottons opinion piece was a threat to their safety.

In retrospect, Wemple wrote to say that Bennet was right and his critics were clearly wrong. But more than that he made an admission about why no one was willing to stand up for Bennet at the time.

Its also long past time to ask why more people who claim to uphold journalism and free expression including, um, the Erik Wemple Blog didnt speak out then in Bennets defense.

Its because we were afraid to

Our criticism of the Twitter outburst comes 875 days too late. Although the hollowness of the internal uproar against Bennet was immediately apparent, we responded with an evenhanded critique of the Timess flip-flop, not the unapologetic defense of journalism that the situation required. Our posture was one of cowardice and midcareer risk management. With that, we pile one more regret onto a controversy littered with them.

And that brings us to Jonathan Chaits piece today for New York Magazine titled Progressive America Needs a Glasnost. I agree with Jonathan Chait about nothing in politics except this one issue. But on this issue hes right and hes one of the handful of progressives willing to say anything about it. Using Wemples confession as a jumping off point, Chait writes:

Wemple may be alone in publishing this admission, but he is not alone in believing it. Many people have shared similar beliefs with me, especially in the angry summer of 2020. It is an unhealthy culture that forces people to suppress their doubts and mouth platitudes for fear of losing their livelihoods.

But the truth is Wemples fears were hardly imaginary. In recent years, many journalists lost their jobs as a result of internal social panics even more irrational than the Cotton episode. The PhiladelphiaInquirerpurged its top editor after its architecture critic wrote a column mourning the destruction of buildings during the George Floyd protests. TheTimespushed out itslead science reporterin the middle of a pandemic because a group of prep-school teens he was leading on a foreign trip complained about his centrist politics and having quoted (but not used) a racial slur.

ThePostitself had two of its most beloved and decorated staffers retire suddenly after becoming the targets of progressive anger. Gene Weingarten, its Pulitzer-winning humor columnist, wrote a ham-fisted column trying to poke fun at himself for not liking Indian food, which despite his apology set off a wave of calls for him to be fired and replaced with a person of color. Weingarten quietly retired shortly thereafter. ThePostalso ran a bizarre story about the fact thateditorial cartoonist Tom Toles threw a Halloween party at which one guest he barely knew showed up in a costume as Megyn Kelly in blackface. A few months later, Toles retired

What Wemples confession reveals is that these purges have a multiplier effect: For every person humiliated or fired for a small or nonexistent offense, many other people will refuse to criticize even transparently absurd left-wing pieties.

He concludes, there remains a deep-seated impulse on the left to defend or deny illiberal norms.For those of us on the right whove been watching left-wing illiberalism play out for the past 5-7 years, this could be the understatement of the decade. For many years there was a cottage industry of people who denied that these incidents were significant or that they were spreading. It has only been in the past couple of years that they have become so common that many on the left have stopped denying they happen and are instead denying that cancel culture or wokeism or whatever you want to label the trend is a problem.

The great irony of callout culture is that callout culture itself is always immune from being called out. And when it is, when it is shown repeatedly to be harmful and irrational the facts are ignored or downplayed.I still think Chait underestimates how significant the problem is both for his own side and for the country as a whole. If the country is beset by a looming right-wing authoritarianism that people eagerly denounce every day and by a creeping left-wing authoritarianism that most people are afraid to mention for fear of punishment and lasting consequences, guess which one is the greater threat. Its the one were afraid to talk about.

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Chait: Progressives need to overcome the fear of standing up to the ...

The All Progressives Congress, APC, presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, on Saturday, lashed out at his counterpart from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar.

Tinubu described Atiku as a shameless man who fought former President Olusegun Obasanjo in public.

He spoke during the APC presidential/governorship campaign rally in Warri, Delta State.

Tinubu said Atiku fought his former boss over how they spent money on projects for their girlfriends.

He also noted that the PDP can not be trusted with governance due to the in-fighting within the party.

Our rivals have no shame, when they are fighting in public; how can they think of governance?

