Month: December 2023

Unlike Los Angeles Times columnist Doyle McManus, I did not make a New Year’s resolution in 2023 to write less about Donald Trump. It was a worthy ambition even if McManus found it impossible to keep.

My New Year’s resolution 12 months ago was to write fewer columns about Donald Trump. That well-intended goal met the same end as most New Year’s resolutions; I soon fell off the wagon and wrote more columns about Trump in 2023 than I had the prior year.

Like it or not, the former president is the dominant political figure of our time.

I don’t disagree. But I’m pretty sure I wrote less about Trump in 2023. It wasn’t intentional exactly, although it wasn’t entirely unintentional. The truth is, the national media is doing a perfectly fine job of covering the disgraced ex-president. It’s not their fault that tens of millions of Americans don’t find Trump repellent and wholly unfit to be a free man let alone the president.

At this point, I do not care what outrageous thing Trump has just said to get attention. I don’t care what threat he’s issued or what new lie he’s told. The only thing about him that interests me is when he loses money. When he’s actually on trial for his freedom, that will get my attention.

I don’t really consider 2024 an election year, at least on the presidential level. 2024 is the battle of Armageddon for our country. We either hold Trump accountable or we’re done. So, my New Year’s resolution this year is to enjoy the country I love while it still exists. I’m not pessimistic necessarily but I’m mentally prepared to never live through a normal American year again. I will savor each day.

And, yes, I will write about why this is a battle of Armageddon, but not because Trump interests me in any way other than a mortal threat. It’s the American people who are getting put to the test here, and our legal system.

When 2024 ends, either Trumpism is dead, or our country is ruined.

Hello again painting fans.

This week I will be continuing with the painting of the Jerome, Arizona scene. The photo that I’m using (My own from a recent visit.) is seen directly below.

I’ll be using my usual acrylic paints on a 5×7 inch canvas panel.

When last seen the painting appeared as it does in the photo seen directly below.

Since that time I have continued to work on the painting.

I’ve now repaired the shredded pavement including the curb. I’m now done.

The current and final state of the painting is seen in the photo directly below.

I’ll have a new painting to show you next week. See you then.

You have probably heard by now that on Thursday, Maine Secretary of State Shanna Bellows announced that Donald Trump’s petition to appear on the state’s primary ballot in invalid because he, having taken an oath to uphold the Constitution, subsequently waged a rebellion and insurrection against the U.S. Government. Trump’s actions were a clear violation of the 14th Amendment and he is barred from holding any state or federal office for the rest of his life. The Supreme Court in Colorado ruled the same way, while courts in Minnesota and Michigan will allow Trump to appear on the primary ballot in their states. Whether he’s eligible to appear on the general election ballot in those states is still undetermined.

These cases will be decided by the Supreme Court, and my money is on the Court siding with Trump, but let’s not put the cart in front of the horse. We should acknowledge that the 14th Amendment wouldn’t have a Section 3 on Disqualification from Holding Office if it were never permissible to disqualify someone from office. That seems like ironclad logic, right?

Okay, let’s look again at the language:

Section 3 Disqualification from Holding Office

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Now, naturally no one is going to care if some schlub who has no support is disqualified from office. But if someone like Robert E. Lee is disqualified despite polling showing he is supported by millions, that’s going to make millions of people upset. That’s why this language isn’t in a statute easily overturned by Congress, but an amendment to the Constitution.

Of course, Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine doesn’t see a political advantage in supporting her Secretary of State and is critical of her decision. But, I’ll remind you that Collins was one of seven Republicans senators who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial. The single article of impeachment charged Trump with “Incitement to Insurrection.” Here is how the article concluded:

Wherefore, Donald John Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security, democracy, and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law. Donald John Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.

So, Sen. Collins, having voted to deny Trump any future office, now says this:

“Maine voters should decide who wins the election – not a Secretary of State chosen by the Legislature,” said Collins, who is known as a moderate Republican who has hesitated to support Trump in the past, in a social media post. “The Secretary of State’s decision would deny thousands of Mainers the opportunity to vote for the candidate of their choice, and it should be overturned.”

It’s as if it never occurred to Collins that she had already made the same determination that Secretary of State Bellows used to deny Trump a place on Maine’s ballot. It’s also as if she never considered that kicking someone off the ballot necessarily precludes voters from electing that person.

