Dear friends:

1. In this morning’s New York TImes, this op-ed suggests that Attorney General Barr is weaponizing Justice Department investigations for political ends.  There are two particular Justice Department investigations that Barr seems particularly intent on pursuing: one investigation relates to examining the origins of the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and the other relates to the “so-called unmasking” of Trump associates by those associated with the Obama administration.  There are indications, claim the writers, that Barr is poised to trample on the policies and norms of the Justice Department by using these investigations as “fodder for pre-election political machinations.”

2.  Also about Bill Barr…. In today’s Ideas column of The Atlantic, NYU Law School’s Andrew Weissman writes about Barr’s recent Congressional testimony, and in particular about Barr’s intervention in the Stone and Flynn cases and how such intervention (which Barr either denies or about which he has no recollection) violates the seminal doctrine that all are to be treated equally under the law. Weissman concludes:  “So what does this all mean? It means that if you are personally connected to the president or have information that could hurt the president, or both, you can be treated far more favorably by this attorney general, as he will bend the law and facts to the president’s desired result. His actions…strike at the heart of the Aristotelian principle central to the rule of law, that we treat likes alike. John Locke warned that ‘where law ends, tyranny begins.’ Now, more than three centuries later, that statement applies to the head of the American system of justice.”  

3.  Cancel Culture and the pursuit of racial justice and equality are the topics of this essay entitled “The Princeton Faculty’s Anti-Free-Speech Demands” which appears in The Atlantic this week.  As Princeton University tries to come to grips with how to “reorder itself to fight racism”, 350 professors signed a letter with numerous demands, one of which has meet with resistance even from those who signed the letter.  “One demand in particular generated a great deal of attention in the media: ‘Constitute a committee composed entirely of faculty that would oversee the investigation and discipline of racist behaviors, incidents, research, and publication on the part of faculty.’ The letter added that ‘what counts as racist’ should be determined by the yet-to-be-formed faculty committee. This notice of a “racism tribunal” struck some as inconsistent with the notion of academic freedom.  This debate at Princeton reflects the conversations which are transpiring at many academic institutions which are trying to figure out just how to address America’s racial reckoning without eroding the principles of free speech and academic freedom.  

Dear friends:

Several thousand of us just completed a stimulating and highly informative hour with Thomas L. Friedman moderated by Warren Olney.  The conversation spanned from foreign policy to climate policy to COVID 19 challenges and beyond.  If you did not tune in, you are in luck; tomorrow the full recording can be found on our website at this link. 

Next week should be exciting as well, with the always animated, opinionated, and brilliant James Carville. You can register here. 

1.  Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush, wrote this op ed published in today’s NY TImes in which he expressed the opinion that the federal government’s uninvited intervention in Portland endangers our democracy and undermines our safety.  In particular, he opined that deploying the Department of Homeland Security for such situations as exist in Portland hurts the Department’s “ability to carry out is core mission of protecting American’s from genuine threats”.  He also wrote that the government’s “heavy handed, unconventional means, and inflammatory political rhetoric has contributed to growing public distrust” and he calls upon the leadership of Homeland security “to firmly and unequivocally reject efforts to hijack the agency for political purposes.”  In the column Chertoff enumerates the ways in which the federal troops have acted in clear violation of the law and are “dismissive of legal restraints”.

Dear friends:

Be sure to register to hear James Carville this Wednesday at 5 pm (Los Angeles time).  Once you register, you will receive the zoom link (several times) within the 48 hours before the event.  You can register here. 

1.  As we get closer to November 3, in light of efforts on the part of President Trump to undermine the country’s confidence in our voting systems, there is increased concern about the administration of this election.   In yesterday’s Washington Post, George F. Will, who spoke to our audience brilliantly just a few weeks go (go here to listen to the full recording), emphasized the importance of state and local governments doing everything they possibly can do to ensure efficient collection and counting of ballots. In this column he wrote,  “The Republic’s domestic tranquility depends on encouraging a historic level of early voting. In 2016, more than 41% of ballots were cast before Election Day. Ideally, 70 percent will be this year. To minimize the scope for Trump’s sociopathy, the nation needs a timely determination of the outcome — before sunrise Wednesday, Nov. 4. To facilitate this — to prevent days or even weeks of uncertainty, during which Trump can fertilize discord — states should immediately stipulate that mailed ballots must be postmarked five days before Election Day, so that counting can be completed by that evening.” 

2.  On a closely related topic, in her column in this week’s New Yorker, Susan Glasser warns of the dangers of President Trump’s recent suggestion that the election be delayed.  She juxtaposed Congressman Lewis’ over-arching life-long commitment to voting rights against Trump’s unfounded proclamations of widespread voter fraud.  “It was not the first time that the President has raised this particular canard—and a canard it is, a radical move that is not within his power to make happen—but it was by far his most inflammatory, destabilizing, and provocative attempt yet to call into question the legitimacy of the November election, in which he is trailing the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, in virtually every poll. Has there ever been a President who has done more to undermine American democracy? Trump himself has become the crisis of confidence in our political system that he warns about.” 

