“There’s a stirring of Democratic hearts, a blooming of Democratic hopes, a belief that falling gas prices, key legislative accomplishments and concern about abortion rights equal a reprieve from the kind of midterm debacle that Democrats feared just a month or two ago.”

“So this constant distilling into the ‘Big Lie’ overlooks something key: A sea change is slowly happening on the right as it relates to policy expectations.”

“The reproductive rights side has long had the numbers, just not the intensity. If Democrats can keep the pressure on, abortion politics could prove increasingly painful and destructive for Republicans.”

Michelle Cottle, in “Abortion and Trump Are Giving Democrats a Shot.” Read the essay.

“In my 28 years analyzing elections, I’ve never seen anything like what’s happened in the past two months in American politics: Women are registering to vote in numbers I’ve never witnessed.”

“It is the direction of the line that is most important in politics. And I believe that Biden’s reversal will bode well for other Democrats.”

Charles Blow, in “Biden Becomes a Boon For Democrats.” Read the column.

“While periods of divided government can yield gridlock, they also offer opportunities for progress.”

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I have lived in several countries and experienced cultures different from our own. I am not at all surprised about what took place in LA. Having lived in Mexico, I have seen up close Mexican racism directed by the so called privileged "Spanish" or white Mexicans directed against the poor and mostly Indian Mexicans. The same can be said about most countries in Africa where I worked for several years. Yes, all Black Africans are not cut from the same cloth. It's all about power and money and tribal identities. In other words, it does not surprise me that Mexican immigrants may not identify themselves with Blacks politically and seek assimilation within the privileged white society. Indeed, some of the most virulent racists I have encountered are Latinos from Cuba. Black democrats are making a big mistake assuming that the demographic shifts in this country favor a so called brown coalition of Latinos and Blacks. White racism in the US is nothing more than another version of tribalism applied to politics. Many Latinos here have apparently decided that their interests do not dovetail with those of Blacks. That is what Trump understood all too well and one reason more Latinos voted for him in the last election.

Argentina, a South American country, is deeply racist. Not just antisemitic (the bit I had to endure) but also anti-Chinese, anti-Korean, anti-Peruvian, anti-Paraguayan, etc. The color of the skin is important, and a dark skin person with (American) Indian ancestry will suffer discrimination. I can't see what's surprising about a Cuban or Mexican, or Brazilian immigrant (or second generation) being racist. Disgusting, deplorable, yes. But not surprising.

Bigotry is just plain ugly, no matter what color you paint it. The remarks made concerning that child remain abhorrent. I also take offense at the implication that white people do not have a right to celebrate Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was a brave and courageous American who dared to be a catalyst for change. His dream was not for dominance by any group but about an America where equality would be a state of being.

Charles, I frankly do not care any more about anti-Blackness, as you put it, not in any form. Kanye West is the last straw, but he's not the first straw, not by a long chalk. Nor was Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson or Louis Farrakhan the first. I have to conclude that black anti-Semitism is endemic, end of story. Of course it's not universal, but it's prevalent enough that I've decided to put the whole business down. t's just not worth dealing with.

Since we are a mixture of dna and in the image of god what does it mean to be human, probably nothing entitlement with power we would all probably go to a debased corner no matter who you are and what corner your in. Don’t understand what it means to be human I’ve have only been told and every action contradicts what I’ve been told. Maybe by touting the brain we have forgotten what our sense use to tell us that we’re just like the animals we eat just surviving

Mr. Blow. Brilliant. I am a very fair skinned Mexican/Puerto Rican. I consider myself a proud person of color. I have never used the color of my skin to promote myself. The whiteness of my skin does not define me. My name and family background speak for themselves. What Ms. Martinez and her anti-blackness embodies is not what what the very best of what the Hispanic culture represents. She is an embarrassment. What she and her colleagues did was practice white supremacy in that profanity laden racist conversation.. It is my hope that she will reflect on the back story of her character and her hateful rhetoric and become a better human being.

Mr. Blow still can't break free from the idea that everything is a form or a consequence of "white supremacy." How is a Latina criticizing Jewish people "lite supremacy"? How, for that matter, would examples of African Americans attacking Asian people be "lite supremacy." How is the pervasive and corrosive culture of using "white" as a pejorative--most common in highly educated circles--"lite supremacy." Multiculturalism, sadly, engenders multiracism when it is not tempered by universalism but instead turbo-charged by identity politics. I would add that white people in most countries have been schooled from birth for the past 75 years not to be racist. Serious problems remain. But it's also a problem that many non-whites continue to argue that they themselves are incapable of racism. The common theory that racism is power plus prejudice--in which power = white--plays a role in this.

This is another case of exploitation of people being real with each other that doesn't sit well with ideologists. We've heard of 'the fog of war'; what is appropriate is replaced by rhetorical ploys. Discrimination becomes prejudice. Concern for one's identity becomes 'white supremacy'. It's game on, and only our competitors tricks are dirty.

