You're welcome to read for free, but if you want to chip in to defray the cost of the newsletter, click here and fill in the amount of your choice. You don't need a PayPal account; the link lets you use a credit card. If you have trouble, let me know. Or you can Venmo @Steven-Sheffey (if it asks, last four phone digits are 9479).

Friends,

Last Thursday marked one month since the July 4th mass shooting here in Highland Park. Walk down any residential street and you'll see "Highland Park Strong" yard signs on front lawns. Go downtown and you'll see memorials to the victims. Families still mourn and victims still recover; many will carry the physical and emotional scars for the rest of their lives.

On Wednesday, the shooter pleaded not guilty to 117 criminal charges. Lynn Sweet noted that "the hearing lasted some eight minutes, about seven minutes longer than it took a gunman wielding a Smith & Wesson M&P15 to kill seven people and wound 48 others."

For the rest of the country, Highland Park is fast becoming another statistic: As of August 5, there have been 26,441 gun deaths this year in America, including 395 mass shootings.

The U.S. has far more mass shootings than any other country. We have far more guns and far fewer restrictions on gun ownership than any other country. Mental illness is not more prevalent in the U.S. than in other countries, nor are video games. The problem is too many guns. One country has far more mass shootings than any other. One country has far more guns than any other. The cause is obvious.

The answer is to at least ban assault weapons--the assault weapons ban worked when it was in effect ("the risk of a person in the U.S. dying in a mass shooting was 70% lower during the period in which the assault weapons ban was active") and to implement stringent gun safety requirements, including red flag laws, background checks, waiting requirements, licensing, registration, tracking, and more.

But we don't. No matter how many get killed, we don't. Why? Because one party, the Republican Party, opposes all but the most milquetoast gun regulation. The GOP is the reason assault weapons are legal throughout the country. 

On July 29, the House voted to ban assault weapons. All but five Democrats (98%) voted for the ban. All but three Republicans (99%) voted against the ban.

The bill will not reach President Biden's desk this year because Republicans will block a vote in the Senate and it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster. None of the other essential gun safety bills that Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) outlined on August 1 will pass either. Why? Because as Casten explained, "aside from being both necessary to save lives from gun violence and supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans, what each of the actions I just laid out have in common is they will not become law without the U.S. Senate stepping up to do its job."

Changing the law means changing the lawmakers. Unless the Senate abolishes the filibuster, the Senate will never step up to do its job. We need to increase the Senate majority by at least two (rendering Manchin and Sinema superfluous) to abolish the filibuster so that the Senate can vote on legislation by majority vote, which is how it's done in every state legislature and the way the founders intended the Senate to function. We need to maintain, if not increase, the Democratic House majority because the House will have to pass the assault weapons ban again next year.

If you vote Republican, it does not mean you are okay with mass shootings. It does mean that you are voting for the party that wants to keep assault weapons legal. The question you have to ask yourself is what part of the Republican agenda is more important to you than banning assault weapons and helping prevent mass murders. Making abortion illegal? Undermining democracy? You tell me.

Republicans will outlaw abortions--if we let them win. On July 15, the House passed the Women's Health Protection Act, which would codify Roe v. Wade, effectively overturning the recent Dobbs decision. The vote was 219-210, with two not voting. Not one Republican voted for it. Only one Democrat voted against it. This bill, along with recently passed legislation protecting access to contraception and protecting the right to cross state lines to access abortion (both passed despite overwhelming Republican opposition), will die in the Senate and never become law unless Democrats retain their House majority and increase their Senate majority. If Republicans control Congress and then the presidency, they can outlaw abortion throughout the country--it won't matter what voters in Kansas think, and if you live in a state like Illinois that protects abortion rights, it won't matter. We have to win at the state level, but if we lose at the federal level, we lose everything.

More offensive rhetoric about Jews and abortion from Republicans. Not from the fringes, but from Republicans running for major offices. Illinois Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey said that “The attempted extermination of the Jews of World War II doesn’t even compare on a shadow of the life that has been lost with abortion since its legalization.”

Virginia Republican congressional candidate Hung Cao, comparing abortion to infanticide, said “The Nazis did this. They take Jewish babies and just take the legs and just smash the babies and kill them. You think that can’t happen in this country?”

The Republican candidate for Maryland Attorney General did not say anything wildly offensive about Jews or the Holocaust (that I know of), but he hosted a series of radio shows promoting 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Think I'm cherry-picking. Nope. I'm reading the news: All of the above was reported just last week.

Meanwhile, two AIPAC-endorsed Republicans announced their support for Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who has come under fire for his alliance with antisemite Andrew Torba. Don't look for AIPAC to issue a condemnation. Apparently, antisemitism and democracy don't fall within their purview. They've endorsed 109 insurrectionists in this cycle, 17 of whom spoke at last week's CPAC conference featuring Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban, who recently gave a speech his own aide described as “a pure Nazi speech worthy of Goebbels." If "pro-Israel" means ignoring antisemitism and democracy at the ballot box, we need to re-define "pro-Israel."

Thus far, AIPAC has focused on Democratic primaries. It will be interesting to see how much they spend on helping those 109 Republican insurrectionists defeat Democrats in November, especially since Republican victories in the midterms mean assault weapons will remain legal, abortions will be illegal, and our democracy will be at greater risk. Even if they don't spend a dime, they've sent the message that insurrection is, for them, not a disqualifier. But it is for me, and it should be for all of us.

