Heroes:
Heather Cox-Richardson
Various state Attorneys General (most but not all Dems) suing Trump in multiple courts over his administration’s lawless actions.
In March 2024, six months into Israel’s war in Gaza, education in the territory was decimated. Schools were closed – most had been turned into shelters – and all 12 of the strip’s universities were partially or fully destroyed.
Against that backdrop, a prestigious American education journal decided to dedicate a special issue to “education and Palestine”. The Harvard Educational Review (HER) put out a call for submissions, asking academics around the world for ideas for articles grappling with the education of Palestinians, education about Palestine and Palestinians, and related debates in schools and colleges in the US.
“The field of education has an important role to play in supporting students, educators, and policymakers in contextualizing what has been happening in Gaza with histories and continuing impacts of occupation, genocide, and political contestations,” the journal’s editors wrote in their call for abstracts.
A little more than a year later, the scale of destruction in Gaza was exponentially larger. The special issue, which was slated to be published this summer, was just about ready – contracts with most authors were finalized and articles were edited. They covered topics from the annihilation of Gaza’s schools to the challenges of teaching about Israel and Palestine in the US.
But the Harvard Education Publishing Group canceled the whole issue.
But the cancellation of an entire issue of an academic journal, which has not been previously reported, is a remarkable new development in a mounting list of examples of censorship of pro-Palestinian speech.
“If the universities – or in this case a university press – are not willing to stand up for what is core to their mission, I don’t know what they’re doing. What’s the point?” said Thea Abu El-Haj, a Palestinian-American anthropologist of education at Barnard College, the women’s school affiliated with Columbia University, who was one of the solicited authors.
But Harvard has also cracked down on Palestine scholarship, demoting scholars and canceling related programs. “Harvard is being held up as the heroic institution, but what’s happening internally is much more complicated,” said Abu El-Haj.
Add The Smithsonian to the cowards list.
American history museum removes Trump's name from impeachment exhibit | Reuters
Another data point in support of Gavin Newsom: he’s responded to Texas’ unprecedented plan for mid-decade gerrymandering of its congressional districts, by saying that if Texas proceeds, California will do likewise.
Since CA has more congressional districts than TX, if both states go ahead it could potentially mean a loss of Republican seats in the House.
Good for him. And good for Democrats for not playing by the rules while Republicans fight dirty.
My local news media were the cowards last night.
ICE was in my small town last night. Details are spotty, but it seems they worked their way around town, hitting several targets and random people about town. I heard an account of a guy being pulled out of his car in mid traffic and being detained.
The presence of unmarked SUV’s escorted by our local police and county sheriffs lasted over four hours.
The local news only covered a small protest outside our police station. Our local news also made it a point to basically say, “We don’t know nuthin’ about no ICE! What’s ICE”. Pathetic.
We have a couple crazy incidents in this town every year. Swat situations, young wannabe gangsters shooting each other, crazy guy with pipe bomb, etc. My local NBC team is here in 15 minutes! Every time! Last night they had four hours! They had to be getting the calls.
Oh, and I’m sure my local police escorts had their body cams on. I’m sure our local police would have wanted to record everything they saw for the sake of justice.
We’re discussing that topic over here: Democrats need to bring gerrymandering back to California . In short I don’t think a.) Newsom can do it without changing the law in CA and b.)it’s not necessarily a good idea considering CA’s already large Dem dominance. Also c.) gerrymandering just sucks. I think he is just bloviating a bit as he lays the ground for a presidential campaign.
Its obnoxious how he keeps actlng like ‘maybe I’ll do it’ and we’re all supposed to be impressed.
Imagine if there were a gun fight and the republicans were shooting, so some democratic governor says ‘maybe I’ll go home and get my gun and shoot back. If you keep shooting at me maybe I’ll go home and get it’ and we’re all supposed to be impressed by what a fighter he is.
Meanwhile governors like Pritzker in Illinois just gerrymandered and got it done with. No bloviating, no ‘maybes’. They just did the hard work in the shadows while Newsom keeps going on the media and saying ‘maybe, maybe, maybe’ to make people support his presidential run in 2028.
