Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of September 27

Israeli diplomat pressured University of North Carolina to remove teacher who criticized Israel

The intervention by an Israeli government official, Consul General to the Southeastern United States Anat Sultan-Dadon, followed a pressure campaign by right-wing pro-Israel websites and an advocacy group to remove the graduate student, Kylie Broderick, from teaching the history department course called “The Conflict over Israel/Palestine.” The websites and pro-Israel advocacy group pointed to postings Broderick had made on Twitter that criticized Israel and Zionism and, without evidence, cited the postings as evidence of antisemitism.

In addition to the intervention by the Israeli government, the school faced pressure from a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, the two UNC professors told The Intercept. The professors said Rep. Kathy Manning, D-N.C., also met with the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences to exert pressure over Broderick’s course.

The controversy started over several tweets sent by Broderick that were highly critical of Israel and U.S. foreign policy, including support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel. Broderick rejected accusations leveled by Israeli consular officials that her criticisms of Israel on social media constituted antisemitism. “A critique of Israel and the political ideology of Zionism does not constitute bigotry any more than a critique of Iran, which calls itself an Islamic Republic, constitutes an Islamophobic attack,” Broderick said. ”States are not religions, nor are states a people.”

live video feed of me waiting for the conservatives who've gotten so upset about "cancel culture" and "campus free speech" and "ruining someone's career because of a tweet" to say something about this

There's been a decent amount of Redistricting news recently. Here's some articles

Oregon enacts new 2020s US House Map

Oregon on Monday became the first state to redraw its congressional map for the next decade, passing a plan that creates four Democratic districts, a safe Republican seat and one potential battleground.

The new map marked the end of a bitter partisan standoff. State House Speaker Tina Kotek, a Democrat, gaveled the legislature into session on Monday morning, hours before a redistricting deadline, after a nearly week-long delay caused by a Covid scare and a Republican boycott. The agreement: Republican state representatives returned, and in return Democrats did not muscle through a map that would have given them solid control of five of the state’s six districts.

This is the map. Given the national environment is usually D+2-5 the lean of this house district should probably be taken to be 6-7 points Democrat or so.

Texas Reduces number of Hispanic majority districts Despirlte Hispanics fueling growth

Republicans constructed the map with incumbent protection in mind — a strategy that focused on bolstering vulnerable GOP seats rather than aggressively adding new seats that could flip from blue to red. However, the map does in fact strengthen Republican positioning overall in Texas, going from 22 to 25 districts that would have voted for Donald Trump in 2020. The number of congressional districts that voted for Joe Biden would have shrunk by one, from 14 to 13.

"This map is clearly gerrymandered by politicians to protect incumbents and totally discriminate against Hispanic voters," he said. "LULAC has filed suit against the state of Texas every 10 years since 1970 and we’ve prevailed every 10 years. Unless there’s new maps drawn, we expect we will wind up in federal court again."

The map. Indeed, the map is less about gaining seats (that was the last cycle's plan, lol) and more about keeping them.

New Colorado map approved by Bipartisan Comission, still needs State Supreme Court approval

As it stands, the map gives comfortable advantages to each of Colorado’s seven incumbent members of Congress — Democrats Joe Neguse, Jason Crow, Diana DeGette and Ed Perlmutter and Republicans Ken Buck, Lauren Boebert and Doug Lamborn.

Recent election results suggest the new 8th Congressional District will be a close race in 2022 — though Democrats may have a slight advantage. Colorado was awarded the new district due to its population growth since 2010. It’s projected to have the highest concentration of Latino voters of any U.S. House district in the state. Its boundaries span from north of Greeley to north of Denver, encompassing the Weld County city as well as Thornton, Brighton, the Adams County portion of Westminster, Commerce City, Longmont and Mead.

The map was drawn using Census data that shows Colorado is growing, increasingly urban and diversifying. That data arrived months later than originally expected, forcing a rushed mapmaking process that commission staff director Jessika Shipley said “made us all a little anxious.”

The commission planned for about five months of deliberation and completed the work in closer to two months.

Can't relate.

The map.

A review of the 4 proposals for Washington's new house seats

The maps. 2 of the proposals are Democratic, 2 are Republican.  The Democratic proposals both take away the sole swing seat in favor of a Democratic seat, giving us a map with 7 Democrats and 3 Republicans, while the Republican proposals take awau a Democratic district in favor of a Republican or another swing district, giving a map with 5 Democrats, 3-4 Republicans and 1-2 swing districts. For reference, the current map has 6 Democrats, 3 Republicans and a swing district.

There have also been 4 proposals for Michigan's electoral districts. Despite being drawn by a bipartisan and indepent commission, all the maps overrepresent Republicans, although they have gradually been getting better and 3 of them are at least a bit better than the current map, if only for making the districts more contiguous. The maps range from 8R, 4D and one competitive district to 6R, 4D and 3 competitive districts. For reference, the current map is 8R, 4D and 2 competitive districts. (Michigan will lose a district this cycle.)

I've noted that these independent Redistricting commissions are bipartisan as opposed to independent because, from what I've seen, most of them have either an equal amount of Republicans and Democrats in them, or they Have Republicans, Democrats and purportedly independent voters. Honestly, after noticing this it makes me like the idea of Redistricting commissions less.

Fed Chair Powell to warn Congress that inflation pressures could last longer than expected

Why does it matter? Inflation expectations drive rates. Sudden changes in rates can cause sudden changes in the stock market

Searching at the Capitol Riot

This isn’t news, but it’s a well-written story by Casey Quackenbush, the same reporter who wrote another story that I just posted.