Scoop: Schumer pledges to pass antisemitism bill in Senate's lame-duck session

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Axios

11 hours ago


Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) recently promised Jewish leaders that he would try later this year to pass a bill aimed at curbing antisemitism on college campuses, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: The bill would be Congress' most forceful response to the pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses across the country this spring, which sometimes led to the harassment of Jewish students.

However, critics argue the definition of antisemitism the legislation offers is overly broad.

Between the lines: A nonprofit group has spent about $5 million on an ad campaign blasting Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish lawmaker, for his inaction.

Schumer has privately said he plans to attach the Antisemitism Awareness Act — making the federal government adopt a broad definition of antisemitism to enforce anti-discrimination laws — to a must-pass defense bill after the election, multiple sources told us.

The bill passed the House overwhelmingly over the summer, but it has been a divisive issue in the Democratic Party, laying bare internal strife.

The nonprofit group behind the ads, Florence Avenue Initiative, doesn't have to disclose its donors.

The big picture: Frustrations from pro-Israel groups have grown since the bill passed the House in May, repeatedly asking Schumer to get it through the Senate.

Read more: https://www.axios.com/2024/10/30/chuck-schumer-antisemitism-vote

[atreides1]

1. Next on the Agenda

A bill making it illegal to call out Christianity...it will be called the Olsteen-Copeland Act. Anyone suspected of pointing out the hypocrisy of the bible and the Christian religion...upon conviction will be scourged and then crucified!

[Beastly Boy]

3. Also on the agenda: the "I am not an antisemite, but..." bill.

making random attacks, both verbal and physical, on people who were born or appear to be Jewish "protected speech".

No word on who will sponsor it, but there is no shortage of potential candidates. It is expected to have wide-ranging bipartisan support.

Since the practice has already been adopted de-facto by the UN, passing it in the Senate would be a mere formality.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Passing a law doesn't change hearts and minds.

Only education and enlightenment change what people think about others.

[jimfields33]

4. I don't understand why antisemitism can't be under the hate crime bill already passed.

If you do something antisemitic then charge under the hate crime law. Makes sense to me.

[Beastly Boy]

6. Antisemitic incidents quadrupled in just the past year.

Clearly, the existing hate crimes laws are insufficient to address this.

[jimfields33]

9. That could be. The senate got this bill in may.

Why not send it through for president Biden to sign especially with the urgency?

[Beastly Boy]

10. It was the House that got this bill in May. They passed it.

As per the article, Schumer plans to introduce it in the Senate right after the elections.

Only after passing in the Senat can Joe Biden sign it into law.

[Beastly Boy]

5. It gives legal protection to the victims.

Last edited Wed Oct 30, 2024, 09:17 AM - Edit history (1)

Which is the next best thing. When intellectuals who are supposed to educate us normalize antisemitism with calls for banning books by Jewish authors, I get skeptical about the whole education and enlightenment thing.
https://www.ynetnews.com/culture/article/hjkvdwre1x

[travelingthrulife]

7. Aren't most people hailing from the Middle East semites?

So much never-ending hatred in these Abrahamic religions/tribes.

[Beastly Boy]

11. Yes, but most antisemites target Jews to the exclusion of all other semites.

Go figure...

[Magoo48]

8. Then,

pass a law that protects the rights of every group which is persecuted and deprived of their human and civil rights.

Make it iron clad and irrefutable.
Those who break this law will be punished and humiliated publicly.

[Ford_Prefect]

12. That sounds very much like the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Are you saying they aren't enforceable?

Have we reached an era when legal thinking is so divided that everyone of any color, belief, or kind must have a specific legal definition in law in order to be covered? IMHO this proposed law is the kind of interference the founders most assuredly did not wish. I firmly believe there are more appropriate ways to deal with the problems it attempts to redress.

I admit that these days defining myself beyond me, myself, and I gets to be linguistically challenging. But that should be no reason for an extra law every time we have a new, or old, problem to solve. European hate speech laws arose from the ashes of WWII. They aren't perfect but they make a good starting point.

I was there and marched when the cause was to stop the insane war in Viet Nam, when Equal Rights and Women's Rights were in doubt, and when the cause was to end Apartheid. There were those at the time who felt threatened enough to demand federal laws to stop students and others from marching and protesting. Wiser minds prevailed at the time.

This is a different set of causes and actors drawing on a much different information stream and subject to much more disinformation than was the case back then. I do not advocate for those who wish violence against Israel or Jewish people anywhere. At the same time I feel that the IDF response to Oct.7 seems far out of proportion and deserves discussion by serious people. Both Hamas and Netanyahu have much to answer for. So, it seems, do those who back them.

American citizens deserve to have laws enforced which allow for reasonable expression and reasoned differences of opinion. They should also be safe from those who would rather do harm than personally speak in defense of their own ideas. They likewise should be kept safe from those who abuse the law to silence ideas they do not like. A formerly great American newspaper with a long history of illuminating such controversy bears the motto "Democracy Dies in Darkness". Any law which interferes with such illumination is headed in the wrong direction, however well intended.

[Magoo48]

13. In my stumbling quest for brevity, I attempted to capture the jest of your precise statements.

I do believe we have a lack of enthusiasm for enforcement.

[Ford_Prefect]

14. This particular bill does a bad thing poorly in the name of a good cause.

I am somewhat reminded of what happened to Al Franken. Good intentions did a bad thing poorly and got there by being trolled into acting without considering the cost or the evidence.

I believe the same effect is before us in this bill, egged on by AIPAC, Israeli Intelligence et al.