Liberal Zionism and the "two state solution": Peter Beinart defects and explains why

Liberal Zionism has long held a stranglehold on Democratic Party foreign policy thinking about Israel and Palestine.

And now, the man who was long one of its best defenders and most articulate spokesmen, Peter Beinart, has defected.

As Mondoweiss noted, Beinart had hugely legit bona fides, including being a wingman to Marty Peretz when he ran the editorial ship at The New Republic.

Mondoweiss discusses the importance of Beinart jumping ship, with more here. And here is Beinart's Jewish Currents piece itself, where he lays out why he is jumping ship in general and on the two-state solution in particular. Jacobin offers up an interview of Beinart.

Basically, Beinart says the two-state idea is dead, and that current Israeli government actions are making it even more dead.

That leaves just one real alternative: A single state of Israel-Palestine, with full and equal rights, religious and otherwise, for all.

Beinart says his break was as much drift as break, with roots going back 20 years. He also says liberal Zionism in the US has gotten stale.

Beinart, per what I said up top, has other interesting observations. In the 1950s, he says Israel could have used newly arriving Mizrahi Jews as a bridge to Palestinians, but instead, Mizrahis felt compelled to abandon their own Arabness.

I am also "shocked" that a Josh Marshall has failed to even acknowledge this. I don't know if this will be a semi-coordinated strategy by many liberal Zionists, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were the case.

Given the anti-BDS cancel culture mentality of many signers of that infamous Harper's letter, and now Bari Weiss' boo-hoo resignation from the New York Times op-ed staff, Josh will probably stay silent, too.

Texas Progressives talk more on defunding police, other issues

Once again, as cases and deaths both continue to rise, coronavirus news in Texas and beyond has been split off from the rest of this week's Texas Progressives roundup.

But, there's policing news, elections and more to talk about.

So dig in.

Texas

SocraticGadfly says that if Black Lives Matter, and Confederate statues are a worry, even in Gainesville, it's interesting that, as part of that Young Republicans PR also matters. He also offers a few thoughts on various statues issues in general.

Michael Barajas has a great long piece at the Observer about defunding law enforcement.

Grits, in a follow-up to previous pieces, talks about how COVID has piled on top of THC testing requirements to get yet more county and district attorneys to abandon low-level pot cases.

Rafael Edward Cruz is once again a hypocrite on free speech.

Should Republicans in Texas be worried about the bad underperformance in the runoffs? Erica Greider says yes.

MJ Hegar, former wingnut, beat Royce West, Legiscritter grifter, for the right to be ONE of the candidates to face John Cornyn this fall. Others include Green and acquaintance David Bruce Collins. As for the two Dumbocrats, who is the DSCC to say that Hegar would/will do better than West?

Meanwhile, Ronny Jackson upset Jason Winegarner in CD13. Winegarner took 40 percent of the vote in the original primary, but, for whatever reason, couldn't build on it. My theory is that with Trump's popularity falling even within the GOP, over the coronavirus and his handling of it, we're getting a litmus test backlash.

The attempt of Dan Solomon at Texas Monthly to turd-polish 1-term incumbent Travis DA Margaret Moore was a big fat fucking flop.


Texana

It was a slow week at DosCentavos , but he reminds everyone to send healing thoughts and vibes to Tex-Mex Legend and great Democrat Little Joe Hernandez.

Texas Monthly has several pieces in this category.
First, new information on ancient dinosaur dilophosaurus. Since the first one was discovered on the Navajo Reservation, I like it for that reason.
Mike Judge has revived Beavis & Butthead.
Former Cowtown barbecuer rotates to tortillas. Here's where to eat in Whitney.


National

Black Lives Matter has LA County's Black DA in its sights.

Slate has a great take on just what Chief Justice Roberts accomplished this term. In short, he again, as he has ever since "preserving" Obamacare while using his concurrence to open the door to gutting it, played 11-dimensional chess for ultimately conservative objectives while offering an alleged cloak of the "rule of law."

Get yourself caught up on the basics of the boogaloo movement. And Q.

