The US Economy Is Remarkably Strong, Winning Virginia, War and Tragedy In Ukraine and The Middle East

Challenging Times, But Reasons for Optimism

Friends, a few morsels of Hopium to start our Monday, starting off with David Pepper’s look at encouraging new polling on Issue 1 in Ohio, and continuing with these hopeful bits:

• GDP growth In The Third Quarter Was 4.9% - A huge encouraging number, another sign of the strength and vitality of the American economy despite it all

• This Month’s Jobs Report Exceeded Expectations, Again - Under Biden lowest unemployment rate since the 1960s, lowest uninsured rate ever

• New Report Shows Inflation Continues to Fall - remarkable news

• The Wealth of Americans Jumped 37% from 2020 to 2022 - As we like to say here, we are better off today due to Joe Biden and the Democrats

• When Voters Are Informed About What Biden Has Done, His Numbers Go Up - another in a long line of polls show that by informing voters of what Biden has done his approval goes way up. This can and will be done next year by the campaign

• Gas Prices Are Lower Than They Were A Year Ago - despite Russia and Saudi Arabia trying to raise gas prices, the price of gas keeps tumbling

• Murder and Violent Crimes Rates Came Down in 2022, and Continue to Fall in 2023

• American Has Experienced An Explosion of New Black and Hispanic Small Businesses

• Lots of New, Encouraging Data About Our Transition From Fossil Fuels to Cleaner Forms of Energy

Events This Week (full schedule)

• Thursday, Nov 2nd, 7pm EST - Commit to Democracy Town Hall With Simon Rosenberg - Learn More/RSVP

• Sun, Nov 5th, Noon EST - Simon presents to Democrats Abroad, Portugal - RSVP For Either Zoom or In Person/Lisbon (I will be in DC!)

• Sun, Nov 5th, 7pm EST - Simon presents to Center for Common Ground’s “Beyond Virginia” Event - Learn More/RSVP.

Winning Virginia - While the early vote in Virginia is getting more Democratic every day, we are still not where we want to be and need to keep pushing. Hope will you donate to or volunteer for one of the six swing, too-close-to-call races we’ve gotten behind here, or keep working with whatever program you are working with already. Thanks to all of you who have donated, volunteered - been so inspiring to see all the ways people are working it in Virginia! We are now over $125,000 raised for our six candidates - thank you all!

The Conflict - Tragedy In Ukraine and The Middle East - Things are developing so quickly now around the world that it challenges our once every 24 hour newsletter format. So I’ll do my best each day to provide you with the things I think are most relevant to the moment, recognizing that we are not all in agreement about the path forward here. Let’s start with this - a review of recent polling shows support for Israel among Americans and Democrats rising significantly, and Biden’s approval rating holding. As a reminder here is the election data I consider to be most important right now.

Four additional things follow: 1) I don’t know how Israel and the US can be successful with the disgraced, deeply unpopular Bibi in charge. Israel needs a new and better government. 2) Ukraine and Gaza are two fronts in the same conflict - the US-West-Ukraine-Israel vs Putin-Iran-Hamas-Hizbollah. Separating the conflicts benefits Russia, and obscures the historic genocide taking place in Ukraine right now. I implore members of this community to come to a deeper understanding of this emerging geopolitical dynamic. Putin is losing in Ukraine and needed to distract America and the world in order to have any shot at surviving his Ukrainian fiasco 3) Iran’s ongoing assault on women and girls deserves far more global attention 4) Watch Hillary Clinton talk about why a ceasefire right now is unrealistic. I agree with her, though I know many here disagree.

Finally, I want to be very clear about something - there was no justification for the slaughtering of innocent Israelis and Americans on October 7th. There is no context, no history that justifies what Hamas did. If you believe that those attacks were justified, you are backing Hamas’ worldview that attacks and the slaughtering of Jews anywhere in the world at any time, including me and my family, is justified.

Those sympathetic to the Palestinian cause should in my mind also aspire to be anti-Hamas, anti-Putin, anti-Iran, pro-Ukraine, pro-Jewish/Israeli and American. One can be pro-Palestinian and an advocate for a two state solution (as I have been for decades) without descending into rancid antisemitism. That is my expectation about our discourse here going forward, and my hope for the world more broadly.

Unprecedented GOP Betrayal Continues - So in a time of dramatic and escalating tension around the world, the Republicans continue to:

• Block hundreds of Pentagon appointees, weakening our military. leaving Americans less safe

• Block over 60 State Department appointments, including 38 Ambassadorships and the Ambassadors to Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon. Makes is far harder to achieve diplomatic solutions to our global challenges

• Block critical cybersecurity legislation, turn off a DHS program called Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS), and are now working to terminate DHS programs to counter use of drones by terrorists here in the US and the office which works to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction against the American people. What possible justification is for any of this?

• Fight additional aid to Ukraine, once again appeasing Putin, enabling Ukrainian genocide. The GOP’s ongoing appeasement of Putin is a central source of the instability the world faces today

• Excuse the Trump theft and wanton dissemination of America’s secrets, which is almost certainly the most significant national security breach in US history

• Elevate Insurrectionists including now a man who was the one of the primary architects of the Republican Party’s effort to overturn the 2020 Presidential election and end American democracy to the Speaker’s Chair

Keep working hard all. We have a lot of work to do - Simon