"We all had visions of sugar plums dancing in our head this cycle," @normcoleman starts second day of @RJC saying, using an Xmas metaphor to describe GOP disappointment #RJCinVegas
"I don't wanna miss anybody" @normcoleman says as he lists star speakers at #RJCinVegas , "Oh yeah, he's already shown he can do the job" he rushes, "the 45th President Donald J Trump"
.@normcoleman with another holiday metaphor "the days you had to sit alone at the Thanksgiving table ... those days have come to an end." Picturing Jewish Republicans in the 1990s consigned to the kids' table? #RJCinVegas
Biggest cheers so far is @normcoleman saying "our friend Bibi Netanyahu is returning as prime minister" #RJCinVegas
"electing more Republican Jewish representatives to the House and to the Senate, I think that should be our goal," @DavidKustoff tells @RJC#RJCinVegas
"We're going to be controlling the narrative and setting the agenda. Joe Biden needs to work with Republicans," @DavidKustoff says which is more conciliatory than one might think - lotya GOP talk about not working with Biden. #RJCinVegas also big cheers for @leezeldin mention
.@Santos4Congress "My good friend @leezeldin really paved the way for all of us NY" -- Zeldin is credited here with bringing up GOPers downticket #RJCinVegas
.@MaxMillerOH "I'm ... proud to say that I'm a Jeiwsh Republican and we won." applause for serving in Marines reserve. worked for "The greatest president in our life time, Donald J Trump," some applause (at least he mentioned him.) #RJCinVegas
"Antisemitism has no political party" @MaxMillerOH says, segueing into bds resolution at Case Western (I think other stuff has been happening in Ohio?) "If you're an antizionist, you're an antisemite, it's that simple." Dems "harbor" them. #rjcinvegas
.@maxmiller likens antisemitism to his "being persecuted by Biden's committees." Miller was subponeaed by Jan. 6 committee #RJCinVegas
.@GovChrisSununu "Republicans have wins, not bthe wave, the tsunami, but we did have our wins." Sununu elsewhere has excoriated the party, but the tone here at #rjcinvegas (publicly not privately) is that GOP did ok, don't complain too hard
"We're right out on policy but we're really terrible on messaging...who delivers that message is ... important." @GovChrisSununu "To disappear 6 years as a senator and then come back advertising is not gonna get it done...candidate quality matters."
"Nevada, the first in the nation primary, they're still counting votes in this state, My God!" @GovChrisSununu ribbing the state he is visiting and pledging NH will stay first in the nation #rjcinvegas
"If we're not inspiring the next generation, what are we doing, we're going to be in the minority forever" @GovChrisSununu to @RJC#rjcinvegas
.@SenRickScott gets some folks standing up as he walks in -- days after he lost his bid to unseat McConnell as majority leader, praises @GOPChairwoman and @NRCC (after they lost senate)?
"I committed the unpardonable sin of challenging the status quo" "We are going to upset the apple cart, this is not the end of something, this is the beginning of something...we need to have a Republican Party in DC" @SenRickScott unrepentant about challenging McConnell
Scott, who ran the Senate campaign, blames McConnell, who did not, for losing the Senate
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.@GovChristie unsparing with Trump and candidates,. " We lost in Wisconsin and Michigan, because we pick the wrong candidates, no wait, Donald Trump picked the candidates" some applause #RJCinVegas
"I don't want to be part of a Republican party who stands for just one man and not all of those principles" @GovChristie "it is time to stop whispering, it is time to stop doing the knowing nods, we can't talk...let's go out and do it together"' standing applause at #rjcvegas
.@SenatorTimScott "It is time to rise yup on behalf of those citizens" referring to Jews attacked on streets of NY. Cites early ties with SCarolina Jews, including tough minded teachers. Very positive talk. No attacks on Dems. first speaker to walk with mobile mic. #RJCinVegas
"We're up to almost 35%, 33% of the Jewish population voting Republican," cheers at annual @RJC confab as @normcoleman opens
"Retiring Nancy Pelosi is a gamechanger for America, @normcoleman says at @RJC assuaging grim feelings after less than steller GOP performance in midterms
Elliot Lauer, speaking without a mic (Shabbat) celebrates the House majority for GOP, describing 2 years of "sheer lunacy" "A previously unimaginable assault on our sovereignty, our way of life..This shabbat we begin the campaign to repair redeem and restore our exceptionalism
"Learn what we are doing in the Holy Land, we are trying to create miracles," @mnsorabbas tells @WashInstitute - which is how an Israeli pol would normally pitch a talk to a US Jewish org
He notes his origins in a Galilee village near Tiberias that is pluralistic by definition -- majority Druze, with Muslim and Christian minorities
Abbas says even with deep differences between parties and communities (edot) it's better to build trust working together than cutting one another off. He cites as an example the Citizenship Law, which he regards as dire...but he says by being in government...
I am at @deborahlipstadt's confirmation hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Lipstadt is seated next to @RosenforNevada. @SenatorCardin comes over to greet her: "It's good to see you here, we've been trying to get you here for a while."
Senate Republicans had delayed: Lipstadt's confirmation but were spurred to remove their block after the Colleyville hostage taking crisis.
Rosen introduces, notes recent rise in antisemitism.
Lipstadt calls out antisemitism "no matter which side" it comes from, Rosen says. @SenSchumer arrives, I think it is rare fr a majority leader to turn up at a confirmation hearing.
A note on what people believe vs. what is real. Before AP would send reporters into Bosnia to report they had the very wise practice of making us desk the story in Vienna, so we could learn about it. So this is what I did for a month or so, right after Dayton. One grisly story...
...kept popping up: Bosnian Serbs, evacuating to Republika Srpska (despite the pleadings of UN officials who hoped hopelessly to return Bosnia to prewar staus) kept disinterring their dead and putting them in the back of pickups and taking them with them. I mean...
...every night, I would edit copy in which Serbian guy would explain why he was leaving it all behind despite international pledges that everyone would get along now, his rotting relatives in the bed of the truck. I asked the reporters to dig (ha!) into why this practice was...
Turnout at this @TKE_Fraternity Torah procession marking the destruction of a Torah replica by unknown vandals is big, several hundred
Frat chapter president Chris Osborne: “The status quo where Jewish students at this campus (@GWtweets) fearing for their lives has existed for far too long”