The St. Louis McCloskeys who whipped out guns on protestors? Nothing new for a HIGHLY litigious and self-entitled couple. Mark McCloskey has sued his sister and his father, among others.

Kanye West has filed to run in Oklahoma. Stand by elsewhere.

"Poor me" in the oil patch: stop me if you've heard this

Texas Monthly has a long read about the details of the latest oil bust and why this one's going to be bad.

Yeah, it may be, but I've heard this stuff before.

First, I'm old enough to remember $10/bbl oil just before the turn of the century, and how that lasted a long time.

And, adjusted for inflation, per the chart below, WTI was below $40/bbl for SEVEN YEARS, setting aside that brief blip just above the $40 mark in 1995.

Crude Oil Prices - 70 Year Historical Chart

So, let's stop this nonsense, Texas Monthly. Surely somebody on your editorial staff is old enough to know better.

What's changed is that the fracking revolution led MANY companies like Pioneer Energy to be formed, or if on the books as small companies, to greedily expand. Hey, Scott Sheffield, Pioneer Energy CEO and Texas Monthly's fracking whisperer? Nobody forced you to make yourself into the Aubrey McClendon of the oil patch, including, just like him, Ponzi-scheming yourself on leases that you have to drill or lose.

Indeed, a year ago, DeSmog Blog caught Scott Sheffield in either huge self-delusion or else huge fibbing when he claimed fracking was profitable at $30/bbl.

You're right that there is no such thing as a free market, not just in the oil patch but elsewhere. BUT ... until Railroad Commission chairman and nutbar-in-chief Wayne Christian refused to bail you out with proration, I don't recall you saying that the lack of a free market was a problem.

As for the whys of Wayno fighting proration? I'll take him at his word, discounted the 50 percent he normally should be. North Dakota, New Mexico and other states that have also had fracking-related oil booms may have found it difficult to adopt proration in their states. They may also, to the degree their state budgets have become more oil-dependent than Texas', decided they didn't want to, or didn't think they could afford to, prorate. In any case, whether or not Wayno tried that hard, he couldn't get a proration deal. And, within the US, the oil production world has changed since 1970.

In addition, Texas Monthly should be asking how big of a polluter whining Pioneer is. Hell, even the New York Times can ask that of frackers in general, along with other questions.

Yes, Texas is still the biggie. But states 2-10, combined, produce as much oil as it does. Just five years ago, though, New Mexico was way lower, and Colorado and Oklahoma a fair amount lower. Seven years ago, North Dakota was way lower.

Long long ago? In the 1980s, in a situation like this, per graph at this site, Texas only had to worry about Alaska. In the 1990s and 2000-oughts, then offshore production was an issue. And, though it's declined again, especially after the Deepwater Horizon, offshore drilling has two other issues. One, it's federally controlled, so Wayno has no control over it, nor do 49 other states. Second, offshore wells? You won't shut them down, period.

LONG long ago? The misty mythic 1930s? Contra Sheffield, and contra the Texas Monthly reporter who didn't call him out on it, everybody who knows anything about Texas crude knows that the RRC largely failed to control production then. People pumped and sold hot oil and laughed at the state. It took the feds and force to accomplish anything.

If this DOES change everything? It won't be by itself. Per Sheffield, it will be the rise of cars, plus, we hope to doorknob, real climate change legislation that includes a carbon tax and carbon tariff at the federal level, plus, we hope to doorknob, states and third parties winning lawsuits against Big Oil.

Texas Progressives talk coronavirus, week 16

The hospitals were filling up in Houston by last Friday, but Gov. Strangeabbott still refused to cede any ground to local control on COVID response. Meanwhile, the Texas GOP was on its merry way of suing Mayor Sly Turner for grounding the state convention. (And they lost. And again on appeal to the state Supreme Court.)

That's even as a SIX MONTH OLD baby died in Corpus. While John Cornyn claims "we don't know" about kids catching or transmitting COVID.

Many nursing homes, especially big chains, just want your money; they don't care about the health of your COVID-positive loved one.

