#jonathan chait

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Mothers day Meltdown

[mysterious circle of robed figures] JK Rowling: hello children Rowling: I was just thinking about how transs people should be eliminated from ssociety Jonathan Chait: whoa whoa whoa! joanne! Chait: you can't say it like THAT Chait: so uncouth Chait: you have to say it with your pinky finger extended

Elon Musk: si! issa no good! Musk: issa too mucha trans genocide Musk: you shoulda only post the right amount offa da trans geocide Musk: lookita me, i lika da trans genocide Musk: but i also like many other genocides Rowling: oh MY GOD Rowling: my empire is crumbling!

Chait: we're not saying you can't still be transphobic Chait: you just have to, you know, cool it a bit Chait: be genteel about it Jesse Singal: mommy mommy i have concerns mommy! Chait: see? just like that

Chait: maybe put a little disclaimer Chait: "this transphobia is for entertainment purposes only" Rowling: do you not know who I am?? I'm JK Rowling! Rowling: JK FUCKING ROWLING!!! Rowling: I MADE YOUR CHILDHOOD MAGICAL!

Rowling: no one tellss me to cool it! Rowling: i own the courtss! Chait: joanne Rowling: and another thing!!! Rowling: SSTOP CALLING ME JOANNE!

[midnight society] JK Rowling: hello children Barker: oh look who it is Barker: what are you doing here joanne? Barker: did your terfs tell you to cool it again? Rowling: Rowling: why doess everyone call me joanne

Rowling: i'm extremely mad about thiss transs football referee Barker: what? Rowling: this transs football referee Barker: Barker: what?

Rowling: there's a transs football referee and i'm really mad about it! Rowling: what, haven't you heard? Barker: joanne, why are you here Rowling: and another thing! Rowling: sstop calling me joanne!!

Rowling: people are alwayss all "joanne this" and joanne that! Rowling: wah wah wah joanne joanne joanne! Barker: do you not like your name Barker: you could change it Poe: clive Poe: just let her tire herself out Barker: no no I've got something here

Rowling: people are alwayss "oh wah wah wah joanne, how can you ssay that! your bookss are all about tolerance and love wah wah wah!" Rowling: bitch i think i know what my booksss are about! Rowling: i fuckin wrote them after all!

Rowling: blah blah blah ohh joanne Rowling: i hate when people call me joanne!! Rowling: they should fear to say my true name! Barker: oh damn look at that Barker: looks like we're having a good ol' fashioned mothers day meltdown Poe: clive don't encourage this

King: but joanne! how can you say that? King: after all the lessons of harry potter? King: you made our childhoods magical!

Rowling: people are all "blah blah blah joanne how can you like naziss now when you ssaid they were bad in harry potter" Rowling: first of all, harry potter iss fiction! Rowling: secondly, the death eaters are actually a ssinister coalition of evil transs, sspooniess, fat people, free masonss, and diane duane Rowling: always have been! Rowling: thiss iss NOT a retcon!

Rowling: that sshould be obviouss if you've read the book Rowling: UNLESSS Rowling: you're a fake potterhead, ssteve King: no of course not! i love harry potter

Rowling: DO YOU Rowling: perhaps then Rowling: you would be willing to take a blood oath to the dark lord Rowling: to belong to the dark lord body and ssoul Rowling: who is always correct King: i uh don't think i'm going to take that oath, sorry Rowling: UGH! Rowling: this is just like Radcliffe all over again!

[tomorrowusa]

« Trump is a classic bully who craves submission and fears conflict. His fervent supporters want him to be Michael Corleone, but he’s more like Biff Tannen. Standing up to Trump does not mean that you win. But giving in guarantees that you lose. »

— Jonathan Chait at The Atlantic. (archived)

China stood up to Trump on tariffs and Trump had to back down. When you stand up to Trump, your chances of winning increase.

Capitol Hill Republicans never stand up to Trump – putting them on full public display as bigtime losers.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Leor Sapir

Published: Mar 21, 2024

Both critics and supporters of so-called “gender-affirming care” appreciated the candor of transgender activist and author Andrea Long Chu’s recent cover story for New York magazine.

