By Judge Mark J. Plawecki
Michigan Democratic U.S Senate candidate Hill Harper has claimed that he was offered $20 million by an American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) member to drop out of said race and run instead against U.S Representative Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American in Congress. Condor has never met nor, until he announced his candidacy, heard of Mr. Harper, but I have little reason to believe he is not telling the truth.
Back in September 2015, then Governor Rick Snyder appointed former Antonin Scalia law clerk Joan Larsen to the Michigan Supreme Court to replace Justice Mary Beth Kelly, who left the court in mid-term. Condor immediately sprang into action, trying to convince, in descending order, three gifted legal minds to run against the professor who had never practiced law in a Michigan courtroom: 33rd District Judge Michael McNally, medical malpractice trial lawyer extraordinaire Judith Susskind, and 3rd Circuit Judge David Allen. All three declined, and each told Condor to run. Reluctantly, I started to campaign, and for eight months worked my way into being the Democratic nominee against Larsen (MSC candidates are officially non-partisan, but both major parties nominate folks at (then) late summer political conventions).
Labor unions, who make up a significant part of the Democratic coalition, unanimously endorsed me, but several of their leaders advised that the key person’s backing needed was Mark (son of Sam) Bernstein, a self-promoting attorney with next to no trial experience.
In a cordial December 2015 phone conversation, Bernstein, whose brother Richard had just been elected to the MSC in 2014, told me that because the GOP nominated justices “were treating my brother nicely,” he was going to remain neutral and not be part of challenging an incumbent justice.
I was curiously disappointed (curious because Mark Bernstein was and is a Democratic University of Michigan Regent) but calculated that since he was just one individual, and if I worked hard to get the endorsement of the umbrella trial lawyers’ group Michigan Association for Justice, I could still mount a formidable challenge.
How naive was Condor! I soon found out that even after the MAJ endorsement, Bernstein and his Supreme Court colleague Justice Bridget McCormack were warning prominent trial lawyers “not to give money to Plawecki” and the many who have business relationships with the Bernstein Law Firm (i.e., do the legal work for unsuspecting 1-800-Call Sam litigants; Bernstein receives a hefty referral fee), felt sufficiently intimidated by the threat and complied.
What was the real reason behind the threat? Condor much later learned that Bernstein is a significant Benjamin Netanyahu waterboy vis-à-vis the Michigan Democratic Party, and the last thing the right-wing Israeli government wants is a statewide elected official (in any state) who has a not only more than cursory understanding of its terrorist origins but is willing to state publicly (as I have in this paper) the truth about Israel’s more than 75 years of political and economic chicanery.
One Condor warrant is former Arkansas Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman William J. Fulbright, who on April 17,1973, said on CBS’s Face the Nation that the United States Senate was “subservient” to Israel, “in my opinion too much. We should be more concerned about the United States interest rather than doing the bidding of Israel. This is a most unusual development. The great majority of the Senate of the United States – somewhere around 80 percent – are completely in support of Israel, anything Israel wants. This has been demonstrated time and again and this has made it difficult for our government.”
Nearly three decades later, Fulbright’s 1973 statement remained approximately true when the Senate voted 77-23 for the heavily lobbied for by Israel Iraq War Resolution, an abomination even then seen by common sense observers (like Michigan Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, who voted against it) as illegal, immoral, and insane.
Today, with Senator Stabenow retiring, the Michigan Democratic Party establishment has quickly coalesced behind Zionist Elissa Slotkin, a negligible member of Congress, making other Senate candidates’ tasks very formidable indeed.
Even before this October’s “retaliatory” war on women, children, and hospitals was launched by its military, Israeli motives were made plain when, for example in a 2022 Michigan Democratic Congressional primary, AIPAC spent $4.2 million to dislodge U.S Rep (and former synagogue president) Andy Levin because Levin had the audacity to suggest that Palestinians deserved political and human rights.
As Joe Lauria put it on December 6, “This is Biden’s quandary: continue to support Israel’s genocide and see his poll numbers continue to plummet. The dilemma he must answer is what would damage him more, sticking with Israel though its murderous campaign, or risk the Israel lobby’s consummate skill at destroying American politicians?” Hostages currently held by Hamas reportedly fear IDF bombs far more than they do their captors, though Israel has intentionally killed so many journalists that reporting is becoming increasingly difficult.
The entire world, outside of those remaining believers of MICMAC* propaganda, is cognizant of what is happening in Gaza. Hence, the December 8th 13-1 (Great Britain abstaining) United Nations Security Council resolution vote that the U.S vetoed so the carnage could continue. This should surprise no one, since the U.S ranks last (and Israel 73rd) in a recent ranking (courtesy Jeffrey Sachs) of 74 nations’ adherence to, since 1945, the UN Charter.
An Israeli leader on December 17 openly called for Gaza to soon “resemble the Auschwitz concentration camp” of World War II. My father was awarded two Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart for fighting the Nazis during that war. I believe he would be astonished to learn that, 16 years after his death, his grandchildren must deal with their spiritual descendants, more polished and powerful, on full display in both Washington and Jerusalem.
*MICMAC—Condor readers may recall—stands for Military Industrial Congressional Media Academic Complex.
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Mark J. Plawecki is chief judge of the 20th District Court. The author of “Notes from Outside the Truman Show,” Plawecki is currently conducting research for his next project, a study of U.S. political history.
