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Ithaca Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 17, 2020 44 Comments
Ithaca, NY, home to Cornell University, is a notoriously liberal town. That liberalism, both on and off campus, is taking on an increasingly intolerant and totalitarian tone, as was just demonstrated when a small pro-Trump rally was attacked by a crowd organized by the Ithaca Democratic Socialists, but also carrying Black Lives Matter and anarchist flags and posters.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 14, 2020 72 Comments
There are a small number of movies that had a profound impact on me as a child. Having grown up in the generation for whom nuclear war was the looming threat, many of those formative movies concerned the aftermath of nuclear war. I particularly remember Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 05, 2019 10 Comments
You remember the Extreme Ithaca Liberal campaign theme used successfully by Republican Representative Tom Reed in my home district NY-23? The Extreme Ithaca Liberal theme was used to beat well-financed liberal challengers over the head with a caricature of Ithaca liberals. It was a brilliant campaign theme because there was at least a kernel of truth to it, and the challenger didn't have to be from Ithaca for it to work.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 09, 2018 6 Comments
Despite a lot of political flim-flam from the Tracy Mitrano campaign, including misleading use of polls to suck over $1 million from area liberals based on the false hope that the race was close, Republican Tom Reed easily won reelection in NY-23. The district includes ultra-liberal Ithaca and Tompkins County, where there was record turnout mostly for Mitrano, but Reed prevailed by 10 points:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 11, 2017 5 Comments
I don't know Dr. Tom Taylor. But I understand his situation when he decided to attend Republican Congressman Tom Reed's town hall this morning in Ithaca, NY, where I work at Cornell Law School. In case you were unaware, Ithaca is like Berkeley, California, only smaller. Ithaca is in the NY-23 District. Reed has won in landslides the last two elections against Democratic challengers backed by national money. While no one is a sure thing, he is in a very strong position in this mostly conservative district. Ithaca is an anomaly in the District. In fact, Reed twice ran campaigns lambasting "Extreme Ithaca Liberals." This ad against Martha Robertson in 2014 irked many Ithaca progressives:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 24, 2017 13 Comments
You probably have seen viral videos of the disruption of town halls held by Congressman Tom Reed. The media narrative is that there was an organic, grassroots uprising by concerned citizens. Don't believe it. As detailed below, there was a well-organized national and local campaign to get activists to Reed's town halls for the specific purpose of creating a protest environment. Instructions how to protest and what questions to ask were circulated. Though the town halls were in the western part of the district, liberal groups in Ithaca and Tompkins county organized protests and got their members there. Other liberal groups like Planned Parenthood also got their people out. The issue is not, as some have portrayed it, whether people were paid to protest. While most of the people at the town halls may have been there without prodding, it is clear that liberal activists groups made sure there were enough protesters, who had been schooled in tactics, in the crowds to create the viral video they hoped for. This was astroturf. The deliberate, well-planned creation of the appearance of grassroots opposition.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 23, 2017 22 Comments
I was not in my hometown of Ithaca (NY) for the Women's March. Ithaca, in case you didn't know, is like Berkeley, California, only smaller. Here are the directions I used to give to my house, from November 2008:
To live in Ithaca is to live in a city alive with anti-Bush, anti-war protest.  I often joke that the directions to my house in Ithaca read as follows: Take a right at the fifth Obama sign, a left at the third “Impeach Bush” placard, bear right at the “Support Our Troops, End the War” poster, and we are the house just after the “There’s a Village in Texas Missing its Idiot” banner.
The Women's March attracted quite the crowd, estimated at 8-10 thousand people.
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