When Atiku was there, he was fighting his boss in public. They were telling us how they spent PTF money to buy cars for their girlfriends in public; they dont have shame.

They dont have shame; will you vote for them again?, he queried.

Atiku served as the Vice President under Obasanjos administration.

During the PDPs eight-year rule, Atiku had endured a frosty relationship with Obasanjo.

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Presidency: You don't have shame, fought Obasanjo in public - Tinubu ...

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The name Aaron Belkin may not mean a lot to you. But his history as an advocate should, if you care about progressive politics. And you might want to pay attention to him now, because hes about to retire, and hes got a few important things to say before he does.

Belkin is a celebrated political scientist and activist based in California. He is probably best known for his role in the campaign against anti-LGBTQ discrimination in the military, an effort that led in 2012 to full repeal of the Dont Ask, Dont Tell policy that had been in place since the early 1990s.

Dont Ask, Dont Tell, or DADT as it came to be known, permitted gay Americans to serve as long as they did not disclose their sexual orientation. It was put in place by then-President Bill Clinton, who as a candidate had promised to end the long-standing ban on gays in the military. He ran into stiff opposition from military commanders and their allies in Congress, who insisted that the presence of openly gay soldiers and sailors would compromise unit integrity.

The public was divided, according to polling at the time, with a slight majority opposing an easing of restrictions. Opposition from currently serving members of the armed forces was much higher. Clinton, reeling from some other political setbacks, settled on DADT as a compromise solution.

It was supposed to be a big step toward LGBTQ equality the best possible outcome, under the political circumstances, even though it meant expulsions would continue, and LGBTQ members would have to keep living their lives in secret.

Belkin was among those who thought it was possible to do better and made it his mission to do so, through an approach that was more radical than it might sound at first blush and that he says could still work today, on a whole variety of issues, if only more progressives adopted it.

Prevailing On Dont Ask, Dont Tell

As Belkin tells the story, a chronic problem for Democrats and their allies has been their focus on winning debates through better rhetoric. They assume public opinion is relatively static, and think the key to victory in any given argument is picking the right words or trying to shift the focus of conversation, so that the debate can take place on more favorable political grounds.

This advice makes plenty of sense in certain contexts, Belkin says. But one of his core principles is that too much focus on language and framing can limit the prospects for reform, by giving up on the possibility of changing minds over time.

As long as we emphasize frame over facts, Belkin said in a recent interview with HuffPost, were going to be playing small ball.

In the context of the DADT fight, Belkin said that mentality meant conceding that the majority of political and military leaders as well as the majority of voters would never accept openly LGBTQ Americans serving alongside their straight counterparts. And Belkin wasnt ready to accept that. He established a new research institute that later became the Palm Center, following a $1 million grant from the Michael Palm Foundation, and used it to develop a multi-prong strategy for changing perceptions.

As long as we emphasize frame over facts, were going to be playing small ball.

- Aaron Belkin

A key element of the campaign was the production and dissemination of research to make the case against DADT like the 2000 paper showing the British had repealed their long-standing ban on gays with no ill effects, or the 2006 report demonstrating that enforcement of DADT had cost the Pentagon hundreds of millions of dollars. Both reports generated coverage in national media and, for much of the 2000s, you couldnt read a story about DADT without a reference to Belkin, Palm Center research, or both.

Another element of the strategy was linking the research to storytelling, the kind that would get a breakthrough to a frequently distracted, generally wary public something Belkin and his allies did successfully in the years following Sept. 11, when they showed that DADT had led to the discharge of multiple Arabic and Farsi translators, right when the military desperately needed them. The story was consistent with a key point that advocates like Belkin had been making: Excluding openly gay service members weakened the military, rather than strengthened it.

In publicizing these findings and stories, Belkin and his allies made a concerted effort to enlist or win over high-profile veterans and former national security officials on the theory they would have extra credibility with skeptics. Among them, was a former Reagan and a former Clinton official who served together on the Palm Centers board and co-authored a widely read New York Times op-ed called Military Tolerance Works.

