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Editor's note: The column was co-authored by Bruce Abramson.  Anyone concerned with Jews and Israel should be horrified by the Democrats’ newly released 2020 platform. It directly threatens the Jewish state, employs double-talk calculated to stoke antagonism between the American left and Israel, and pays passing lip-service to opposing antisemitism, but in the gaslighting way Linda Sarsour and Ilhan Omar do; to deny it where it exists and point fingers elsewhere. In both narrative and policy, the platform crosses over the line into deep antisemitic territory. It’s a dangerous acceleration of an approach first tested when Joe Biden was Vice...

Entire platform is a clarion cry to the progressive Left that we have had enough I recall a while back reading a statement attributed to John Boehner, the former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. He was reported to have said that nobody reads the party platform. That may have been the case in the past, but if this one is ignored, there will be consequences to pay (2016 Republican National Platform). After many disgusting years of Republican establishment types telling the American people one thing in its platform promises and proceeding to do other things, contrary to...

Bernie Sanders may have lost out on the Democratic nomination, but he won significant influence over the party’s official policy positions, getting a draft document that largely reflected his liberal views. A marathon meeting in Orlando on Friday and Saturday marked the final deliberation of the Democratic Party’s platform before the convention later this month. A group of 187 delegates, including supporters of both Democratic candidates, crammed into a steamy hotel ballroom to pore over a draft document and offer amendments. […] The draft going into the meeting already reflected Sanders’ influence, with steps to break up large Wall Street...

The Democratic Party on Friday adopted a call to raise the minimum wage to $15/hr as part of their established party platform heading into the 2016 election season. The move further polarizes the progressive wing of the party by moving them further to the left of both the Republican Party, and corporate centrist Democrats such as Hillary Clinton. In response to the Democratic Party’s vote, Terrence Wise, a Kansas City, Mo. McDonald’s and Burger King Worker and member of the National Organizing Committee of the Fight for $15, issued the following statement.

Have the Republicans become the white man's party? Are the depth and bitterness of Republicans' opposition to Barack Obama and his administration the product of racism? Those are questions you hear in the clash of political argument, and you will hear plenty of answers in the affirmative if you click onto MSNBC or salon.com with any regularity. You can find a more nuanced and thoughtful analysis in Jonathan Chait's recent New York magazine article, "The Color of His Presidency." Chait, a liberal, starts off by noting that the post-racial America that Obama seemed to promise in his 2004 national convention...

Our country made history in 2008 when we elected our first black president. The 2012 election is already historic as well, but for a much less promising reason. This year marks the first time in history that a major political party has put the redefinition of marriage into its national platform. The obvious question for many of my friends was, "Why are they in such a hurry?" If their victory is so inevitable, as they always tell the mainstream media; if the next generation is as likely to fall into their grasp as they think; why don’t they just trust...

Were you shocked when at least 50 percent of the delegates to the Democratic Convention appeared to vote "nay" on recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and reinserting God into the platform? Admittedly, it was high drama -- a truly unscripted moment that laid bare the raw hostility toward Israel that has gradually achieved mainstream status within the Democratic Party. But a surprise? Not really. A Gallup poll released earlier this year showed that 78 percent of Republicans supported Israel over the Palestinians, whereas only 53 percent of Democrats agreed. For the past 12 years, Democratic support for Israel has been...

By now, much has been written regarding the Republican endorsement of Tom Emmer for governor of Minnesota, not to mention the extraordinary grace of opponent Marty Seifert. The latter's leadership, even in defeat, galvanized delegates into a unified front. This stood in stark contrast to the Democrats, whose gubernatorial endorsement battle had, one week prior, dragged into the dark of night. Remarkable as that story is, there are others from the convention which, while lower in profile, are no less noteworthy. Urban Conservatism Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek, running for re-election this year, delivered an understated and (in this writer's...

The Democratic National Committee is asking America to weigh in on its party platform, and this week kicks off more than 1,300 meetings to hear from voters across the country on the big question: What should Democrats stand for - and against? If the idea sounds politically challenging, or even risky - think Rush Limbaugh and his dittoheads weighing in - San Francisco attorney Michael Yaki, who heads the party's platform committee, says not to worry. In fact, he's even invited Limbaugh and his dittoheads to come on down and take part in the meetings that will happen around the...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Republican Party Platform. Adopted at St. Louis, June 16, 1896. The Republicans of the United States, assembled by their representatives in National Convention, appealing for the popular and historical justification of their claims to the matchless achievements of thirty years of Republican rule, earnestly and confidently address themselves to the awakened intelligence, experience, and conscience of their countrymen in the following declaration of facts and principles: For the first time since the Civil War the American people have witnessed the calamitous consequences of full and unrestricted Democratic control of the Government. It has been a record of unparalleled incapacity,...

Since 2001 when stem cell research first captured our nation’s attention, I’ve said many times the issue will have to be reviewed on an ongoing basis -- and not just because the science holds tremendous promise, or because it’s developing with breathtaking speed. Indeed, stem cell research presents the first major moral and ethical challenge to biomedical research in the 21st century. In this age of unprecedented discovery, challenges that arise from the nexus of advancing science and ethical considerations will come with increasing frequency. How can they not? Every day we unlock more of the mysteries of human life...

FRANKFORT -- Kentucky's Republican Party this election began toppling Democrats in a section of the state that politically has long favored donkeys over elephants. Western Kentucky, an area once seen as a solid lock for the Democratic Party, saw five incumbent House Democrats fall in Tuesday's election and an open Senate seat that had long been Democratic go Republican. "It definitely is trending more Republican in Western Kentucky," said Russ Randall, the GOP's 1st Congressional District chairman. The trend evident in the Jackson Purchase region is one that has also encompassed Northern Kentucky, where Republicans began making gains in the...

Tom Delay Renews Contract With America From the 2004 Republican Party Platform (pg. 74): "We believe the Second Amendment and all of the rights guaranteed by it should enable law-abiding citizens throughout the country to own firearms in their homes for self defense...We oppose federal licensing of law-abiding gun owners and national registration as a violation of the Second Amendment and an invasion of privacy of honest citizens." During the 3rd debate between President Bush and Kerry, a question about the assault weapons ban of 1994 was posed to Bush who responded that he was for it, but that he...

NEW YORK – The 2004 Republican Platform Committee finished its work this afternoon. It wasn't a pretty picture. You have to give the Bush political operation credit: they badly outflanked the party conservatives. By the time delegates gathered here in New York for the platform committee work, the game was already over. The Bush operation made certain that the committee, selected by state parties, was packed with loyalists. Any chance of a conservative uprising over the platform was DOA. The most controversial plank in the draft platform was on immigration, specifically President Bush's proposal for a guest worker program for...

Another pablum platform Robert Novak (archive) August 5, 2004 | Print | Send WASHINGTON -- With the Republican National Convention's platform committee convening in New York less than three weeks from now, no draft platform exists, no subcommittees have been named and no special lodging for committee members has been assigned. Rather than signifying sudden collapse of accustomed Republican efficiency, all this looks more like a coolly calculated plan. The suspicion has grown that President Bush's re-election strategists -- Karl Rove and Karen Hughes -- do not want the open debate over principles and policy that has characterized Republican platform-making...