November 12, 2023

Sunday, November 12, 2023. Annette’s News Roundup.

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Joe is always busy.

Remember Saturday was Veterans Day.

Touch 👇 to watch the President. We owe our Veterans so much.

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Kamala is always busy

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Others honor our Veterans too.

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About that New York Times Presidential Poll.

If you needed one more thing to be depressed about, you probably woke up to the latest New York Times/Siena poll over the weekend. It was hard to miss, leading the New York Timesfront page with a two-column headline: “Voters in 5 Battleground States Favor Trump Over Biden.”

And it got worse from there. According to the poll, young people and prospective voters of color were disproportionately deserting the president. And in an astonishing (and hard-to-believe) finding, voters under 30 said they trusted Trump on the economy more than they trusted Biden by a margin of 28 points.

The poll then became the day’s major story. The Times, in a companion piece, reported on Democrats’ anxiety. Former Obama campaign chief David Axelrod said almost in so many words that Biden should consider getting out of the race. Other media piled on.

Should this poll be taken seriously? The Siena Poll has a record of creating self-fulfilling prophecies and getting some things seriously wrong. In 2019, a Siena finding that Elizabeth Warren would not do well against Trump helped drive her out of the race. On the eve of the 2022 midterms, Siena showed Democrats losing Congress by four percentage points, a finding that generated headlines; the outcome a few days later was a virtual tie.

As Michael Podhorzer has demonstrated, pollsters influence outcomes by letting their own biases and intuitions tilt poll results by deciding who to include in the sample. A month before its late-October 2022 poll showing a four-point deficit, the Times/Siena showed Dems up by two points. In the October story, the Times/Siena showed Biden losing ground among independents and women. But as Podhorzer writes, “What the paper didn’t disclose was this: Independent voters hadn’t changed their minds; the New York Times changed its mind about which Independents would vote.”

Do all prospective young voters truly trust Trump on the economy more than Biden? Or just the Times/Siena sample?

The real function of the Times/Siena Poll is to scare the pants off Democrats with a rollout in the newspaper they intuitively trust. It inevitably leads to wild mood swings and often bad decisions, motivated by a poll with an imperfect record.

Notwithstanding these caveats, the latest Times/Siena poll seems directionally right. The accompanying story quotes a 53-year-old voter who supported Biden in 2020 and is now planning to vote for Trump, though with misgivings: “The world is falling apart under Biden.” That sentiment rings true for many voters, as does the Times/Siena finding that 71 percent think Biden is too old for the job.

The larger problem is a convergence of events that reinforce underlying doubts. The most important of these are two wars at risk of becoming prolonged quagmires. And in the case of Israel, rather than looking strong by standing by an ally, Biden looks weak because Netanyahu is openly defying Biden’s plea to reduce civilian casualties. Netanyahu’s war has become Biden’s war, and it is hard to see a good outcome anytime soon.

Even with all of this, the bottom line that Trump is leading Biden seems to defy common sense. What about all of those prosecutions? What of Trump’s recent threats that sound crazier and crazier? The problem is that the more that the spotlight is on Biden, the more it is off Trump, and Trump can coast along by being the non-Biden.

The comfort for Democrats is the Times/Siena finding that a Trump conviction, rather than an indictment, would chop six points off his lead across the board, enough to flip most of the battleground states in Biden’s favor. But a conviction between now and November 2024 is increasingly unlikely.

The finding that voters support a “generic Democrat” by eight points is less cause for comfort. As soon as that generic Democrat becomes an actual person, negatives appear. And even if Biden should heed Axelrod’s advice and quit the race in favor of a younger and more vigorous candidate, Biden’s baggage would not vanish. A successor candidate would be under pressure not to reverse Biden’s policies on Ukraine or Israel. Nor could a different candidate cause interest rates to drop.

Moral of the story—a split verdict: There is good reason not to take the Siena Poll too literally, and equally good reason to be worried about Biden and 2024. (The American Prospect).