I suppose Collins will split hairs and say that “well, yes, I voted to kick Trump off all future ballots but I was overruled and he was acquitted.” And that’s true. But on the merits we know what she thinks. And Trump wasn’t acquitted from the 14th Amendment, only from the impeachment charge. Those are two distinct avenues for declaring Trump ineligible for future office.

The question with the 14th Amendment is who is supposed to enforce it. It says two-thirds of each house of Congress can restore Trump’s rights. It doesn’t say who can take them away.

That’s for lawyers to argue. I just want to point out that Susan Collins is doing her usual trick of voting one way and then saying something else. Sometimes she reverses this and says one thing and then votes for the other thing.

She said Trump incited and insurrection and should never hold future office. Now when her Secretary of State agrees, she’s a critic.

Sometimes I get confused and let myself think that moderate Republicans exist. For example, I tell myself, maybe you can find reasonable Republicans in places like Southern California. But actually you’re more likely to find Nazis there. Let me explain.

For 14 years, the head of the San Diego GOP was a man named Tony Krvaric. He resigned in 2020 right around the time a video emerged of him that was a bit disconcerting. After Republican County Supervisor Dianne Jacob viewed it, she said “I’ve certainly had several concerns with Mr. Krvaric’s leadership of the local Republican party and his troubling background has been highlighted in the past, but I wasn’t aware of this disturbing video.”

The video’s existence was first reported by local station, KPBS:

The KPBS report on Friday said the video shows an image of Hitler floating between photos of three young men, among them an image of a young Krvaric wearing dark shades.

The video was produced by a group called Fairlight that was founded during the late 1980s in Sweden, according to KPBS. The 49-year-old Krvaric has previously acknowledged he was at one point a leader of the group.

If you visit Mr. Krvaric’s Gab page you’ll see that he describes himself as “Croatian by blood, Swedish by birth, American by choice!” He also says he is “Chairman Emeritus of the Republican Party of San Diego County.” So, he may no longer be in charge, but he’s hardly persona non grata with the local GOP.

Before we go on, let’s take a look at that video.

Perhaps you think this video was made a long time ago when Mr. Krvaric was young and foolish. But his belief system hasn’t changed. The man refers to his car as a Panzer, the name of a formidable Nazi Germany tank.

 

And he’s imparted these Nazi values to his children.

Let’s consider first the youngest son, Victor Krvaric. In 2022, while serving as a Marine reservist, Victor was investigated and exposed as a white supremacist and raving anti-Semite. Specifically, he interviewed to be accepted in a group called Patriot Front.

…Patriot Front was founded in the wake of the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., after breaking off from neo-Nazi group Vanguard America. Its founder, Thomas Rousseau, led Vanguard America members at the rally. A man photographed holding a Vanguard America shield, James Fields Jr., went on to drive his car into a crowd of anti-racist protesters, killing one. In 2019, Fields was convicted of murder and federal hate crimes and sentenced to life in prison…

…In a membership interview report, “Interviewee 441515” told the hate group he believed in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and that non-Europeans shouldn’t be allowed in the U.S. unless they were “doctors” or a “net positive” to the economy.

The Marines investigated and while they weren’t forthcoming with details, they confirmed he had been disciplined. They also indicated he’s a problem in other unrelated matters.

“The investigation concluded misconduct had occurred and the command has taken disciplinary actions,” said Marine spokesman Lt. Col. Craig Thomas in a short written statement. “The findings have been documented in his military record.”

…Military rules ban service members from actively participating in extremist groups, including liking or sharing radical social media posts, but they do not bar membership. Reservists aren’t subject to the same rules unless they engage in extremist activities while on duty.

Regardless, Krvaric may not be in the Marine reserves for long. A separate investigation into the reservist has exposed other wrongdoing, which could lead to a discharge, according to Thomas.

“The individual is being processed for administrative separation from the Marine Corps for prior misconduct,” Thomas said.

He added that the wrongdoing is unrelated to the recent investigation into Krvaric for white supremacist ties. But Thomas would not reveal the nature of the previous misconduct.

Then there is the older son, Oliver Krvaric, a former president of the College Republicans at San Diego State University. Online sleuths have exposed him as a January 6 insurrectionist who actually breached the Capitol.

Asked whether he was at the Jan. 6 riot, Krvaric initially told USA TODAY he was not. Pressed about the photos that online researchers say show him that day, Krvaric acknowledged he attended former President Donald Trump’s speech, but said he didn’t go inside the Capitol. Asked about images that appear to show him inside the Capitol, he then said he didn’t remember whether he went inside. Sent copies and links to the footage, he stopped responding.