Chu’s piece, titled “Freedom of Sex: The Moral Case for Letting Trans Kids Change Their Bodies,” makes a principled case for letting children dictate their own hormonal and surgical treatments. Chu believes that “trans kids” shouldn’t have to get a mental-health assessment before initiating hormones, and that, “in principle, everyone should have access to sex-changing medical care, regardless of age, gender identity, social environment, or psychiatric history.” Remarkably, Chu does not deny that biological sex is binary and determined at conception but argues that humans have no ethical obligation to come to terms with reality, calling this purported duty “a fine definition of nihilism.”

While trans activists often pretend that only “right-wing reactionaries” and “trans-exclusionary radical feminists” (“TERFs”) oppose their claims, Chu refreshingly observes that this isn’t true. The most “insidious” pushback, Chu says, has come from “TARLs,” or “trans-agnostic reactionary liberals.” Indeed, polling has shown that Americans with liberal views largely reject such policies as schools keeping students’ gender “transition” secret from their parents and allowing trans-identified males to compete in female sports.

Chu’s essay went viral, prompting New York staff writer Jonathan Chait to pen a “Liberal Response.” Chait has a history of opposing trans activists’ censoriousness, particularly about medical transition for youth. Last December, for example, he responded to transgender advocacy groups’ fury that the New York Times had acknowledged the ongoing scientific debate over how best to treat gender-distressed minors, which they claimed had abetted state-level Republican efforts to ban pediatric transition. Chait called for “carefully following the evidence,” and observed that “the whole reason leftists try to associate reporters at the Times with Republican-backed laws is precisely that their targets do not agree with the conservative position on transgender care.”

Chait’s December piece correctly identified the tribalist logic informing elite discussions of gender medicine in the United States, and progressive journalists’ efforts to banish from the liberal tribe those who raise questions about this controversial area of medicine. His response to Chu’s essay, however, fails to extend to conservatives the charity he expects trans activists to extend to liberals like himself. If Chait is worried about tribalism obscuring the pursuit of truth, he might consider how his own writing may contribute to this problem.

Consider his characterization of the debate over “trans rights.” Chait claims that “[c]onservatives dismiss trans rights altogether, while liberals completely support trans rights as it pertains to employment, housing, public spaces, and other adult matters, disagreeing mainly in how it is applied to children (as well as, in limited cases, addressing the problems raised by trans female athletes competing in women’s sports).”

Whether this is true, of course, depends entirely on what Chait means by “trans rights.” “Rights talk,” to borrow Mary Ann Glendon’s term, obscures the hard trade-offs and real-world costs that unavoidably confront those entrusted to make policy choices. Chait should have spelled out what “trans rights” mean in practice, but he doesn’t. His failure is especially puzzling considering two claims he makes in his essay. Chait claims, first, that “Trans-rights activists and their allies have relentlessly presented their entire agenda as a take-it-or-leave-it block, attacking anybody who criticizes any piece of it as a transphobe.” Second, he argues that rights claims generally render empirical questions irrelevant. As Chait puts it, “if, say, you consider firearm ownership an absolute right, then no evidence about how many lives any particular gun-control reform is likely to save is going to make you support it.”

Whatever Chait means by “trans rights,” the notion that all liberals support permissive trans policies outside the pediatric medicine and athletic contexts is unfounded, according to the data. Partisan affiliations are not a perfect proxy for voter ideology, but it’s telling that a 2022 PRRI poll found 31 percent of Democrats and 55 percent of Independents favor laws that require people to use bathrooms that accord with their biological sex. A more recent YouGov poll found that 26 percent of surveyed Democrats backed such laws, with 22 percent unsure.

Assuming the “liberal” position on public accommodations is that people should be legally allowed to use bathrooms that accord with their subjective definition of being male or female (and many liberals would dispute that this is in fact a liberal position), and if the “conservative” position is that no such law should exist or even that laws should require bathroom access based on sex, then almost half of Democratic Party voters appear to hold views about bathroom access that could qualify as “conservative” under Chait’s scheme.

Liberal opinion similarly divides on the issue of trans-identifying inmates’ prison placements. According to the same YouGov poll, most Democratic voters either supported (35 percent) or weren’t sure about (33 percent) laws requiring prisons to house inmates according to their biological sex. In this case, support for “trans rights,” here defined as a legally protected right to be housed according to “gender identity,” appears to be a minority position within the Democratic Party.