That particular op-ed appeared in 2000, a time when public feelings about the LGBTQ community looked a lot different than they do today. A majority of Americans still opposed same-sex marriage, by nearly a 2-to-1 margin, and that opposition quite likely helped then-President George W. Bush win reelection in 2004.

But sentiments changed as more and more officials were coming out in favor of allowing gay members to serve, until finally in 2010, Congress formally passed a bill formally repealing DADT and then-President Barack Obama signed it.

The victory was by no means the work of Belkin individually, or any individual for that matter. It was the culmination of activism, advocacy and strategizing, some of it going back decades. But veterans of the LGBTQ equality movement say Belkins contributions were pivotal and unique.

Aaron has made an immense contribution in an almost unsung, quiet way, that reflects in a way that twin, great strengths he has, Evan Wolfson, longtime leader in the LGBTQ rights movement, told HuffPost in an interview this week. He has such substance and smarts a commitment to marshaling facts and evidence and arguments and reason. But hes also very skilled at getting things to happen and thinking about how to use that substance, to engage people and to deploy in the world and to mobilize.

Hes not just about scholarship, Wolfson added. Hes about, how do we make our scholarship matter?

Applying The Template To Other Causes

Belkin recounted the DADT campaigns story and success in a 2011 e-book (which HuffPost Media published) called How We Won. But the book was more than a memoir.

Belkin made clear he thought the model for change would work for other causes, and in the interview earlier this month, cited as an example a progressive cause that might seem to have nothing in common with LGBTQ issues.

That example is taxes, an issue on which Democrats have been playing defense at least since the 1980 election of Republican President Ronald Reagan, who promised to slash taxes, and in the process shrink government.

In the decades since, Democrats have been able to win arguments on taxes when they can make it a debate about tax fairness, and more specifically, whether wealthy Americans should be paying more. But theyve struggled to make the case for new taxes that would affect non-wealthy Americans, which in turn has limited their ability to finance new programs, since their more ambitious schemes on everything from child care to health care require an infusion of new revenue that taxes on the wealthy cant provide on their own.

We have a lot of catching up to do, and its not going to happen overnight.

- Aaron Belkin

Belkin doesnt begrudge Democrats and their allies for making the best of a bad political situation, or for settling on less-than-ideal policy solutions because they cant find the money to support more ambitious schemes. But hed like to see progressives devoting more energy to making the case that taxes are OK, and a more-than-worthwhile trade-off, when they lead to the kind of public programs and services that most Americans say they support and that many desperately need.

Im not saying that pragmatism is wrong, Belkin said. What Im saying is that when we dont have a parallel set of voices that are advocating for big change, then were always on the defensive.

The other side is 50 years ahead of us in making this argument, so we have a lot of catching up to do, and its not going to happen overnight, Belkin said.

As a counter-example an issue on which Democrats and their allies have managed to put in work and change minds in ways that enabled legislation to pass Belkin mentioned the clean energy provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law this summer.

I dont think that Biden would ever have gotten the climate bill through Congress if the groups hadnt spent years making the case that climate change is real, and that its the result of human action, Belkin said. Its not that changing the conversation about climate change was sufficient for change. But it was necessary for change.

Winning In A Dysfunctional Political Environment

Theres polling to back this up: In 2020, 60% of Americans thought climate change was a major threat, compared to just 44% in 2006, according to surveys from the Pew Research Center. But the increase was nearly all among Democrats, which is emblematic of how polarized every political debate in the U.S. has become potentially two big problems for Belkins theory of change.

One is that Belkins approach depends on persuading people with evidence. But thats a lot more difficult when the opposition increasingly operates within a media ecosystem that even the most compelling, least ambiguous evidence sometimes cant penetrate.

The other problem is that the threshold for political victory that is, the number of people you have to win over is a lot higher when even a small minority of the electorate can dictate policy, as Republicans can today thanks to institutional advantages like the over-representation of conservative, small-population states in the Senate and Electoral College.

Donors have been understandably socialized to worry about the fires burning now ... Theres much less of a focus on building progressive messaging and building progressive power.