There are two reasons to care that Oliver rioted on January 6. The first is that “an email address in Krvaric’s first and middle names was used in 2016 to create a profile on a neo-Nazi website. That user praised Adolf Hitler, backed deportation of non-white people and expressed disgust of the LGBTQ+ population.”

And the second is that he was actually working for the Trump administration at the time.

A USA TODAY review of arrests concluded Krvaric would be the first full-time employee of the Trump administration identified entering the Capitol in the insurrection. On Jan. 6, 2021, Krvaric was working for the Office of Personnel Management on a short-lived Trump executive order that sought to rid federal agencies of certain diversity and inclusion training.

Imagine that. The son and brother of a Nazi is a Nazi who working for the Trump administration to craft racist executive orders.

The moderate Republicans left the party a while ago.

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Howdy, howdy. It’s still mid-week somewhere. I am just getting my bearings after a little holiday travel. I hope you are all doing well.

I am ending the year with a live version of Wire’s classic “Kidney Bingos” track:

This is a personal favorite. Enjoy.

I am not a lawyer, but I find certain legal questions fascinating. Take the example of former Nebraska congressman Jeff Fortenberry who just had his convictions for lying to the FBI thrown out by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The background is that during a fundraiser for Fortenberry held in 2016 at the Los Angeles home of Dr. Elias Ayoub, large sums were donated through straw donors from Nigerian-born French billionaire Gilbert Chagoury. This chicanery came about in an interesting way.

The congressman and Chagoury, who is of Christian-Lebanese descent, became acquainted because they are both deeply involved in advocating for persecuted Christians in the Middle East. In 2014, Chagoury funded the inaugural summit of In Defense of Christians, a Washington-based nonprofit, where Fortenberry was one of the speakers. Ayoub, who also is a Christian originally from Lebanon, served on the organization’s board and testified that he first met Fortenberry at the 2014 event.

In 2015, the founder and former president of In Defense of Christians, Toufic Baaklini, asked Ayoub to host a fundraiser for Fortenberry in LA because “he’s a very good man,” Ayoub told the jurors.

In 2018, Chagoury resolved a federal investigation accusing him of  conspiring to violate federal election laws by making illegal campaign contributions to U.S. presidential and congressional candidates, including Mitt Romney and Fortenberry. Also in 2018, Dr. Ayoub, who was cooperating in the investigation, placed a call to Fortenberry in which he explained the whole straw donor plot from the 2016 fundraiser. The FBI was recording.

Then in 2019, the FBI came to visit Fortenberry at his Nebraska home. When they asked about the straw donor plot and Gilbert Chagoury, Fortenberry played dumb. He did the same during a follow-up conversation in Washington DC. For this he was indicted and convicted in a Los Angeles courtroom.

The convictions were thrown out because the crimes charged did not occur in Los Angeles but rather in Nebraska and Washington DC. This is in spite of a district court judge previously ruling that charging in Los Angeles was permissible because Fortenberry’s lies impacted their investigation of the fundraiser.

Now I certainly understand the principle here, that you should be charged where the crime occurred. But I find this ruling surprising nonetheless. After all, if you’re investigating crimes that occurred in Los Angeles, in this case illegal straw donations at a fundraiser, then you’re going to want to convene the grand jury in Los Angeles. And if you have to question the congressman in question and he doesn’t regularly visit Los Angeles, then you’re going to do it where he lives or where he works, which is precisely what the FBI did. And if he lies in those interviews and obstructs your investigation, that seems like it ties right back to Los Angeles.

Why should the Justice Department have to convene a new grand jury to charge Fortenberry? And should they convene two more, one for the lies told in Nebraska and another for the lies told in Washington DC? This just seems unwieldy.

We’ve seen similar questions come up about where to charge Donald Trump in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. Jack Smith chose the harder route of charging the case in Florida precisely to avoid having the case thrown out later for being brought in the wrong venue, but a good amount of the alleged criminal activity took place in Washington DC, including at the White House and the National Archives.

In the end, Fortenberry had to resign from Congress but otherwise received a two-year probation slap on the wrist. I have no idea if the DOJ will retry him, but it seems like flogging a dead horse at this point. It’s just hard to believe that the DOJ could have screwed up this badly, but then I think the 9th Circuit’s ruling is stupid.

But what do I know? It’s not like I went to law school.