Has Chait accurately characterized the conservative position in this debate? Despite his claim that “[c]onservatives dismiss trans rights altogether,” there’s no evidence that the standard “conservative” position on, say, employment is to allow adverse action against trans-identified people tout court. The YouGov poll found that 44 percent of Republican respondents said they support “banning employers from firing employees on the basis of their transgender identity.” Fifty-seven percent of Independents, which presumably includes some conservatives, answered the same way. Recalling the abstract nature of “rights talk,” what is framed as “employment non-discrimination” often comes down to policy questions about how employers should treat trans-identified employees or candidates in circumstances where sex presumably matters, for instance access to workplace bathrooms.

When asked whether there should be specific provisions for “transgender people in hate crime laws,” 42 percent of Republicans and 57 percent of Independents agreed that transgender status merits special protection, while 24 percent and 27 percent, respectively, said they weren’t sure.

In short, it is highly misleading to say that liberals support trans rights while conservatives do not. When the abstraction “trans rights” is broken down into concrete policy questions, as inevitably it must be, many liberals seem to disagree with policies favored by trans rights activists while many conservatives agree with them. Chait himself recognizes the uselessness of abstract rights talk when he turns his attention to Chu’s argument for “freedom of sex.”

Chait’s response to Chu’s arguments about pediatric medical “transitions” admirably makes the case that “empiricism” must be part of the liberal position on trans rights. However, his commitment to political “rights” seems to constrain his commitment to empiricism and evidence in crucial ways.

First, Chait notes that the supposed consensus that “gender-affirming care” is “settled science” is the result of “a power struggle between advocates of unmediated gender-affirming care and their more cautious colleagues,” but he doesn’t really explain what makes these colleagues “cautious” or whether there are divides within the “cautious” group. By this point he must know that there are three main positions in the debate: those, like Chu and parts of the gender medicine industry, who support unrestricted access to hormones and surgeries; those who support medical transition but call for rigorous mental health assessments; and those who believe that “gender-affirming” hormones and surgeries are inappropriate for minors regardless of circumstances. Those, like myself, who belong to the third group make evidence-based arguments. We regard members of the second group, many of whom are well intentioned, as cautious compared with the first group but overall misguided in their support for harmful practices.

While Chait mentions systematic evidence reviews from Europe and Canada, he fails to disclose that these reviews found no credible evidence of benefits for any pediatric cohort, including those treated under the “gold standard” and more “cautious” Dutch approach, which Chait notes involves “extensive evaluation and screening for mental health.” Left unstated is his apparent hope that after “extensive evaluation and screening,” some kids will benefit from early medicalization.

If liberals like Chait are truly committed to empirical medicine, they must at some point read and respond to the most important scholarly paper on pediatric gender medicine in recent years: “The Myth of ‘Reliable Research’ in Pediatric Gender Medicine: A critical evaluation of the Dutch studies—and research that has followed,” published last year. It’s hard to read this paper and come away with any impression other than that this entire medical field is based on fraud.

More fundamentally, Chait needs to grapple with a problem that runs deeper than the empirical questions discussed in clinical studies. Empirical debates about medical evidence generally presuppose a coherent conceptual framework of health and disease. We can debate, for example, whether a new drug for treating cancer is “safe and effective” because we agree that there is a condition to be treated (cancer), that it constitutes illness, and that doctors have an objective diagnosis to confirm its presence in humans.

Gender medicine, by contrast, lacks a coherent conceptual framework. The discipline is riddled with deep and abiding contradictions. Advocates argue that “gender incongruence” is not a pathology but a normal variation of human development, but they also insist that this phenomenon is a potentially life-threatening medical condition that requires “medically necessary” hormonal or surgical interventions. Advocates argue that “gender identity”—a term whose definition is either circular or reliant on stereotypes—is fixed, immutable, and infallibly knowable from early childhood, but they also say that “gender identity” is fluid and a “journey.”

