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**MARCH 14, 2024**
On the Prospect website
AIPAC Talking Points Revealed
Documents show that the powerful lobby is spreading its influence on
Capitol Hill by calling for unconditional military aid to Israel and
hyping up threats from Iran. BY LUKE GOLDSTEIN
The Strange Death of a Boeing Whistleblower
There's no way America's last great manufacturer murdered a
prominent critic ... is there? BY MAUREEN TKACIK
Novo Nordisk Discontinues Insulin Medication After Cutting Its Price
Levemir is critical for young people and pregnant women, patients say.
But it won't be sold in the U.S. after this year. BY DAVID DAYEN
High-Tech to No-Tech Vote Counting
Hand-counting ballots is expensive, tedious, time-consuming, inaccurate,
and insecure. Some communities want it all. BY GABRIELLE GURLEY
Meyerson on TAP
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**** Kamala and Chuck: The Democrats Get Real
The vice president visits an abortion clinic. The majority leader says
Bibi must go.
When Joe Biden all but shouted his way through his State of the Union
address, it appears he did more than make clear he wasn't the
enfeebled, doddering ruler of right-wing characterizations. He also may
have set the tone for an assertive Democratic Party campaign.
Just today, the two Democrats ranking just beneath him in the hierarchy
of power-Vice President Kamala Harris and Senate Majority Leader Chuck
Schumer-articulated Democratic positions in ways so assertive that no
one could miss them.
As I write, Harris is scheduled later today
to visit an abortion clinic in Minnesota. And just a few hours ago,
Schumer delivered a speech
on the Senate floor fiercely condemning Israeli Prime Minister
Netanyahu, who, Schumer said, "has lost his way by allowing his
political survival to take precedence over the best interests of
Israel."
"He has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is
pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows," Schumer added.
"Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah."
Schumer called on Israel to repudiate Bibi and elect new leaders who
actively worked with Palestinians to create a two-state solution. Most
importantly, he said that if Bibi and his right-wing cohorts stayed in
power, "then the United States will have no choice but to play a more
active role in shaping Israeli policy by using our leverage to change
the present course."
In other words, changing our policy of unconditional support for Israel
to one of conditional support.
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In a sense, what Schumer did today was take what Democratic officials
have been muttering to one another for quite some time and state it so
loudly that all could hear. It reverberated even more loudly as Schumer
holds the highest elected office of any American Jew. And as such, it
could well be understood as the politically savvy beginning of an
epochal shift in Biden administration policy toward Israel, at least so
long as that nation opposes our own nation's commitment to
establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel-the only plausible
solution to the enduring, and enduringly bloody, Mideast conundrum.
By delivering this speech today, Schumer is also highlighting the
differences between Democrats and Republicans. Just yesterday, Senate
Republicans invited Bibi to address a one-day retreat they were holding.
(Bibi couldn't make it.) Schumer's speech was clearly calculated not
just to draw that contrast, but also to be such a dramatic departure
from stated (as opposed to muttered) Democratic policy that it would
draw some positive attention from those within the party's
base-young people and progressives most particularly-who've
written the party off in matters pertaining to Israel, Palestine, and
Gaza.
The vice president's visit to an abortion clinic today also speaks
louder than any of the administration's previous actions and
statements in favor of reproductive freedom. Harris has actually been
making the defense of women's reproductive rights and the attack on
Republicans' opposition thereto the centerpiece of her recent speaking
tour, but her visit today makes those points in a way that guarantees
the kind of media coverage that drives that contrast home, even to the
large number of Americans who don't pay much attention to politics,
and whose votes the Democrats will need this fall.
These are the right positions for the Democrats to take, and, like
Biden, they now appear to be finding ways to take them that register
with the public more forcefully. That's exactly what they need to keep
doing if they are to have a real shot at winning November's elections.
______________________________________________________________________
Tune in on YouTube
tomorrow (Friday, March 15) at 12:30 p.m. ET for the
**Prospect**'s Weekly Roundup, in which David Dayen and I will discuss
the state of the Democrats' 2024 campaign and some important
labor-community victories, and answer your questions on damn near
anything.
~ HAROLD MEYERSON
Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter
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