- Aaron Belkin

Belkin has spent the last few years working on one response: A project to expand the Supreme Court, in order to make up for the way Republicans stole a seat when they refused to consider Obamas nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia after his death.

The project is called Take Back the Court and its team of staff and advisers include a lot of familiar names from the progressive intellectual and political universe, including Wolfson, Heather McGhee (of Demos) and Laurence Tribe (of Harvard Law School). And it seems to be making progress: The big liberal advocacy groups that focus on the courts now endorse a larger court, as do many Democrats in Congress, though the votes to make such a change are not there yet.

With so much work to do on that and other causes and gains for the LGBTQ community seemingly under new assault it might seem like a strange time for Belkin to step back, and for the Palm Center to shut down, both of which will officially happen this Friday, Sept. 30.

Belkin, who is just 56, said he will continue to teach courses at San Francisco State University, where he is a full-time professor. He also expressed confidence that longtime allies like the ACLU and Lambda Legal will carry on the work of promoting the LGBTQ agenda. At the same time, he said, he worries that the people and institutions who finance progressive causes dont think enough about the long term.

Donors have been understandably socialized to worry about the fires burning now, where the marginal impact of their dollar is going to matter most today, Belkin said. In my experience, theres much less of a focus on building progressive messaging and building progressive power.

Whether that mentality changes may go a long way to determining how much progressives can achieve in the future.

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How Progressives Can Win The Long-Term Fights They're Losing - HuffPost

Two weeks ago Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) got into hot water for asserting that you cant be progressive and support Israels apartheid government. The Democratic leadership went haywire. Jake Tapper ran a segment on CNN quoting her Jewish colleagues, who had smeared her as antisemite. Tapper didnt engage with Tlaib point about apartheid or explain to viewers why the only Palestinian member of the House might feel compelled to voice such frustration.

Now independent journalist Katie Halper says she was first censored by The Hill TV and then fired from its morning broadcast, Rising, after she submitted a commentary in which she stood up for Rashida Tlaib on the apartheid charge and uttered the words, Free Palestine!

Ryan Grim covers the case at the Intercept and says that monologues of the sort Halper submitted usually air without question. [A]s a former co-host of the show, Iverecorded more than 150 of them. There is no approval process.(Grim could get no comment from Halpers corporate former bosses at Nexstar media, which bought the Hill last year).

Halper has now published the (excellent) commentary that got her fired at BreakThrough News. Speaking to my fellow Jews, to my friends in the Democratic Party who want to support Israel and think of themselves as progressive, Halper methodically backs up Tlaibs accusation and urges progressives to dismantle Israeli apartheid as they dismantled South African apartheid.

The case is similar to Marc Lamont Hills firing by CNN four years ago after he gave a speech at the U.N. in which he called for Palestine to be free from the river to the sea.

Katie Halpers biggest offense may have been taking on Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL and his mouthpiece Jake Tapper of CNN. Halper said:

Its outrageous that Rashida Tlaib is getting attacked. Tlaib is merely stating that Israel is an apartheid state, and that people who claim to have progressive values should not support an apartheid state. No matter how loose a definition of progressive we use, it certainly excludes supporting a racist apartheid position. Whats outrageous is attacking Tlaib for pointing out that Progressive Except for Palestine is an intensively contradictory position. Whats also outrageous is that the Anti Defamation Leagues Jonathan Greenblatt would claim that Israel is not an apartheid government. Whats outrageous is that Jake Tapper would accept Greenblatts statement as the truth and not propaganda that needed to be pushed back against. I understand that Greenblatt and perhaps Tapper feel like Israel is not an apartheid state, but unfortunately for them, apartheid is not about their feelings but the facts.

(Eli Valley speculates about Greenblatts possible interference, given his prominence in the capital and his spearheading the effort to smear Rashida Tlaib.)

Halpers monologue is racking up views (20,000 so far today) and hundreds of supportive comments. She reports today that she is getting a ton of approval for her stance.

