A Commonwealth Club virtual event went forward on Feb. 11 despite heavy criticism from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which charged the two speakers with holding “anti-Muslim” and “anti-Palestinian” views.
CAIR, a national organization with a chapter in Santa Clara, not only lobbied to have the event canceled at the 11th hour, but the resulting dust-up led to the resignation of a Jewish member of the Commonwealth Club’s Inforum board, an advisory group that co-hosted the discussion. The Commonwealth Club is based in San Francisco.
The event featured former Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born author, in conversation with Jewish writer and pro-Israel activist Bari Weiss. The two discussed women’s rights, particularly in the context of Muslim immigration to Europe. Hirsi Ali’s controversial new book “Prey” was also discussed.
today. and it is in some ways is no win because you have to sacrifice one or the other but i don t think that i think she s painted into a corner by the president s actions, by mueller s statement and by her caucus and we ll see how she handles it. your takeaway, asha. three takeaways that mueller is saying here. first he said no hoax. he said no coup and then he said you can impeach. the first two are just as important because they are directly contradicting the narrative that has been put out by the white house. and with the third one, i think i m sorry, let s try again. special counsel robert mueller now former special counsel mueller and what he had to say and as gloria indicated he did say if he saw any evidence that the president was not was innocent, he would have let us know. if he had any evidence that the president was not guilty, he would have let us know. but he didn t. he didn t. and i think that was very, very
path and nothing is off the table and no one is above the law. so let me on the political piece of this, gloria and van, to you, why is sounds like nancy pelosi, despite everything we heard this morning, is like, slow your roll. she hasn t changed. she hasn t changed and she also pointed out, we were laughing about this, there are only 38 democrats who have been talking about impeachment, not that she counted. with a list of their names. she s been on the phone with them. and she made the point after that, we need to do what gets results and she s very aware she can t get impeachment approved in the senate and she said, you know, if we ever want down that road, it seems to me we have to be able to convince republicans to do that. and of course they re not there. i think her caucus will feel that she s setting too high of a bar. that you can t do the job in the house unless the senate
responsibilities that do not go together now. you have an immediate responsibility to protect your caucus. make sure you re on track for a victory in 2020. that would argue for caution. but if your concerned about the republic capital r., how is a republican supposed to function. speaking of pelosi. perfect segue, here she is. he said if he had confidence that no crimes had been committed, he would have reported that. he pead a number of other statements about a president not being able to be convicted of a crime while in office. tell us i know you ve made one comment already this morning. what is your reaction to his statements this morning? thank you, gloria, for your question and for the invitation to be here today. it is wonderful to be at the commonwealth club with so many members of the club and concerned citizens, especially my family, my daughter christine
and her husband peter and father-in-law and hi grandson octavio. [ applause ] and understand my son paul is here. paul jr. is someplace. welcome. in any event. this is a family affair for us always. we always like to hear whether we re present or viewing or listening to what is of interest to our community. and i want to salute gloria duffy, she s just so remarkable and so blessed to have her in the role that we have. [ applause ] while she mentioned what i was doing while they were having a late central america style dinner, i ll tell you what she was doing during the day. and this was so reparkable to all of us because it was we were there to see what was happening. madeline so we have a mirror on this. the second she gets to the