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In NYC Today.

Pro-Palestine protesters flood Midtown;shut down Grand Central.

MIDTOWN, Manhattan (WABC) -- Pro-Palestinian demonstrators flooded Manhattan for a second night and forced the closure of Grand Central Terminal on Friday, demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.

The pro-Palestinian rally started at 5 p.m. Friday at Columbus Circle, with thousands marching through the streets demanding a ceasefire overseas.

Marchers then made their way to the New York Times building, vandalizing the front with a red tint before heading to Grand Central.

They surrounded the building, forcing its closure and disrupting LIRR and Metro-North service.

Police remained on the scene until the early morning hours of Saturday and arrested 6 people for disorderly conduct.

It's the latest in a series of near-nightly demonstrations since the start of the war saw thousands march through Midtown Manhattan to protest Israel's attacks on Gaza.

On Thursday, a small group of demonstrators led by media workers calling themselves "Writers Bloc" entered the atrium of the New Yotk Times building carrying a banner calling for a cease-fire.

They remained for over an hour, reading off the names of thousands of Palestinians killed in Gaza, including at least 36 journalists whose deaths have been confirmed since the war began. They scattered editions of a mock newspaper - "The New York War Crimes" - that charged the media with "complicity in laundering genocide" and called on The Times' editorial board to publicly back a cease-fire.

The gathering came after students from several schools also walked out of class to call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.

Some remained in the streets for a protest that snarled traffic in Manhattan during rush hour and grew unruly at times.

On Tuesday, activists with the group Jewish Voice for Peace briefly took over the Statue of Liberty. The week prior, hundreds of people packed into Grand Central Terminal, shutting down the commuting hub during rush hour while hoisting banners that read "Ceasefire Now."

More than 10,800 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory, since the Oct. 7th massacre by Hamas, which took the lives of at least 1,400 people in Israel.

Back in October, over 300 people were arrested after peace activists rallied inside Grand Central Terminal Friday evening calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.

The protests also forced the MTA to restrict access to Grand Central. (ABC7NY)

Touch to watch.👇

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A more positive note.

Someone is combating campus hatred and violence.

Harvard, Columbia and Penn are fighting antisemitism.

Claudine Gay, President of Harvard.

The universities are trying to address criticism by banning pro-Palestinian student groups, condemning slogans and starting task forces to address antisemitism.

Over the last month, university presidents have been battered by a vocal cohort of alumni and faculty members who have accused them of not being strong enough in their denunciations of antisemitism in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel.

Now at some high-profile universities that have faced heavy criticism — including Harvard, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania — presidents are trying to take more direct action to address those concerns about antisemitism.

Columbia suspended two pro-Palestinian student groups on Friday.

At Harvard on Thursday, the university’s president, Claudine Gay, condemned the phrase “from the river to the sea,” which has been called divisive and antisemitic.

At the University of Pennsylvania, the president, Elizabeth Magill, spoke forcefully against antisemitic rhetoric.

And all three universities formed task forces to address antisemitism on campus.

“Let me reiterate what I and other Harvard leaders have said previously: Antisemitism has no place at Harvard,” Dr. Gay wrote in an announcement on Thursday. “While confronting any form of hatred is daunting, the challenges we face tackling antisemitism are made all the more so by its pernicious nature and deep historical roots. But we are committed to doing the hard work to address this scourge.”

Their moves, however, may not quell the anger among donors.

And the actions may only fuel the resolve among pro-Palestinian student activists, who say that they are only speaking up for marginalized, oppressed people living in Gaza. The criticism, they say, is nothing but an attempt to stifle speech and divert attention from a 16-year blockade of Gaza by Israel, backed by Egypt, that has devastated the lives of Palestinians. In addition, many pro-Palestinian students point out that they have faced doxxing and harassment — and they are asking on social media for similar efforts against Islamophobia.