In July, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hosted a meeting at the presidential palace between the respective leaders of Fatah and Hamas, Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh. The purpose was to achieve unity between the two competing Palestinian groups, a recurring goal of Erdogan’s that has not been successful. In the pre-October 7 world, Erdogan repeatedly insisted that Hamas is not a terrorist group and refused Israel’s demands that he expel Hamas leaders from his country. His belief was that disunity between Fatah, which runs the West Bank, and Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip, is a hindrance to the Palestinian cause and regional security. And it appears that this is still his belief.

Amid signs that Hamas’ political wing and Fatah are exploring a reconciliation process, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signaled that Turkey is in the loop on ongoing talks between the two rival Palestinian groups.

“[Hamas and Fatah] are in talks, and it is possible for them to take these talks further,” Erdogan said. “I believe that there are many things that we, as Turkey, have done and can do on this issue,” the Turkish president was quoted as telling reporters on his return from Hungary, according to an official transcript released on Tuesday.

Describing the rival groups as being like “flesh and bone,” he said, “Right now, we need to strive to preserve this unity.”

I haven’t seen other sources that describe current reconciliation talks between Fatah and Hamas. But, if true, it helps flesh out some of the widespread delusional thinking that is going on in the world’s capitals.

We can begin in Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on Christmas which laid out the prerequisites for peace. They are collectively unrealistic. Perhaps Israel can succeed in destroying Hamas’s control over Gaza, but he rejects any effort to let Fatah, which runs the Palestinian Authority, take over in their place. In his mind, Mahmoud Abbas is a terrorist in his own right who has refused to condemn the October 7 attacks, has provided money to the families of suicide bombers in the past, “currently funds and glorifies terrorism” in the West Bank, “and educates Palestinian children to seek the destruction of Israel.”

Netanyahu then provides a vision for the “successful deradicalization” of the Palestinian people, likening it to the transformations of Germany and Japan from World War Two foes of the west to stalwart allies. This was echoed earlier in the week by Tzachi Hanegbi, Mr. Netanyahu’s national security adviser, who told the press, “We have a vision of a new Gaza headed by people who are sane and not hateful.”

Yet, the way Israel is conducting the war is radicalizing Muslims all over the world, and not just in Palestine.

The evidence shows that Israel has carried out its war in Gaza at a pace and level of devastation that likely exceeds any recent conflict, destroying more buildings, in far less time, than were destroyed during the Syrian regime’s battle for Aleppo from 2013 to 2016 and the U.S.-led campaign to defeat the Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria, in 2017.

Still, if Israel rejects the leadership of both Hamas and Fatah, what hope is there for Erdogan’s plan?

In Washington, DC, the hope is to revive the Palestinian Authority with new blood and place a unified leadership in charge of both Gaza and the West Bank, but the Israelis are treating this like a non-starter. As the Washington Post reports, the Biden administration cannot even convince Israel to give the Palestinian Authority tax revenue they are owed for salaries. And the leadership of the Palestinian Authority is chafing over demands for reform.

Still, the U.S. requests have rankled Ramallah. “It’s always this colonizing mentality, whereby, ‘We decide your leadership, we are the ones basically designing your strategy for the day after, we tell you how to live, we tell you how to breathe, and we tell you how to run your land,’” [adviser to Abbas and member of the central committee for Fatah, Sabri] Saidam said.

I can understand that Saidam is angry considering that he has lost more than 44 members of his extended family since the war began. But the simple truth is that Fatah is being offered something it could never achieve on its own. The Palestinian people have lost all confidence in the organization.

Some 88 percent of Palestinians want [Fatah leader Mahmoud] Abbas to resign, the poll indicated, up 10 points from three months ago. The popularity of Hamas in the West Bank, meanwhile, has soared from 12 percent to 44 percent, while also rising slightly in Gaza…

…The [Palestinian] authority, set up in 1994 out of the Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization, was originally conceived as an interim body on the path to Palestinian statehood.

But while it presents some of the trappings of a government, the authority operates under Israeli occupation. And its security cooperation with the occupying power means that many Palestinians believe it helps enforce Israel’s will.

“The people see the Palestinian Authority as a guardian for the occupiers,” said Saif Aqel, a Fatah youth leader. Frustrated young people are returning to the armed resistance rejected by the authority. Still, he said, any leader imposed from the outside is unacceptable.

I want you to ask not why the Wall Street Journal is reporting this, by why they are reporting it now.