Lets consider that support for a second. Clearly Tlaib and Halper are speaking to a receptive audience. Young American progressives support Palestinian freedom. More than half of U.S students exposed to Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movements calls to boycott Israel support the group, a Foreign Ministry survey conducted on campuses, released on Wednesday showed, according to Israeli source Ynet.

Thats the Israeli foreign ministry polling! The findings alarmed Israeli officials and indicated that the BDS movement has considerable influence on campuses. Yes, even student leaders of the liberal Zionist lobby J Street support BDS and then get crushed by the top of the organization for voicing that support.

These findings line up with other recent polling. We consistently see that sympathy for the Palestinian cause is increasing, especially among Democratic voters. A 2020University of Maryland Critical Issues Pollfound that 49% of Democrats had heard of BDS, and 48% of those who had heard of it said that they strongly or somewhat support the movement.A 2019 Center for American Progresspoll found that 71% of Democrats support conditioning aid to Israel.

Weve seen a staggering shift on this issue among Democrats over the last couple decades. When Gallup polled voters on the Middle East back in 2001 just 16% of Democrats said they sympathized with Palestinians. According to a 2021 Gallup poll a majority of Democrats now say that the United States should apply more pressure on Israel to make compromises, as opposed to more pressure on Palestinians.

Last week Zoha Qamar wrote about that growing division within the party at FiveThirtyEight. A confluence of factors over the past decade seems to be driving this shift, he wrote. Social media has changed how war is witnessed across the globe especially among young people and a growing awareness of social inequities in the U.S. may be reshaping how some Americans perceive conflict internationally, too. But most of all, the Palestinian-Israeli question has become a topic that embodies an intra-party identity issue for Democrats, one that has increasingly pushed liberals to reconsider what constitutes progressive politics.

The position of voters might be changing, but it certainly hasnt translated into a widespread shift among lawmakers. Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) historic bill aiming to end Israels detention of Palestinian children has just 32 cosponsors out of 435 voting representatives. Just eight Democrats voted against an extra $1 billion in Iron Dome funding last fall: The No votes belonged to Reps Andre Carson (D-IN), Ilhan Omar (D-MN) , Marie Newman (D-IL), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Chuy Garcia (D-IL), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Cori Bush (D-MO), and Tlaib.

As we reported yesterday, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a tool for the pro-Israel lobby, told the Jerusalem Post conference two weeks ago that he doesnt like to call out Tlaib and other progressive House members publicly over Israel because he doesnt want to make them superstars. But hes scared by their millions of followers on social media.

One of the things Im most concerned about is there are millions of people on twitter including some young people, including some young Jews who follow some of my far left colleagues. When they spread false information, especially using the tools of intersectionality, using words like apartheid, we have to be very clear and stand up to that. I worry about people on social media, especially young people, being influenced by that.

The young are being influenced, of course; and Gottheimer said he sometimes works behind the scenes so he doesnt give Tlaib any unnecessary attention.

You are talking about a few people who are these splinter folks who are loud voices but not representative of the party

Maybe not such a splinter after all!

Halper also assured viewers that shes not going away.

Its an important thing to show the world that, Sadly Israel is an apartheid state and we have to push back and when we encounter censorship we cant run away with our tails between our legs.

Props to Halper for not running away and making Rashida Tlaibs testimony even stronger. Publicly the congresswoman has ignored the recent attacks, but continues to draw attention to the plight of Palestinians. Yesterday she tweeted about Rian Suleiman, a 7-year-old boy who died of a heart attack while Israeli soldiers chased him after his invading his home. Dont look away. $3.8 billion+ of our money is funding this, wrote Tlaib. Enough. It must stop.

The United States has called for an immediate and thorough investigation, but the IDF has already declared theres no connection between his death and the actions of his soldiers. At some places its still controversial to call this apartheid.

This movement needs a newsroom that can cover all of Palestine and the global Palestinian freedom movement.

The Israeli government and its economic, cultural, and political backers here in the U.S. have made a decades-long investment in silencing and delegitimizing Palestinian voices.