Columbia announced on Friday that it would ban Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace through the end of the fall term, saying that they had violated university policies. The groups have been at the center of weeks of intense demonstrations that have sharply divided students and shaken Columbia’s Manhattan campus. The most recent action, including a walkout, attracted roughly 300 students on Thursday.

Gerald Rosberg, the university’s executive vice president, said in a statement that Thursday’s event “included threatening rhetoric and intimidation” and that the groups had taken their actions “despite warnings” not to do so.

The university’s decision will bar the group from holding events on campus or receiving university funding through the end of the fall semester.

“During this especially charged time on our campus, we are strongly committed to giving space to student groups to participate in debate, advocacy and protest,” Mr. Rosberg said. But, he added, groups would have to abide by university rules that require them to receive approval for large gatherings and cooperate with the administration.

Sonya Meyerson-Knox, communications director for Jewish Voice for Peace, a pro-Palestinian group, called Columbia’s action a “horrific act of censorship and an attempt at intimidation,” adding that the students from both groups were doing exactly what they should do — “standing up against war and calling for a cease-fire to save lives.”

Although universities have occasionally tussled with S.J.P. chapters over the years, Columbia’s decision was at least the second punitive action against the network this week.

On Monday, Brandeis University, near Boston, banned its local S.J.P. chapter from holding activities on campus.

In a notice to the group obtained by The New York Times, Brandeis accused the national steering committee of encouraging chapters “in conduct that supports Hamas in its call for the violent elimination of Israel and the Jewish people.” Such behavior, the notice said, was “not protected by the university’s principles.”

S.J.P. members have insisted that the group is not inherently antisemitic, but researchers and Zionist groups have sharply critiqued that assertion.

Columbia University banned Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace through the end of the fall term.

At Penn, Ms. Magill, the president, has faced a fierce, but thus far unsuccessful, campaign to oust her, led by Marc Rowan, the chief executive of Apollo Global Management and the board chairman at Wharton, the university’s business school. He has accused her of tolerating antisemitism after a Palestinian writers conference took place on campus.

She, too, has issued a series of statements that have tried to quell the donor revolt.

On Thursday, she announced that the university was investigating “vile, antisemitic messages” that had been projected onto several campus buildings.

“For generations, too many have masked antisemitism in hostile rhetoric,” Ms. Magill said in her message.“Projecting hateful messages on our campus is not debate, it is cowardice, and it has no place at Penn.”

At Harvard, Dr. Gay, beyond administrative moves and statements, has reached out directly to her Jewish constituents. She delivered remarks at the first Shabbat dinner after the Hamas attack. The Oct. 13 dinner, sponsored by Chabad, the Jewish organization, was attended by about 1,000 people, mainly students but also some faculty members, alumni and donors.

Dr. Gay said that over the course of a challenging week, she had learned a lot not only about “the aching pain and grief” of worrying about loved ones in Israel, but about “the pain and grief that many of you’ve been experiencing on our campus for years.”

She paused to let that sink in before adding: “And what I want to say is that Harvard has your back.”

She got a standing ovation. But her statements, at least up to now, have not seemed to pacify the critics.

Late last month, the school’s Jewish Alumni Association sent an open letter, signed by more than 1,600 students and alumni, that acknowledged Ms. Gay’s remarks, but called for more action to denounce antisemitism.

On Thursday, Whitney Tilson, a former hedge fund manager and a Harvard alumnus, said that he was so angry at Harvard for not standing up to antisemitism that he had declined an invitation to meet with a fund-raising officer from the business school.

“The damage that Harvard has done to its brand since Oct. 7 is only rivaled in history by New Coke and what Elon Musk has done to Twitter,” he wrote.

Mr. Tilson said on Friday that he considered Harvard “the least needy charity on earth” and that he had made only “a few tiny donations over the years.”

“But,” he added, “I also have a megaphone: I sent that email to nearly 10,000 friends and readers on some of my many email lists.” (New York Times).

At Dartmouth, they tried a less confrontational approach.

18 worthwhile minutes.

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