Black and Brown Americans don't all have the same skin color. Some are lighter and some are darker. Hair is different, too. In past centuries, lighter skin Black Americans were able to "pass." The "problem" with passing was Black Americans thought you were acting white. Nowadays, you can be darker skinned and still called the same thing; the difference now is based on education. The same is true of Brown skinned Americans. It's based on "first" language. Brown skinned Americans are bilingual, most of them speak Spanish with one group of people and English with others. People have to get used to the fact that America is a bilingual country. The fact that these city council members were speaking in English says alot about who they think they are.

Sadly, it's well known that there has always been a color bias within the Black community. The lighter, the better. And 'good' hair, too.

What a horrible future. Perpetual racial balkanization with the only question to be answered is: which race oppresses the most? Is the writer disappointed that any group is oppressive or just that the wrong group is oppressive? Hard to tell. This is the progressive conundrum. An inability to articulate a path to harmonious civic life. Their leading argument collapses into a sophomoric power struggle analysis, where the only winning move is to vote for candidates with similar melatonin levels. That is no future worth pursuing.

What scared me most was the apparent level of belief that she was in a safe place and that performing racism for her colleagues was both acceptable and very much expected.

I hate to break it to you, folks, but people from all ethnic/racial groups are racist and classist. In other words, just like whites, BIPOCs can discriminate and diminish others who are darker and/or poorer.

You are listening to her words. I had to live in her district. Set aside the bigotry you heard. And think about the governance or lack of it in Los Angeles. While Ms. Martinez schemed to gain more power for herself, she prettied herself up in the social justice makeup: Latinx empowerment, human trafficking, etc. It is not that those issues are worthy. But rather that modern identity politics wants to create policies based on fantasies of victimization. We live near parks that are set afire by mentally ill people, we live in neighborhoods where drug addicts set up villages in buildings that are burned out and should have been demolished ten years ago, we shop at drug stores where every item is locked up behind glass doors because of rampant shoplifting and laws that made it a misdemeanor to steal less than $950. There are cars that speed through red lights at 80 MPH and nobody is ever arrested. But we have to hear ad nauseam about the overfunded police and the lack of housing when 30% of the people who live in this city are in the US unlawfully. Los Angeles before and after the pandemic has become hellish. And houses are still two million dollars and studio apartments are $2500 and Ms. Martinez spent her time crafting alliances with other crafty folks in power to keep in power based on similar ethnicities. So that's the story of life under her administration. And all we have to show for her time in office is a vile recorded conversation.

Hold all meetings that involve anything related to the public at large, publicly. With the exception of national security. People elected to or placed in positions of power often act and speak one way in public and another in private. Remove all barriers between the two. The public have the right to know what's being said behind closed doors so each one can reflect on their core content of character and cast their vote accordingly. Then, and only then, can the PUBLIC be held responsible for the downfalls.

It is indicative of how invested Mr. Blow is in his identity politics narrative that he must call this incident "white supremacy," when it is not that at all. What's going on here is the kind of group tribalism that is endemic to humanity absent real efforts to resist it. One of the great achievements of the post WWII civil rights and feminist movements was a broad liberal consensus that we should work to try ands avoid seeing people as simply their race or gender or religion. Also that it was important, given our flawed past, to work to try to heal racial divisions instead of exploiting them for political gain. And it is one of the very real failings of the racial identity politics adopted by many progressives that this consensus has been overthrown in favor of emphasizing our differences. It is, to focus on one example from this piece, quite amazing that phrases like "white adjacent," (or even "white supremacy," when used to refer to mainstream culture rather than to actual white supremacists) are considered a sign of political enlightenment.

The most effecient and effective road towards ending racism in America is through an actual democratic process that insures each voting citizen is counted the same. We can not expect attitudes to change when our very election process discriminates. No one has to ask and hope for respect with voting power.

All the council members will be forced out, but not because of racism. Not really. They’re guilty of revealing what LA politics really look like, which is anything but the progressive fantasy it tells itself it is. And that is the far greater crime in LA.

The way to end discrimination based on race is to quit discriminating based on race.

I know nothing about Nury Martinez's background and how she came to occupy her role as president of the LA City Council. I don't need to. What she said reveals her to be an ignorant, insensitive person who was obviously in the wrong place. Not because she was recorded, but certainly due to her outrageous thoughts. And but for the recording she would still occupy that space. Everthing needs more scrutiny. Elections, candidates, and especially as we move toward the mid-term elections, pay attention to words, deeds, and don't allow your voice, your voice to enter into Martinez and others' world view. Despicable. And a public personage. Good riddance.

When one believes in, as does the author, “representative distribution of political power” based on ethnicity/color, tribalism naturally results.

Racism is alive everywhere - it is the primary tool of violence to take what is "yours".

White-adjacent. That’s a new one for me. Experts say to speak a foreign language you need to learn 10 words a day. Need 9 more today to continue learning woke.

An issue is that americans (regardless of their "minority") are told that racism is a white, american thing. Travel a bit, talk to people, and you'll hear really racist stuff. Not against white people, cause they're rich. In the US and Europe, culpabilisation about the holocaust, the slavery made things progress. So now there's a new group of people, who's not responsible for the suffering of another group of people (or they don't know about it), and here you go.

She doesn't understand that her skin is too dark to pass as an honorary white, unlike Cruz and Rubio. Self-hatred as its finest. Sad.