Above all, thoughtful discussion of youth gender transition is not possible unless one is willing to interrogate the very notion of the “transgender child.” And this, I think, is still a bridge too far for liberals like Chait. What does it mean to say that a child “is transgender”? That she was “born in the wrong body”? That’s metaphysical talk, and absurd. It’s also dangerous to suggest such a thing to vulnerable teenagers who are going through the throes of puberty. Nor is there evidence for the transgender brain hypothesis—and even if there were, gender clinicians (even the “cautious”) ones are not calling for, and most would actively oppose, brain scans as part of the diagnostic process.

Liberal journalists who continue to use the term “trans kids,” as if it’s obvious what this means, without trying to define the term and defend it against rational, good faith criticism, are not truly interested in an empirical debate about youth gender medicine. They care about evidence and research, but only within limits.

A final note on Chait’s piece. He mentions the National Health Service of England’s recent decision to decommission puberty blockers as routine care for gender dysphoric youth. Chait should keep in mind that the Dutch first proposed using puberty blockers as part of the diagnostic process—halting puberty to create a window of time for the adolescent to sort out his feelings and decide whether to proceed with transition. We now know that these drugs do not provide neutral “time to think” (the title of a book about the Tavistock clinic) but more likely lock in a child’s incongruent gender feelings and make further “transition” all but a foregone conclusion. Chait seems to have read the Tavistock book and should at least be open to the possibility that the NHS’s decision is a step toward an eventual full national ban on medical transition for minors—similar to the restrictions enacted in two dozen Republican states that Chait presumably believes are extreme.

To his credit, Chait recognizes the potential for golden mean fallacies in the debate over youth gender medicine. He argues that we should not assume that “ideas located at the extreme at any given moment are always wrong.” I agree. But Chait should acknowledge the possibility that empirically minded, principled liberals like himself are still getting pediatric gender medicine wrong. He should be open to the possibility that one day in the not-too-distant future, he will find himself among the “conservatives.”

==

"Sex is real… But the belief that we have a moral duty to accept reality just because it is real is, I think, a fine definition of nihilism." -- Andrea Long Chu, 2024

"The facts may tell you one thing. But, God is not limited by the facts. Choose faith in spite of the facts." -- Joel Osteen, 2014

Same thing.

[mariaswagdalena]

CENTRIST LIB MELT DOWN! I USED TO PRAY FOR TIMES LIKE THIS 🤲🏼

[marisatomay]

Damn .. enemy of my enemy Jonathan Chait

[comeonamericawakeup]

"Bribery is basically legal now, as long as you support, or are, Donald Trump," said Jonathan Chait. The president has launched a blizzard of blatantly "pro-corruption" actions firing the director of the Office of Government Ethics and 17 federal inspectors general; pardoning former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich for his corruption conviction; suspending the prosecution against New York Mayor Eric Adams, who allegedly solicited foreign bribes; and halting enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits U.S. companies from bribing foreign officials. Why? "Trump genuinely believes in corruption as a normal and acceptable way to do business." His worldview was formed in New York's real estate industry, where he greased palms and cultivated public officials and mobsters to get development permits, subsidies, tax breaks, and construction materials. In the White House, he continues to run his business empire while refusing to disclose his tax returns--and has even launched a new crypto memecoin that enables any influence seeker to enrich him. These "stunning violations of anti-corruption norms" reveal "Trump's understanding of how power works: The people running the system operate it for their own benefit." The rest of us "are suckers.”

THE WEEK February 28, 2025

[collapsedsquid]

Despite Epstein speaking of his “Democratic friends,” he offered praise for some aspects of Trump’s time in office, and said, “I think he’s doing a pretty good job at certain things and he’s not getting credit for it. All the transgender stuff, the bathroom stuff, giving police back their weapons.”

Jeffrey Epstein basically the same politics as Jonathan Chait

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/728886929370857472/httpswwwtumblrcomolderthannetfic728767139305

Agree with this. I mean I’m an academic who in grad school was often in discussions with people who were Terminally Online, but the dumb ways they applied tumblr discourse in class were usually the least of their problems (as in they were often awful people in their ACTIONS outside of class. That said I’ll never forget the person, who was not a gay or bisexual man himself but was a straight trans man who acted like that identity meant he could speak for the entire LGBTQ community based on stuff he read on Tumblr and never doing the actual class reading, claiming that the way Wayne Koestenbaum described gay man’s attachment to female opera divas in The Queen’s Throat had “consent issues.” This was a guy who later got investigated by Title IX for graphically discussing his sex life with other grad students, including female TAs when he was a student instructor).

