IL-Gov. 2018 Megathread

[Chief Justice Keef]

Bliss drops Ramirez-Rosa from his ticket

God dammit.

[_]

Bliss drops Ramirez-Rosa from his ticket

Nice flip flopping my dude, anyway, Kennedy to announce his running mate next week.

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/time-running-out-for-kennedy-to-choose-running-mate-442674383.html

[Gustaf]

Congressman Brad Schneider (IL-10) has withdrawn his endorsement of Biss, on the basis that his LG candidate has a history of supporting BDS.

Which is really silly for a variety of reasons, but most notably that the Lieutenant Governor has no role in Middle East policymaking.......

Disgusting purity politics.

Standing up against anti-semitism is not purity politics.  It's being a decent human being.

Standing up to that apartheid state of Israel is not anti-semitism.

Being anti-Israel doesn't necessarily make one anti-Semitic, but it has become the dogwhistle of choice for the anti-Semitic Left.  Also BDS is obviously a very anti-Semitic group.

Just curious, what has BDS done that was anti-Semitic? (Not challenging you. I'm very pro-Israel. Just wanna know.)

At a basic level they stand for collective punishment of all Israeli citizens for the perceived crimes of their government. Jews have always been held collectively responsible for what any members of the tribe do so it's a pretty standard anti-semitic trope and the BDS movement obviously doesn't use this as a principle in any other case. There is also a bunch of stuff coming out of their rallies and support groups and so on that is very obviously anti-semitic.

[Green Line]

Glad to see Daniel Biss stand up to hate.  Maybe I was wrong about him!

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Bliss drops Ramirez-Rosa from his ticket

Good man.  It's vital that Democrats give no quarter to the anti-Semitic Left.

[Kingpoleon]

Bliss drops Ramirez-Rosa from his ticket

Nice flip flopping my dude, anyway, Kennedy to announce his running mate next week.

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/time-running-out-for-kennedy-to-choose-running-mate-442674383.html

Who might Kennedy pick? Maybe Kwame Raoul?

[Chief Justice Keef]

Bliss drops Ramirez-Rosa from his ticket

Good man.  It's vital that Democrats give no quarter to the anti-Semitic Left.

Your forum name is literally Malcolm X

[_]

Ok, is being Anti-Israel anti-semetic or did BDS talk about the Elders of Zion?  If the latter then yeah they'd be anti-semetic.

[Donerail]

Bliss drops Ramirez-Rosa from his ticket

Nice flip flopping my dude, anyway, Kennedy to announce his running mate next week.

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/time-running-out-for-kennedy-to-choose-running-mate-442674383.html

Who might Kennedy pick? Maybe Kwame Raoul?

Why would Kwame Raoul give up his current job to jump on a losing gubernatorial campaign?

[MAINEiac4434]

Bliss drops Ramirez-Rosa from his ticket

God dammit.

I am convinced that Illinois wi never have even a halfway decent governor.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Bliss drops Ramirez-Rosa from his ticket

Good man.  It's vital that Democrats give no quarter to the anti-Semitic Left.

Your forum name is literally Malcolm X

And your point is...what exactly?  On a different note, it is rather telling that you seem to oppose the Democratic Party condemning anti-Semitism.

[The Other Castro]

Congrats, Governor Pritzker.

[_]

Congrats, Governor Pritzker Rauner.

[Littlefinger]

This whole situation is overblown. The amount of people who vote based on a LG pick is minimal let alone the actual power the position holds in office. The LG office doesn't make policy, let alone foreign policy. I agree it was stupid of Biss's team to not do proper research before making his LG choice though in the first place.

[SATW]

Liberals and Progressives who claim this is overblown are insensitive to Jewish concerns. As Gustaf and Malcolm X both stated the BDS movement has antisemitic roots (or at best, engages in disgusting collective punishment).

The fact of the matter is that the same progressive activists who claim to champion civil rights for minorities often times ignore or actively oppose the civil rights of American Jews.

[Mike Thick]

This whole situation is overblown. The amount of people who vote based on a LG pick is minimal let alone the actual power the position holds in office. The LG office doesn't make policy, let alone foreign policy. I agree it was stupid of Biss's team to not do proper research before making his LG choice though in the first place.

This, so much. On top of that, it's painfully obvious that he just dropped Ramirez-Rosa when he saw that the political winds were blowing against him, which is not the kind of behavior most people want to see from a supposed anti-establishment crusader.

I couldn't care less about where his LG nominee stands on Israel or whatever, but what bothers me is that he was willing to change course on such an important decision at the drop of a hat.

[TheSaint250]

Congressman Brad Schneider (IL-10) has withdrawn his endorsement of Biss, on the basis that his LG candidate has a history of supporting BDS.

Which is really silly for a variety of reasons, but most notably that the Lieutenant Governor has no role in Middle East policymaking.......

Disgusting purity politics.

Standing up against anti-semitism is not purity politics.  It's being a decent human being.

Standing up to that apartheid state of Israel is not anti-semitism.

Being anti-Israel doesn't necessarily make one anti-Semitic, but it has become the dogwhistle of choice for the anti-Semitic Left.  Also BDS is obviously a very anti-Semitic group.

Just curious, what has BDS done that was anti-Semitic? (Not challenging you. I'm very pro-Israel. Just wanna know.)

At a basic level they stand for collective punishment of all Israeli citizens for the perceived crimes of their government. Jews have always been held collectively responsible for what any members of the tribe do so it's a pretty standard anti-semitic trope and the BDS movement obviously doesn't use this as a principle in any other case. There is also a bunch of stuff coming out of their rallies and support groups and so on that is very obviously anti-semitic.