The Chronic notes how Abbott is facing flak from both GOP wingnuts (Montgomery County GOP exec board unanimously voted to censure him) and more and more Dems. It rightly noted in an editorial that, starting with him cutting off his own balls in the Shelley Luther case, these wounds are all self-inflicted. The political wounds. The thousands of dead and a state death rate now above 100 per 1 million, are inflicted on others.

Off the Kuff catalogs the many ways Greg Abbott failed during the COVID crisis.

Abbott has mentioned the possibility of a new "lockdown." He doesn't have the balls or the ethics to do it, though.

Meanwhile, some counties are now ordering refrigerated morgue trucks and trailers.

COVID is surging in rural areas and smaller counties, too. Beyond the story, the state school in Gainesville has been hard hit. The story also reflects the problems with a for-profit health model, and that includes doctors and hospitals, not just insurers.

Rick Casey posits that Greg Abbott misses having Joe Straus around to serve as the main punching bag for the wingnut coalition in the GOP.

Festivals and events continue to be cancelled. Fiesta San Antonio joins the State Fair of Texas, cancelled for the first time since World War II.

Big Tex says we'll meet again at the State Fair in 2021.

Paradise in Hell was sad to see that happen.

Reform Austin lists a number of prominent Texans who have contracted COVID-19.

Dario Hunter AND other assclowns as GP prez candidates

Per updates to my own "Dario went there" post, here's Brandy Baker, looking at the big picture of what all is wrong with the Green Party circa 2020. This is an issue that she and Mark Lause were talking about in 2016, in pieces from North Star approvingly quoted here.

What is in italics, but not inset, is from a comment of hers at the GP Facebook group.

The whole thing, or a serious chunk of it, deserves printing. She, like me, is some sort of leftist who also, I think, has little regard for the GP as "diddler's cult," per a common lament about Ten Key Values author Mark Satin. Here's Baker:

Marginal people, clowns, assclowns, buffoons, and people who would not be tolerated in any other organization on the face of the planet earth were allowed to run roughshod over this process, troll, whine, interrupt, and behave in an undemocratic fashion. Sedinam Curry overrode the democratically-elected leadership of the California GP and got herself and other weirdos parked on the California ballot. That is what is anti-democratic. Curry threw tantrums at state party gatherings accusing them of "racism" when it is her own failings as a candidate and her own failings to gather any real or serious base of support despite running many times in the 21st Century.

This kid Chad who did not even understand the fucking process of nominationg a GP candidate or even how the GP runs trolling on here day in and day out waging crazy accusations that made no sense whatsoever. Why on earth was he ever considered for participation in anything other than deletion from this FB page? The assclown Ian Schlackman and his nonsense, do you know that Ian worked with a Democrat against a fellow Green who was running for City Council in 2016? Do you know that he was given the nod for Gov after this? Reap/sew.

When Hunter first came onto the scene, I took a look, but before long realized that there is not much there. A lot of grandstanding and peacocking.

If Hunter cared about building a national GP, he would support the winner, you know, someone who would have been well within his rights to fold up his arms and to say the hell with this, this Party is a mess. I am not saying that Hawkins is perfect or that his people are, but this went down so fucking fair and square despite embarrassing and undemocratic people who had no money and no base of support embarrassing the GP and undoing the hard work of serious people.

The process needs to be tightened up. I do not know what my future politically is, but I can say that I am introducing a resolution to my state party, and hopefully, it will go before the GNC. I will send it to other states as well.

If the GP does NOT tighten up the nomination process and stop allowing unserious fringe people to dominate the process, interrupt with tantrums, and attempt to hijack conventions and state nominating processes (ALL of this UNDEMOCRATIC), the no one should support the GP no matter who the nominee is.

Get serious or get out and allow a serious third party to form.

Couldn't have said it better myself. We need to tighten further to to to cut out perennial candidates, whackadoodle candidates like conspiracy theorists, and ineligible candidates like Elijah Manley.

That's not all, but it's a starting point.

Update, July 25: Another assclown has bailed. Curry is running as Mark Charles' Veep.

Colorado Greens, a clusterfuck

Dear truly liberal, left-liberal and leftist Coloradans tearing your hair out over a battle for the U.S. Senate between John ChickenLicker FrackenLover Hickenlooper and Cory Gardner, knowing the Greens have no candidate in the race?