But I think where I saw the most obnoxious and insidious ways that Tumblr discourse shit infected irl academic discourse was you’d have some older academic who wasn’t super online but cared a lot about social justice and wanting to do the right thing, and would hear about some concept third hand and think it sounded good and not have the broader context a regular Tumblr, Twitter, etc. person would have to know why it wasn’t, or that the person behind it was abusive or didn’t really know their stuff (I’m thinking about stuff like Medieval POC being promoted by academics who just liked the idea of highlighting more instances of POC in pre-modern European history, didn’t know that the person behind it was a racefaker with a history of deeply racist statements, and weren’t specifically art historians or really digging all that deep into her posts to know that she was getting some basic stuff wrong). My frustration a lot as a grad student who is familiar with Tumblr, and with the feminist blogosphere of the late 00s/early 10s before it where a lot of “Tumblr social justice” first developed, was trying to explain that there were people within that culture who were pro-SJ and feminist and antiracist and so on, and from marginalized groups themselves, who had legitimate objections to these concepts being applied to academia that didn’t come from unfamiliarity or “college students just need to grow up” style thinking that you saw in Jonathan Chait style thinkpieces.

For instance, I objected to and continue to object to “mandatory trigger warnings” because I’ve read about and seen in action how they’re often used by students to box in female and POC faculty — already disproportionately hurt by student evaluations — for not running their class or discussing issues of race, gender, etc. in a way that perfectly fits their ideas from Online Discourse. They’re harder on us for this than similar white male faculty, especially older ones, and older white male allies need to be more aware of this when they extrapolate from their own experiences. (Also students IME will get way angrier if a film by or about marginalized people is “triggering” even though it’s impossible to show some aspects of systemic misogyny or racism on screen without doing that — think movies like Do the Right Thing — than they will a similarly “triggering” film by and about white dudes that has no larger Social Point to Make with its triggering content. And I say this as someone who always gives students a heads up beforehand, but some really think that those movies shouldn’t be shown AT ALL and I’m increasingly getting students asking me to accommodate trigger warning requests for vague Tumblr stuff like “unreality” and I’m so tired.)

Thanks for letting me rant about “Tumblr SJ” and academia in your inbox lol

--

[tomorrowusa]

« Contrary to the cliché, authoritarian rulers do not always make the trains run on time. In place of good governance, they offer a combination of propaganda, graft, and intimidation. The less they can satisfy legitimate public demands for prosperity and well-run public services, the harder they must squeeze their opposition. As Trump’s approval ratings have continued to sink, he has accordingly continued to discover new forms of vengeance.

Trump’s first 100 days have set the country on an unsustainable course. The clash between the president’s determination to rule and his inability to govern has generated two opposing forces: a weaponized, illiberal state, and a smoldering political backlash. One of them will have to break. »

— Jonathan Chait at The Atlantic. (archived)

It's our democratic duty to encourage backlash. Speak in short sentences and with words people don't have to look up in the dictionary. There are far more people with HS diplomas than with doctoral degrees.

It's not necessary to stand on a milk crate and harangue the crowd in a Target parking lot. But if somebody in the checkout line refers to high prices, just nod and say, "Yeah, the Trump tariffs".

People who complain about the devastation to them caused by Trump policies should politely be asked, "What do you plan to do about it?". If they seek guidance from you, refer to the Republican senators or Republican House member – if your state or district are represented by the GOP on Capitol Hill. Add mention that every member of both chambers of Congress has one or more home offices back in their state or district. A visit to such an office carries a thousand times more weight than a phone call or email.

You don't have to be an activist to fight the power. Just unemotionally remind people of the person who is responsible for the destructive chaos when you detect an opening.

[jurakan]

"Many highly educated Americans share my friend’s intuition. They believe that if elections are occurring and criticism of the president is not banned outright, then democracy is not under threat. They fail to see the administration’s slow-moving efforts to break down the norms and institutional barriers that otherwise inhibit the ruling party from asphyxiating its opposition. Political scientists who study democracy have a term that clarifies the phenomenon: democratic backsliding. Backslide far enough, and you end up in something called 'competitive authoritarianism.' Elections are still held, but the ruling party has commandeered so many institutions in society and has violated so many laws to enhance its own power that the opposition hardly stands a chance. These are dry phrases, but they capture the way in which democracy and authoritarianism are not binary alternatives, but values that lie on a continuum."