President Biden urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt a pre-emptive strike against Hezbollah forces in Lebanon days after Hamas militants’ Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel, warning that such an attack could spark a wider regional war.

Israel had intelligence—which the U.S. deemed unreliable—that Hezbollah attackers were preparing to cross the border as part of a multipronged attack, pushing some of Israel’s more hawkish officials to the brink, officials said.

Israeli warplanes were in the air awaiting orders when Biden spoke to Netanyahu on Oct. 11 and told the Israeli prime minister to stand down and think through the consequences of such an action, according to people familiar with the call.

Now, your immediate reaction might be that the Biden administration wants it known that they’ve been a moderating force on Israel’s government. That’s important because, with military operations in Gaza producing more than 20,000 deaths and widespread starvation developing, the United States in increasingly isolated in their support.

And that might be part of the explanation.

But, more likely, the WSJ article is a message to the Lebanese government that they better be serious about their offer to negotiate with the Israelis.

Lebanon is ready to implement a UN resolution that would help end Hezbollah’s cross-border attacks on Israel if Israel also complies and withdraws from disputed territory, Lebanon’s prime minister claimed on Friday.

The border between Lebanon and Israel has seen escalating exchanges of fire since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, raising fears of a broader conflagration. Tens of thousands of Israelis have been evacuated from northern border towns, which have been repeatedly targeted by the Hezbollah terror group.

UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, called for the removal of armed personnel south of Lebanon’s Litani River, except for UN peacekeepers and the Lebanese army and state security forces. But the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group has entrenched itself across much of southern Lebanon for decades, where it holds strong support, and has regularly launched rockets against Israel, while Beirut does nothing to reign in the group.

The Israeli government wants Hezbollah pushed north of the Litani River, a distance of 30 kilometers from the border. Israeli’s foreign minister Eli Coehn has said, “There are two ways to do that: either by diplomacy or by force.” And the Times of Israel reports that “Israeli diplomatic officials have suggested in recent weeks that Jerusalem is open to a diplomatic solution to the conflagration along its northern border.”

The offer to push Hezbollah out comes with conditions. In return, Israel would have to retreat from areas it has long occupied in the border region, including “the disputed Shebaa Farms, the Kfarshuba hills and the Lebanese side of the village of Ghajar.”

That might be a deal worth making for both sides, but it depends in large part of the Lebanese government’s ability to influence Hezbollah or dictate to them through force. It would not be easy to convince them to abandon their positions.

For that reason, the government needs to feel that confronting Hezbollah is the least bad option. They do not want to see a repeat of 2006 when Israel used a border skirmish and kidnapping as a casus belli to pound Hezbollah-controlled neighborhoods far to the north in the capital of Beirut.

The message in the Wall Street Journal article is that the Israel government very nearly responded to the October 7 attacks by going apeshit on Lebanon and was only restrained by the Biden administration at the last moment when their jets were already in the air. This is supposed to focus their minds about what is likely to happen to their country if Hezbollah keeps killing Israeli soldiers and civilians with cross-border rockets and attacks.

The Israelis are sending the same message.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel does not want a war, but that “if Hezbollah wants to go up a level, we’ll go up five.”

“We don’t want that, we don’t want to get into a war situation. We want to restore peace and we will do it either through an agreement, or with forceful action, with all its implications,” he told a group of soldiers along the northern border. “We don’t want war, but we won’t hold it off for too long.”

Now, I don’t know if Israel will agree to withdrawal terms acceptable to Lebanon, but I suspect the bigger problem is that Hezbollah doesn’t take orders from Lebanon and may be too powerful for the central government to push around.

In any case, what we’re witnessing is diplomacy by news leak. You are not the audience. The audience is everyone in Lebanon who doesn’t want to see their country look like Gaza.

Hello again painting fans.

This week I will be continuing with the painting of the Jerome, Arizona scene. The photo that I’m using (My own from a recent visit.) is seen directly below.

I’ll be using my usual acrylic paints on a 5×7 inch canvas panel.

When last seen the painting appeared as it does in the photo seen directly below.

Since that time I have continued to work on the painting.

I’ve torn up the street for this week’s cycle. That and the curb.

The current state of the painting is seen in the photo directly below.

I’ll have more progress to show you next week. See you then.

Annie Karnie, in the New York Times, puts an immediate lie to the idea that Sen. John Fetterman has betrayed anyone in his support for Israel.

