3 Stories You Should Read 6/24/2020: Michael Flynn, Isreal, Identity Politics
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In the category of: Get out of jail free
Appeals Court Forces Dismissal Of Michael Flynn Case Over Judge’s Objections
The Justice Department, led by Attorney General William Barr, had moved to dismiss the case against Donald Trump associate Flynn, who has admitted to lying to the FBI about his communications with the Russian government.
Judge Neomi Rao of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, a Trump appointee who formerly served in the Trump administration, wrote the majority opinion, saying that allowing U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan to examine the Justice Department’s reasons for moving to drop the charge “will result in specific harms to the exercise of the Executive Branch’s exclusive prosecutorial power.” She was joined by Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, a George W. Bush appointee.
In the category of: Bad neighbors
UN, Arab League call on Israel to drop annexation plans
At Security Council meeting, leaders warn Israel’s unilateral action in occupied West Bank threatens peace prospects.
A “watershed moment” that will constitute a “most serious violation of international law” – that is how United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has described Israel’s plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank and Jordan Valley.
Addressing a virtual meeting of the UN Security Council on Wednesday, Guterres repeated a call for Israel to drop its United States-backed plans, which could be put in motion as soon as next week.
If implemented, the UN secretary-general said, annexation would “grievously harm the prospect of a two-state solution and undercut the possibilities of a renewal of negotiations”.
“I call on the Israeli government to abandon its annexation plans.”
In the category of: Growing pains
How identity politics changed the Democratic Party — for the better.
The historically multiethnic nature of the Black Lives Matter protests, and the rapid change in polling around racial issues, is partly the result of decades of polarization that have put African Americans in coalition with Hispanics, Asians, and white liberals. The Democratic Party is increasingly a coalition of people who experience racism directly or base part of their identity on opposing it ideologically. This is something new in American politics, and it carries within it real reason for hope.
“If we were ever to have a national reckoning with our legacy of racial violence, it would require immense political power on the side of the people who wanted the reckoning,” says University of Maryland political scientist Lilliana Mason, who studies polarization. “We’ve never had a political party that was almost entirely in agreement that systemic racism exists, particularly among the white partisans. But that’s changing very quickly.”
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