-"Twenty-Four Hours of Authoritarianism" by Jonathan Chait

[thatstormygeek]

Yesterday, the Proud Boys marched in the nation’s capital for the first time since the insurrection. A few hours later, their leader, Tarrio, was set free.

It is also interesting that Trump’s approach is the mirror image of that taken by Biden Democrats. Joe Biden took office in the wake of an attempted coup, during which Trump supporters attacked the Capitol and many Republican officeholders at the national and state levels attempted to reverse the outcome of the election. And yet, he saw himself as a peacetime president. His response to the violence of the Trump years was an attempt to win the support of Trump’s voters by shoveling money into their districts to build infrastructure and create jobs. It did not work. To take just one example among many, Jonathan Chait notes that Lordstown, Ohio, saw the closure of its GM plant in 2019 under Trump. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act brought a massive new factory to Lordstown, along with 2,200 new jobs. The result: Trump gained voteshare in Lordstown in 2024. And even in the midst of this failure, the Democratic response has been to embark on more soul-searching as to how they might please Trump voters in order to woo them. To the extent that Biden Democrats villainized anyone, it was MAGA Republican officeholders, whom they attempted to distinguish as a separate class from normal elected Republicans. Biden Democrats viewed these “normal” elected Republicans as governing partners and Republican voters as friends they just hadn’t met yet. Donald Trump’s theory is the opposite. He sees himself as a wartime president and believes that Democratic voters should not be bargained with or bribed, but intimidated, punished, subdued—and rendered unable to oppose him in his quest for total power. It’s a novel theory of the presidency. It might even work.

[marta-bee]

News of the Day 3/17/25: Deportation, Fascist Style

Paywall go bye-bye.

I promise one of these days I'll get back to just sharing links with less diatribe. Not today, apparently. This matters, and I have Thoughts.

If you've been following along with the news about Mahmoud Khalil and feeling vaguely uncomfortable, I'm actually a bit proud of you. Not that you need the approval of a stranger on the internet. But it means you're facing up to conflicting political impulses and you're trying to balance them, not go all gung-ho but see a bit of nuance. That can be uncomfortable, but it's also a sign of maturity and growth. (If you're not conflicted, that's fine too, you may just not feel those conflicting impulses. We all run into this problem in different ways on different issues.

If you're not familiar, Khalil was one of the student leaders in the Columbia University's pro-Gaza (& yes, in some but not all cases, probably pro-Hamas) protests. He was on a student visa at the time, now on a green card after marrying an American. He's made some pretty upsetting pro-Hamas remarks, and I can see why Jewish students would find the atmosphere he and his group created hostile.

Which isn't to say they shouldn't be permitted at the school. It's also not to say Jewish students don't have a point when this is a residential campus and the school they have a right to feel safe at, too. Those are balancing acts; that's why they're hard. But part of being an American means we don't have the state deport people because they say hard things, certainly not in this bluntly chilling way. That's not who we are, or if it is, it's not who we should want to be.

I encourage you to read what Mona said above. Watch the video of how he was detained. And think about if this is really the kind of thing we want happening to American residents, whether we like hem or not.

For counterpoint: the LA Times argued Khalil violated the terms of his visa so could be rightfully deported (X), and Sec. State Rubio himself explained why foreign student protesters should be deported here (VIDEO), starting around 1:23.

More on Khalil’s case:

The Guardian: “Mahmoud Khalil’s case is setting up an epic first amendment battle with Trump.”

The US DOJ is also investigating if Columbia University hid other students sought by the US government.

A Columbia graduate who was a student journalist during the protests describes Khalil’s case. (X)

‘Rules aren’t clear anymore’: Trump crackdown on student protesters sends shock waves across US universities. (X)

And anti-semitism investigations on campuses generally:

Trump administration demands extreme control over Columbia policies to restore cancelled funding.

