News Release

The “Assault on Keith Ellison”

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screen_shot_2017-02-22_at_1.33.23_pmU.S. News & World Report writes today: “Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, one of the leading candidates to chair the Democratic National Committee, left open the possibility of pushing for the impeachment of President Donald Trump, in a break with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi just days ahead of the DNC election.”

BOB DREYFUSS, robertcdreyfuss [at] gmail.com

Dreyfuss is co-editor, of the recently-launched ThePopulist.Buzz and recently wrote the piece “Keith Ellison and the Stakes for the Democrats,” which states: “Keith Ellison … won’t fix everything that’s wrong with the Democratic Party. But as the party girds itself for a years-long battle with the Trump administration while simultaneously rebuilding its grassroots base, electing Ellison is an important first step.

“Unfortunately, we don’t get a vote and neither do you, unless you’re one of the 447 members of the DNC who will cast their ballots in Atlanta this weekend.

“Ellison endorsed Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in 2016 and he is strongly backed by Sanders now, as well as by Our Revolution, the AFL-CIO, and a long list of liberal-left and progressive members of Congress. He was far and away the frontrunner when he announced his DNC bid last November. His main challenger, ex-Labor Secretary Tom Perez, joined the race in December with the tacit backing of President Obama and overt support from a range of Democratic establishment figures. According to DNC insiders, former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett is contacting DNC members, one by one, and urging them to vote for Perez. …

“Saban, a billionaire Clinton supporter, called Ellison ‘an anti-Semite and an anti-Israel individual.’ Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL’s executive director, said Ellison’s views ‘raise the specter of age-old stereotypes about Jewish control of our government.’ …

“It’s hard to see the assault on Ellison as anything other than a coordinated effort by the party’s establishment to torpedo his chances. It’s true that Ellison, for years, has been a critic of Israel’s policies and of America’s unrestrained support for Israel regardless of what it does. ‘The United States foreign policy in the Middle East is governed by what is good or bad through a country of 7 million people,’ said Ellison, in a 2010 speech. ‘Does that make sense?’ Ellison’s views on Israel reflect the fact that fully 60 percent of Democrats favor imposing sanctions on Israel over Tel Aviv’s expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank. And Ellison was endorsed early by New York’s Senator Chuck Schumer, a strong ally of Israel.”

Dreyfuss is an independent journalist who has written extensively on politics and national security for a wide range of publications including Rolling Stone, The Nation and The American Prospect.