In April 2022, during his Senate primary campaign in Pennsylvania, John Fetterman spoke enthusiastically about his unqualified support for Israel and said he did not consider himself a “progressive” when it came to his views on the Jewish state.

“Whenever I’m in a situation to be called on to take up the cause of strengthening and enhancing the security of Israel or deepening our relationship between the United States and Israel, I’m going to lean in,” Mr. Fetterman, then the lieutenant governor, told Jewish Insider at the time. When it came to far-left Democrats who harshly criticized Israel, he added, “I would also respectfully say that I’m not really a progressive in that sense.”

If you’re a progressive who is disappointed in Fetterman’s position on the war in Gaza, I definitely understand, but if you think he misrepresented himself during the campaign, you’re simply wrong. It’s much more accurate to say that he’s keeping a promise he made to the pro-Israel Jewish community in Pennsylvania.

That’s why this kind of criticism is off-base:

Melissa Byrne, who worked on Mr. Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign and is now an organizer for liberal causes, accused Mr. Fetterman of “trying to have it both ways,” claiming to be a progressive only when it helped him electorally.

“He’s here for the vibes,” she said. “You should at least be honest and say, ‘Hey, I called myself a progressive because we wanted to raise more money. We needed to win.’”

And I’d say Fetterman isn’t exactly taking the criticism in stride.

“What I have found out over the last couple years is that the right, and now the left, are hoping that I die,” Mr. Fetterman, who suffered a near-fatal stroke during his campaign, said in an interview on Wednesday. “There are ones that are rooting for another blood clot. They have both now been wishing that I die.”

He’s also taking a rash of shit for encouraging talks with Republicans on a border bill. If you don’t know, the Biden administration screwed up and allowed funding for Ukraine to get tied up with changes in immigration policy, a mistake the Republicans are not going to let slip sway. Fetterman’s position in no kind of outlier, either politically or strategically.

He has also publicly encouraged Democrats in recent days to engage in border negotiations with Republicans, talks that have outraged progressives who object to efforts to clamp down on migration through the United States border with Mexico.

“I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have a secured border,” Mr. Fetterman said in the interview, conducted over Zoom. “I would never put Dreamers in harm’s way, or support any kind of cruelty or mass expulsion of hundreds of thousands of people. But it’s a reasonable conversation to talk about the border.”

Neither of these issues are legitimate litmus tests of progressivism, but Fetterman seems to have accepted the charge and no longer self-identifies as progressive.

It is what it is. If I have a problem with Fetterman, it’s less with him forcefully defending Israel’s right to defend itself after the October 7 massacres than in how he’s being needlessly pugnacious about it.

Mr. Fetterman has rejected calls for a cease-fire, filled the walls of the hallway outside his Senate office with photos of the hostages taken by Hamas, draped himself in an Israeli flag and even waved one provocatively in the face of pro-Palestinian demonstrators. A large Israeli flag even hangs on the wall behind his desk, positioned to be visible in his Zoom shots.

I understand why he doesn’t support a cease fire while Hamas is still holding hostages and firing rockets at Israel. I have no problem with him putting up photos of the hostages or even displaying Israel’s flag in a show of solidarity. But I don’t think he should provoke or disrespect pro-Palestinian demonstrators. And I say that knowing full well how viciously the pro-Palestine faction has been attacking him. I want him to be a bigger man and take that criticism with some grace.

If you’ve been reading this blog, you know how I feel about Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the indiscriminate destruction of the Gaza Strip. Fetterman doesn’t like to talk about these things, but he doesn’t flatter Netanyahu either: ““I’m not suggesting that he is ideal any more than someone might think Trump is ideal,” Mr. Fetterman said. “But that’s the leader that we have.”

It looks like Fetterman is going to stick to his guns and remained positioned as an uncritical supporter of Israel’s right to defend itself. Personally, that’s not a stance I could adopt from a moral perspective, because it absolutely matters how Israel defends itself, and that’s true whether you’re looking at it from a legal perspective, a strategic perspective or simply for Israel’s moral standing.

Now, if Fetterman wants to play good cop, bad cop, and use the gratitude he’s gained from Israel’s government to have a restraining and positive influence on their conduct, then I might see the value in it. If he’s just making excuses for them and talking shit to their critics, then I think that’s going to be a lost opportunity to show some character and some genuine leadership.

This is my effort to use any good will my support has gained with Fetterman to exercise some influence. I hope he listens.