Geez. That's quite the organization for politicians to be associated with

[Donerail]

Copy-pasting from AAD:

I wouldn't write off how damaging this debacle has been to the Biss campaign. Most of his campaign has been about showing up to left-wing meetings, labor events, that kind of thing—he stood right in front of the DSA contingent at the McDonald's strike on Labor Day. Difficult for him to keep up that kind of schedule if he doesn't want to be booed at every other stop. The whole point of picking a lt. gov. like Rosa was to fire up Chicago liberals, not just to get their votes but to get them out to organize for him. Facing the sort of opposition he is, with the money and the machine behind Pritzker, this was really the only hope for him to win the primary. A lot of those people are now bleeding to Pawar, and while some might still vote for him, it's doubtful they still get out and phone bank and canvass with the same kind of fervor they would've had if he either kept Rosa or just did his research and didn't pick him in the first place.

The issue here isn't so much about BDS as about Biss's credibility. He had some trust issues with the left going into the campaign—before this year he was basically a standard center-left Democrat, and he authored a pension reform package that public sector unions and progressive groups were not too happy about. The progressive turn is recent, but the Rosa pick assuaged most of the doubters. If he'll dump Rosa after a media flap and some pressure from Brad Schneider and others, it raises questions about whether he'd be willing to cave on other left-wing issues—and Mike Madigan is a far more formidable figure than anyone who got involved publicly in this.

[_]

I think it's now safe to say it's either Kennedy or Pritzker now for the D Nom. Biss just blew up any shot he had.

[KingSweden]

Ok, is being Anti-Israel anti-semetic or did BDS talk about the Elders of Zion?  If the latter then yeah they'd be anti-semetic.

Here's the way I see it:

It's perfectly reasonable to think that Israel's settlements policy in the West Bank (occupied territories, as many would call it) is bad. It's reasonable to think that the Likud government's hardliners, prominently Netanyahu, and the ultra-hardline parties they coalition with, makes it harder to reach a resolution in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Those are reasonable takes, and I hold both of those positions.

Where BDS goes over the line is the idea that Israel should *uniquely* be punished, at a national level, for its "sins." Artists are pressured into not performing there. Academics are dissuaded from lecturing there. Universities are pressured into divesting from Israeli holdings (inspired by the SA apartheid campaigns of the 1980s). What's curious is that Israel is the ONLY country on earth BDS holds to this standard, and not a peep out of them about actual genocides, like Darfur or the Rohingya in Burma or the violent massacres of LGBT in Chechnya. Just Israel, for... building apartments in disputed territory?

That's not to say Israel should steam ahead with the settlement program. They shouldn't, in my view. But it's not hard to wonder if there's something, ahem, fundamental about Israel that makes it singled out by BDS when parties that are considerably worse get a shrug

[Donerail]

Where BDS goes over the line is the idea that Israel should *uniquely* be punished, at a national level, for its "sins." Artists are pressured into not performing there. Academics are dissuaded from lecturing there. Universities are pressured into divesting from Israeli holdings (inspired by the SA apartheid campaigns of the 1980s). What's curious is that Israel is the ONLY country on earth BDS holds to this standard, and not a peep out of them about actual genocides, like Darfur or the Rohingya in Burma or the violent massacres of LGBT in Chechnya. Just Israel, for... building apartments in disputed territory?

That's not to say Israel should steam ahead with the settlement program. They shouldn't, in my view. But it's not hard to wonder if there's something, ahem, fundamental about Israel that makes it singled out by BDS when parties that are considerably worse get a shrug

Seems that the distinction is simply that Israel is more likely to be affected by a boycott than any of those others. Radiohead isn't doing concerts in Grozny, there aren't that many academics traveling to Darfur for conferences, and there aren't a ton of university investment funds that have invested in Burmese companies.

[KingSweden]

Where BDS goes over the line is the idea that Israel should *uniquely* be punished, at a national level, for its "sins." Artists are pressured into not performing there. Academics are dissuaded from lecturing there. Universities are pressured into divesting from Israeli holdings (inspired by the SA apartheid campaigns of the 1980s). What's curious is that Israel is the ONLY country on earth BDS holds to this standard, and not a peep out of them about actual genocides, like Darfur or the Rohingya in Burma or the violent massacres of LGBT in Chechnya. Just Israel, for... building apartments in disputed territory?

That's not to say Israel should steam ahead with the settlement program. They shouldn't, in my view. But it's not hard to wonder if there's something, ahem, fundamental about Israel that makes it singled out by BDS when parties that are considerably worse get a shrug

Seems that the distinction is simply that Israel is more likely to be affected by a boycott than any of those others. Radiohead isn't doing concerts in Grozny, there aren't that many academics traveling to Darfur for conferences, and there aren't a ton of university investment funds that have invested in Burmese companies.

That is a fair and logical rebuttal! Suffice to say though that I'm strongly skeptical that most BDS supporters make the distinction for that reason

[Gass3268]

Congrats, Governor Pritzker.

Yup, pretty much a lock to make it to Springfield.

[Ye We Can]

Democrats make costly mistakes in Illinois more news at 11

[Chief Justice Keef]

Funny how liberals always chide leftists and progressives for their "purity politics" and supposed racism/sexism, yet are overjoyed when a gay Latino alderman gets kicked off the ticket for governor because of his stance on Israel/Palestine, something that the LG doesn't address.