Were building a powerful challenge to those mainstream norms, and proving that listening to Palestinians is essential for moving the needle.

Become a donor today and support our critical work.

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Katie Halper loses job at 'The Hill' after calling on progressives to dismantle Israeli apartheid - Mondoweiss

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Today marks one year since theNational School Boards Association(NSBA) ignited a firestorm by issuing a letter to President Joe Biden likening concerned parents to domestic terrorists.

The letter accomplished the exact opposite of its purpose: It motivated parents and exposed the educational establishment as a paper tiger, so desperate to maintain control that it cannot tolerate legitimate criticism from moms and dads. Since then, the NSBA has lost 25 of its state affiliates.

The overwhelming backlash should have been a lesson for progressives: When you wage war on parents, you will lose. Instead, the left chose to double down on a failed strategy that is galvanizing families against the educational establishment.

VIRGINIA GOV. YOUNGKIN DEFENDS TRANSGENDER POLICIES AFTER STUDENT PROTESTS: PARENTS WILL NOT BE 'EXCLUDED'

An early sign that Democrats learned nothing from the NSBA controversy was Terry McAuliffes failed campaign for Virginia governor. McAuliffe held a rally with teachers' union boss Randi Weingarten the day before Election Day. His opponent, Glenn Youngkin, embraced parental rights. McAuliffe, a Democrat, lost by two points; Biden had won the state by 10 points the year prior.

Education was a major factor: Exit polls showed that it was the top issue for 14% of voters, behind the economy and COVID-19 but ahead of healthcare, immigration, and law enforcement. Education is no longer a second-tier issue.

Three members of the San Francisco Board of Education learned this the hard way when they were recalled by voters in February. The recall effort had been brewing for nearly a year, after the board voted to permanently end a merit-based admissions policy at the elite Lowell High School and instead use a lottery system, all in the name of "equity." Parents were rightfully furious. The board refused to undo the policy, so parents undid the board by ousting three people, including its president. (The upheaval worked: The new board has restored merit-based admissions at Lowell.) When leftist identity politics have gone too far for San Francisco, of all places, it is safe to say that a tidal wave of change is coming.

The Biden administration made the same mistake of poking the bear mama bears and papa bears, to be exact by proposing a Title IX rule that would codify its gender ideology into law. The rule would force schools to treat students in line with their gender identity, meaning that schools must allow boys in girls restrooms and locker rooms, and schools would be forced to intervene if a teacher or student declines to use someones preferred name or pronouns.

Judging by the sheer volume of comments, a record-breaking 240,000, the Title IX rule is the most controversial rule in Education Department history. A quick perusal of the comments reads like an outcry of sanity against a radical rule. By law, the Department of Education must address the content of each comment it receives. It cannot legally ignore the tidal wave of people standing up for students and families.

Tristan Thorgersen puts pro-Youngkin signs up as people gather for a Loudoun County School Board meeting in Ashburn, Virginia, Oct. 26, 2021. (Reuters/Leah Millis)

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Despite all this, some activists remain committed to icing out parents at every turn: In New York City just last week, the teachers union shut the schoolhouse doors in parents faces by announcing that parent-teacher conferences will be virtual only. Parents can request an in-person meeting, but they must be vaccinated and able to attend a meeting during the workday. For many families, this is prohibitive. For all families, it is obnoxious.

All of this illustrates that liberals have learned nothing from the reaction to the NSBA letter. The people who refuse to teach also refuse to learn. Perhaps the clearest sign of this is that the Department of Justice never retracted its memo. The NSBA apologized for its letter, but the memo predicated on that letter still stands.

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This means that concerned parents are still operating under the threat of FBI investigation. The chilling effect the NSBA wanted, and that the Biden administration tried to facilitate, has not happened to the benefit of our nations students and families.

One year later, every attempt to silence parents has only made them louder.

Angela Morabito is a visiting fellow at the Independent Womens Forum and the spokesperson for the Defense of Freedom Institute.

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Progressives still haven't learned: 'Terrorist' parents will always fight back - Fox News