(Colorado State House District 55 was the only non-presidential candidate they have.)

I mean, FrackenLover is responsible for clouds of methane over Colorado. And, as I know from his time as Denver mayor during the 2008 DNC, he's also a First Amendment hater on freedom of assembly. Even if there was nobody lined up before, when ChickenLicker left the prez race and then said he would enter the Senate primary, and there was ANY time still left to get a Green to run, it should have been done. Party execs dropped the ball.

That said?

Never fear, I was going to tell you. Former Green Veronique Bellamy is on the SPUSA line.

Nope, scratch that. I'm not deleting the comment, but I'm saying yes, do fear. Per what could fall out with the Georgia Green Party (didn't happen at the national convention, but who knows about the future), her trans activist angle would be iffy enough for me, given the playout between the Georgia Green Party and the Lavender Caucus (as abetted by two-faced Dario Hunter). But, on Twitter? She's a HARDCORE Zionist, enough to retweet outright lies about Jordan making the West Bank "Judenrein" and such. (On this issue? Jordan did expel Jews from East Jerusalem. But any Jews elsewhere in the West Bank were not affected, other than Jordan being active against any non-Arabs, period. Best estimate on Jewish expulsions is 2,000, far fewer than the Nakhba and the 700,000 who either fled in fear or were expelled.) Her Jordan comment is as close to the truth as anything she's had on Israel-Palestine issues.

Guess the SPUSA was desperate for a candidate itself.

Meanwhile, showing just how fucking dysfuncational Colorado GP is? On the national GP Facebook group, some other Coloradoan touted two other possibilities. NO to both. Stephen Evans is a gun nut, as is the Unity Party in general; national open carry as your No. 1 platform statement? No wonder Andrea Mérida Cuéller pushed you along. Jim Doyle? Constitution Party candidate, aka American Religious Right Party.

And that "Some other person" mentioning these two? Gary Swing, listed as a perpetual candidate. He is, per Ballotpedia. Ran in Colorado in 2012 and 2014, and is running this year; ran in Arizona in 2016 and 2018. (Gary, sorry, but for someone your age to have been running every two years for almost a decade, you are a perpetual candidate. Period.)

Are the defections from the Colorado GP in part Andrea Mérida Cuéllar's part? I think so. I largely, though not totally, agree with her as Howie Hawkins' campaign manager. And, in part, I think the Colorado GP has had issues that Harris Greens and a few other regional GPs within Texas Greens have had on race-related issues. That's the background to the 2018 disciplinary issues. (Guess a fair chunk of old white hippies aren't so enlightened. Or young ones. Swing was one of the people bhreatened with being booted from any position of authority in the party. I think he ultimately was spared. And, per this piece, beyond the rightness or wrongness of any complaints? Being a former Libertarian, then a Green, now a centrist? That much party-hopping at your age, Gary, makes you not only a perpetual candidate, but a third-party omni-whore one.)

As for Restore Green Values' complaints? Whether or not the RGV folks have even a whiff of white supremacy about them or not, I totally support that Cuellar did NOT want to admit "flag of convenience" Berners after the 2016 Dem primary. Too many of them came in nationally this year and thought that Bernie was the God of all. Not even close.

At the same time, the amount of complaints from a number of angles? I think there's some fire behind the smoke. But, no more than one-third of it is legitimate.

That leads to our old friend Idries Shah.

I think Cuellar has done good work in a lot of ways, but it's probably time for her to step aside as state party leader. There's probably a degree of truth to that elsewhere. That said, per David Bruce Collins, even at the regional level, being involved with Greendom is a level of cat-herding that makes' Will Rogers bon mot about being a Democrat and not a member of any organized party look like weak tea.

And, if cat-herding as both Howie's national co-chair and state party co-chair got to be too much, she should have resigned one or the other, especially if it impacted her recruiting Senate candidates. The bullshit about rigging and favoritism is totally untrue. But, it's very possible she overstretched herself. That's on her, and it's also on Howie for not thinking about it. Stein, after all, didn't have any state party chairs as her campaign chairs.