Montreal (AFP) — Toronto’s Mayor Rob Ford, who won global notoriety when he admitted smoking crack during a drunken binge, abandoned his re-election bid on Friday, after he was diagnosed with a stomach tumor.
The 45-year-old anti-tax populist did not appear on the official list of candidates for his office published on Friday, and thus will leave office after the October 27 vote to choose his successor.
AFP Photo/Geoff Robins
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was strongly criticized Wednesday after promoting a historically and biblically false, antisemitic claim while declaring antisemitism is wrong.
As the House voted on an antisemitism bill that would require the U.S. Dept. of Education to utilize a certain definition of antisemitism when enforcing anti-discrimination laws, the far-right Christian nationalist congresswoman made her false claims on social media.
“Antisemitism is wrong, but I will not be voting for the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023 (H.R. 6090) today that could convict Christians of antisemitism for believing the Gospel that says Jesus was handed over to Herod to be crucified by the Jews,” Greene tweeted.
The definition of antisemitism the House bill wants to codify was created by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
Congresswoman Greene highlighted this specific text which she said she opposes: “Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.”
What Greene is promoting is called “Jewish deicide,” the false and antisemitic claim that Jews killed Jesus Christ. Some who adhere to that false belief also believe all Jews throughout time, including in the present day, are responsible for Christ’s crucification.
Greene has a history of promoting antisemitism, including comparing mask mandates during the coronavirus pandemic to “gas chambers in Nazi Germany.”
Political commentator John Fugelsang set the record straight:
“If only you could read,” lamented Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq., CEO and Director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center. The Antisemitism Awareness Act “could not convict anyone for believing anything, even this historical and biblical inaccuracy. It only comes into play if there is unlawful discrimination based on this belief that targets a Jewish person. Do you understand that distinction @RepMTG ?”
“Not surprising,” declared Jacob N. Kornbluh, the senior political reporter at The Forward, formerly the Jewish Daily Forward. “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has been accused in the past of making antisemitic remarks — including her suggestion that a Jewish-funded space laser had sparked wildfires in California in 2018, voted against the GOP-led Antisemitism Awareness Act.”
Jewish Telegraphic Agency Washington Bureau Chief Ron Kampeas, an award-winning journalist, took a deeper dive into Greene’s remarks.
“Ok leave aside the snark. The obvious antisemitism is in saying ‘the Jews’ crucified Jesus when even according to the text she believes in it was a few leaders in a subset of a contemporary Jewish community. It is collective blame, the most obvious of bigotries.”
“The text she presumably predicates her case on, the New Testament,” he notes, “was when it was collated a political document at a time when Christians and Jews were competing for adherents and when it would have been plainly dangerous to blame Rome for the murder of God.”
“Yes,” Kampeas continues, “that take is obviously one that a fundamentalist would not embrace, but it is the objective and historical take, and *should* be available to Jews (and others!) as a means of explaining why Christian antisemitism exists, and why it is harmful.”
CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere also slammed Greene, saying she “is standing up for continuing to talk about Jews being responsible for the killing of Jesus. (John & Matthew refer to some Jews handing over Jesus to Pilate,not Herod. But also: many, including Pope Benedict, have called blaming Jews a misinterpretation)”
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
House Democratic leadership announced Tuesday that they’ll allow members to block any effort from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and her tiny team of nihilists to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, a reminder of where the power sits in the House.
“We will vote to table Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Motion to Vacate the Chair. If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA), and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-TX) said in a statement.
Even among Republicans Greene’s tantrums have been wearing thin for a few weeks now, but since she had Reps. Paul Gosar of Arizona and Thomas Massie of Kentucky as cosponsors, the theoretical threat remained real—Johnson’s margin of error is that small.
So Greene has continued the bombast.
“Johnson will do whatever Biden/Schumer want in order to keep the Speaker’s gavel in his hand, but he has completely sold out the Republican voters who gave us the majority,” she tweeted Sunday. “His days as Speaker are numbered.”
Republicans feared Greene would make her move Tuesday, but as she and Massie were going into a meeting with the House parliamentarian, she said that “the plan is still being developed.” Then she and Massie left, telling reporters that they had been “developing plans.”
Maybe the speaker’s days aren’t so numbered after all, at least not by her doing. There’s always the possibility that more Republicans will quit, turning the majority officially over to Democrats, but it won’t be through Greene’s efforts. Even Freedom Caucus loud-mouth Chip Roy of Texas says it would be a mistake.
“I do not believe that is the direction that the American people want us to take right now,” he told reporters Monday.
That’s likely in part because Donald Trump has given Johnson his support, twice in two weeks, and he rules their world.
Once the fever broke on Ukraine aid and Johnson was forced to do the right thing, most of them, particularly Johnson, have had to accept the reality that Democrats have control where it matters, making sure that the government continues to function and critical legislation gets passed.
But leader Jeffries wants to make sure that Johnson remembers it’s on their sufferance.
“Mike Johnson doesn’t need too many Democratic friends,” Jeffries toldThe New York Times.
He also quipped that Johnson is lucky to have the enemies that he does.
“[Greene] is one of the best things the speaker has going for him because so many people find her insufferable,” he said.
But does Democratic intervention make Johnson weaker among Republicans?
“Republicans will have to work that out on their end,” Jeffries said. “The reality of this particular Congress is that we are functioning in a manner consistent with a bipartisan governing coalition in order to get things done for the American people.”
And Jeffries isn’t going to let Johnson forget it.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