3.  President Trump’s suggestion about delaying the election was met with widespread criticism, most notably coming from Republican leaders.  The Co-founder of the Conservative and usually pro-Trump Federalist Society, Northwestern University law professor Steven Calabresi, wrote this op-ed in Friday’s New York Times entitled “Trump Might Try to Postpone the Election.  That’s Unconstitutional.” in which he stated that Trump should be removed from office if he does not relent in his effort to change the election date. After stating that he had voted for Republicans in every election since 1980, including having voted for Trump in 2016, he said this: “But, I am frankly appalled by the president’s recent tweet seeking to postpone the November election. Until recently, I had taken as political hyperbole the Democrats’ assertion that President Trump is a fascist. But this latest tweet is fascistic and is itself grounds for the president’s immediate impeachment again by the House of Representatives and his removal from office by the Senate.”

4.  Cancel Culture and Race Identity have become very important topics in our country over the past few months, as the country is dealing with what has been called a “racial reckoning”.  In last week’s New Yorker, Isaac Chotiner interviewed African American cultural critic and author,Thomas Chatterton-Williams, who was involved in the writing of a letter critical of the censorious effects of Cancel Culture”.  The letter which was published in Harper’s entitled, “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate”, and which was signed by a lengthy and impressive list of journalists, philosophers, and writers, is the subject of Chotiner’s intervew of Chatterton-Williams in this weekly Q&A column. 

This week’s program should be exciting as well, with the always animated, opinionated, and brilliant James Carville!!

Note that journalist and commentator Ron Brownstein will be joining us on September 9.  You can register below.  All of our past recordings as well as the full recording for the program with Bill Kristol and Patt Morrison can be found on our website at this link:  https://www.jewsunitedfordemocracy.org/events/

Dear friends:

Several thousand of us just completed a stimulating and highly informative hour with Thomas L. Friedman moderated by Warren Olney.  The conversation spanned from foreign policy to climate policy to COVID 19 challenges and beyond.  If you did not tune in, you are in luck; tomorrow the full recording can be found on our website at this link. 

Next week should be exciting as well, with the always animated, opinionated, and brilliant James Carville. You can register here. 

1.  Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush, wrote this op ed published in today’s NY TImes in which he expressed the opinion that the federal government’s uninvited intervention in Portland endangers our democracy and undermines our safety.  In particular, he opined that deploying the Department of Homeland Security for such situations as exist in Portland hurts the Department’s “ability to carry out is core mission of protecting American’s from genuine threats”.  He also wrote that the government’s “heavy handed, unconventional means, and inflammatory political rhetoric has contributed to growing public distrust” and he calls upon the leadership of Homeland security “to firmly and unequivocally reject efforts to hijack the agency for political purposes.”  In the column Chertoff enumerates the ways in which the federal troops have acted in clear violation of the law and are “dismissive of legal restraints”.

All of our past recordings as well as the full recording for the program with Bill Kristol and Patt Morrison can be found on our website at this link:  https://www.jewsunitedfordemocracy.org/events/

Dear friends:

There was an error in the link sent earlier today.  Here is the CORRECTED zoom link for tomorrow’s program

We look forward to seeing you tomorrow at 5 pm LA time (8 pm East Coast time).

CORRECTED LINK Connect by simply clicking on this Zoom link:   
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81013019802

1.  By far, the subject of the most commonly asked question posed by audience members to almost every speaker at our virtual series America at a Crossroads relates to whether Trump will accept defeat and whether there will be a smooth transition of power if Trump is defeated.  We have provided links to many columns as well as to a book on that subject.  The Boston Globe has gone one step further by secretly convening a bi-partisan group of academics, political operatives and former government and military officials to “game out” possible scenarios to address the question of what will happen if Trump refuses to concede.  The focus group/”game” participants considered the extent to which Trump would go to preserve power and what that would mean for our democracy.  Yesterday, the Boston Globe published this article entitled ” A bipartisan group secretly gathered to game out a contest Trump-Biden election. It wasn’t pretty“.   In short, in the bleak words of Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown law professor and former Defense Department official who organized the project known as the Transition Integrity Project,  “All of our scenarios ended in both street-level violence and political impasse…The law is essentially … helpless against a president who’s willing to ignore it.” 

2.  In this Washington Post column, Dana Milbank suggests actions that can be taken now that could impact the election in a positive way.  He advocates that, in light of COVID19, we work with haste to increase the number of Americans who vote by mail. Milbank writes that an astounding 76% of America’s voters have the opportunity to vote by mail, meaning that there is no reason for 76% of Americans to choose between their health and exercising their right to vote.  But, he urges that immediate efforts must increase to get people to request their ballots immediately so as not to overwhelm administrators with mail-in ballot requests in the days closer to November 3.  There are seven states (California among them) as well as Washington D.C. which automatically provide mail-in ballots to all registered voters.  Only 9 states, notes Milbank, have determined that the Corona Virus does not justify mail-in balloting.

3.  Here are two of the newest Lincoln Project ads, one is a message from a former Navy Seal who is now an ER doctor who leads an organization called Veterans for Responsible Leadership.  The other is about Ghislaine Maxwell, the late Jeffrey Epstein’s apparent accomplice in the sex trafficking enterprise, and more generally, the manner in which Trump treats women. 

FINAL WORD:
You can donate to help offset our expenses via our JUDJ website .  Our partner for the America at a Crossroads series is Community Advocates, Inc. whose website is https://www.cai-la.org/  Funds donated to either organization are being used to offset the expenses of this virtual town hall series.  

All of our past recordings as well as the full recording for the program with Bill Kristol and Patt Morrison can be found on our website at this link:  https://www.jewsunitedfordemocracy.org/events/