U.S. policy toward Israel will remain essentially unchanged no matter which party wins, but a U.S. that is less democratic and more repressive is not good for Jews or Israel, let alone America--but that's what we'll get if Republicans win in the midterms.

Israel and antisemitism are two more reasons to vote Democratic. The votes in Congress and the statements from Republican leaders prove it.

On Thursday, the ADL reported that "as of August 3, 2022, of the 114 primaries involving right-wing extremist candidates that have taken place, 28 (24.6%) of the candidates won their race, putting them one step closer to winning their general election in November and gaining access to or retaining political power. More alarming, of the 28 victors, ten won by a margin of 10 percent or greater." That's today's GOP. It was yesterday's GOP too, but today they don't even pretend.

Israel has the duty to defend itself and its citizens from terror. Last week, President Biden announced an airstrike in Kabul, Afghanistan, that killed the emir of al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri. This was a legitimate exercise of self-defense by the United States. On Friday, Israeli airstrikes killed senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) commanders Taysir al-Jabari and Khaled Mansour--not thousands of miles from Israel, but right on Israel's border. If you're not familiar with PIJ, read this short thread from Israel Nitzan.

We can and should sympathize with innocent Palestinians killed in strikes aimed at military targets (and Palestinians killed by PIJ rocket attacks) while recognizing that no country, certainly not ours, would tolerate cross-border rocket attacks that force millions of its civilian citizens into bomb shelters on 15-second notice. The Biden administration reiterated Israel's right to protect itself, and Jewish Democratic Council of America reiterated that Jewish Democrats "stand with Israel as it faces terrorist threats from Gaza."

Today Tisha B'Av is observed. Tisha B'Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, marks the destruction of the First and Second Temples, as well as other catastrophes tradition tells us occurred on this date. One interpretation of the meaning of this day is that "the bonds that bind us to those we love can be severed in the blink of an eye, but recovery takes time and patience. That this is true on the national level no less so than it is on the level of the individual is one of the enduring lessons of Jewish history."

Last week's newsletter.

ICYMI. Pro-Israel lobbies are backing winners, not creating them.

Tweet of the Week. Frank Coniff.

Twitter Thread of the Week. Why we need to call out right-wing antisemitism.

Facebook Post of the Week. Joshua Shanes.

Video Clips of the Week. Obama v Trump and Berle v Statler & Waldorf.

Upcoming Events. Politics with Dana and Steve presents Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) on Sunday, August 21, at 4:00 pm at a private residence in Highland Park, outdoors. Tickets are free, but contributions are encouraged. Rep. Casten is one of the brightest members of Congress and is excellent on all of our issues. RSVP here.

Please join me, Dana Gordon, and Marcy Fleisher & Steve Kanner plus a growing list of co-hosts (check out the invitation) for an in-person (outdoors if the weather is nice) reception in support of U.S. Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH) candidate for U.S. Senate, on Wednesday, August 24 at 6:30 PM at a private residence in Highland Park. RSVP using this link. If you would like to attend the event and meet Ryan before committing to a specific or any contribution amount, please let me know.

We need at least two more Democrats in the Senate to move forward with our agenda. With our help, Tim Ryan can be one of them. Ryan is great on our issues, and he's running against J.D. Vance--this 30-second clip is all you need to know.

This is the newsletter even Republicans have to read. And it's the original source of the viral Top Ten Signs You Might be at a Republican Seder.

So if someone forwarded this to you, why not subscribe? It's free! Just click here. 

Donations are welcome (because this costs money to send). If you'd like to chip in, click here and fill in the amount of your choice. You don't need a PayPal account; the link allows you to use a credit card. If you'd rather send a check, please reply and I'll send you mailing information (please do NOT send checks to the P.O. Box). Venmo to @Steven-Sheffey (last four 9479) is fine too.

You’re reading this. So are other influentials. If you want the right people to know about your candidate, cause, or event, reply to this email to discuss your ad.

The Fine Print: This newsletter usually runs on Sunday mornings. If you receive it as an ICYMI on Wednesday it's because you didn't open the one sent on Sunday. Unless stated otherwise, my views do not necessarily reflect the views of any candidates or organizations that I support or am associated with. I reserve the right to change my mind as I learn more. I am willing to sacrifice intellectual consistency for intellectual honesty. I might be wrong: Read opposing views and decide for yourself. A link to an article doesn't mean that I agree with everything its author has ever said or that I even agree with everything in the article; it means that the article supports or elaborates on the point I was making. I take pride in accurately reporting the facts on which I base my opinions. Tell me if you spot inaccuracies, typos, or other mistakes so that I can correct them in the next newsletter (and give you credit if you want it). Advertisements reflect the views of the advertisers, not necessarily of me, and advertisers are solely responsible for the content of their advertisements. I read, value, and encourage replies to my newsletters, but I don't always have time to acknowledge replies or to engage in one-on-one discussion. I'm happy to read anything, but please don't expect me to watch videos of any length--send me a transcript if the content is that important. Don't expect a reply if your message is uncivil or if it's clear from your message that you haven't read the newsletter or clicked on the relevant links. Dedicated to Ariel Sheffey, Ayelet Sheffey, and Orli Sheffey z''l. ©2022 Steve Sheffey. All rights reserved.