But yes, the democrats need gerrymandering. The GOP has heavily gerrymandered states like TX, FL, NC, WI, OH, etc. The democrats need to gerrymander back to balance it out until gerrymandering is abolished on the national level. The end goal is the nationwide abolition of gerrymandering, but unless democrats benefit from it too, the GOP supreme court will continue to uphold it as constitutional. The only thing that’ll make the GOP SCOTUS reject gerrymandering is when it benefits the democrats.
I don’t think there are enough Democrat controlled state houses that the Democrats can win a gerrymandering arms race.
From what I was able to find, the GOP has a trifecta in 22 states. Democrats have a trifecta in 17 states, and there is divided power in 11 states.
Democrats have a trifecta in the following states:
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Hawaii
- Illinois
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- Oregon
- Rhode Island
- Washington
138 million people live in the democratic trifecta states, vs 133 million people in GOP trifecta states, and 64 million people in divided states.
Of those 17 states, some are already heavily gerrymandered (like Illinois or Maryland) and wouldn’t pick up many new seats.
Some states like DE, MA, CT, NM, etc already have all democratic representatives, so there are no seats to gain from gerrymandering. Or they’ve already been gerrymandered to remove all R seats.
Other states have independent commissions that draw districts. However I don’t know if the state legislature can get around that, the way that the democrats in CA want to get around the independent committees.
in theory, CA could gain ~7 house seats. NY could gain 3-4 seats (if the courts don’t overturn it like they did last time). Oregon could gain maybe 1 democratic seat.
In theory, if the democrats could overcome the independent redistricting committees and gerrymander all 17 states they control, they’d gain 16-23 seats. My understanding is GOP states are already heavily gerrymandered, and their gains would be smaller.
Gerrymandering needs to be abolished nationwide, along with implementation of other forms of political and electoral reform (automatic registration, mail in ballots, election day as a holiday, bans on large private donations, matching public funds for small donors, etc). But for so long as gerrymandering benefits the republicans more than it benefits the democrats, the SCOTUS will continue to rule it constitutional. The only way to get rid of it on a national level is to make it work for the democrats.
Once the democrats start winning ~225 house seats with 47% of the vote, then the GOP may be more willing to work on election reform legislation or the SCOTUS may be more willing to abolish gerrymandering nationwide.
Election day as a holiday is a bad idea. The people you’re trying to help usually work holidays. It would become another day to have sales. I agree with your other ideas.
For me, I think we should combine mail in ballots with making election day a national holiday. In states like CA or OR, they mail ballots to all registered voters. They also automatically register everyone. Then you have 30 days or so to fill out your ballot and return it either with the envelope provided, or you can drop it off at a dropbox somewhere.
But combining that with making election day a national holiday because making election day a national holiday would help remind people to vote.
Virginia is all set to go Democratic to the third power this November. You can bank on that. Seriously.
Although it’s true that Trump definitely would’ve federalized the National Guard, taking the NG out of Newsom’s hands, I think it would’ve been good to get this gesture out in the open early on.
It would prove that Trump always intended to nationalize the NG for trivial, theatric law-enforcement taks. It would signal to NG units and commanders nationwide that Trump is perfectly willing to disrupt their civilian jobs and family responsibilities for political stunts, that their governor can’t protect them, and they can begin their resignation/ETS processes as soon as possible.
Newsom’s reason for not doing so is purely political self-preservation. He has no principles. His interest in opposing Trump is purely a box-ticking exercise that keeps a certain number of percentage points in play.
Michigan no longer has a trifecta as the Republicans now control the state house.
Also, Michigan has an independent board that draws districts now. I think a few other states (mostly blue) also passed legislation requiring independent boards which makes it harder to rig things as a countermeasure to red states rigging things.
I read somewhere that the plan is to have the National Guard would primarily be used to perform clerical tasks, in order to free up ICE agents to devote more time to terrorizing anyone they think shouldn’t be here. I have this fantasy where the National Guard members somehow manage to do what they can to interfere with ICE agents.