In response, Columbia U. revokes degrees, suspends and expels students involved in Hamilton Hall protests. (X)

Sec. Ed McMahon warned 60 colleges that they could face penalties from ongoing investigations into anti-semitism on their campuses. (X)

A well-connected NYU parent is trying to get students deported from that school over anti-semitism. (X) This is an older story from February, but still relevant IMO.

Trump admin focus on campus anti-Semitism is a pretext, argues Jonathan Chait. (X)

Columbia University faculty are divided on how to handle Trump funding cuts and protests to Trump administration.(X) Interestingly though not surprisingly, humanities and social science faculty are in favor of continued resistance, while lab science faculty more reliant on government funding want to find ways to cooperate with the Trump administration.

Trump says pressure on Columbia is only the beginning for college campuses. (X) The tagline sums it up: “The president has launched a campaign to remove noncitizens who protested against Israel — and bend university administrators to his will.”

More on deportations under Trump:

Trump had promised to open massive immigration detention center on Guantanamo Bay. Trump recently closed the deportation facility, after his admin spent $16mil to transport and house a small number of detained immigrants.

Trump resumed family detention for immigrants awaiting deportation.

He’s also considering using the 1798 Alien Enemeies Act to deport people more quickly, without due process. (X) The Guardian has a good explainer of what the bill does.

A federal judge blocked Trump's use of the law, (X) but Trump deported them anyway. Because of the timing of when the plane took off, it’s unclear if he actually violated the actual order, though he certainly did for the judge’s verbal instructions in court.

ICE deported a mixed-status Hispanic family as they try to access medical treatment for their daughter's cancer. (X)

Congress forced mayors of so-called sanctuary cities to appear before a hearing. Quelle surprise! "Congressional hearing on 'sanctuary cities' filled with half-truths, exaggerations".

Trump wants to use IRS to track down immigrants. It could stop them from paying taxes.

Republican legislation would block Chinese nationals from studying in the US, over espionage concerns.

Trump administration considers new travel ban that could hit 43 nations. (X)

Trump administration had previously ordered non-citizens to register with the federal government. Now a US Rep. is introducing a bill to repeal the WW2-era law enabling the registry, pointing to its connection to Japanese internment camps during WW2. (X)

Trump administration also launches a large ad campaign encouraging undocumented people to self-deport, and launches an app to track how many are leaving. (X)

Things are also heating up at the border:

3,000 US troops ordered to Mexican border, to prevent illegal crossings.

Pentagon to deploy Stryker brigades, aviation batallion to patrol the US-Mexico border. (X)

Trump's freeze on funding for resettling recent immigrants leaves new refugees scrambling to adjust in the U.S. For instance, Lutheran Services in Iowa is shutting down their operations and firing 30 workers next month, because of the Trump administration's failure to release grant money. (X)

Blocked from entering US by Trump's policies, migrants at US-Mexico border return to home countries. (X)

And taking a longer view: 

"I study refugees, and here are the facts on the history and impact of refugee resettlement in the US ."

Census data: big cities are growing in population for the first time since COVID, thanks to immigration. (X)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Judd Legum at Popular Information:

Donald Trump, the former president and current Republican nominee, is now a convicted felon. In the aftermath of the verdict, Trump predictably complained that the trial was "rigged." This was not particularly surprising. Trump has also claimed the 2020 election, federal employment statistics, election polls, the January 6 Committee, the media, social media companies, search results, his impeachment hearing, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Emmys were "rigged."  But, in the aftermath of the verdict, some pundits and politicians have advanced numerous arguments suggesting that Trump's convictions were illegitimate, unfair, or inconsequential. Today's Popular Information critically examines each of these arguments.  

The charges against Trump were "obscure" and "nearly entirely unprecedented."

One of the most common criticisms of Trump's felony convictions is the convictions are illegitimate because similar charges have not been brought against others. Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor and current CNN commentator, argued in a column that prosecutors "contorted the law in an unprecedented manner in their quest to snare their prey."  As Honig acknowledges, at the most basic level, this is not true. Trump was convicted of falsifying business records in the first degree. That charge, which is a felony, involves falsifying the records with the intent to commit or conceal another crime. A March 2023 analysis by Just Security found that prosecuting the falsification of business records in the first degree is "commonplace" in the New York District Attorney's office and used "to hold to account a breadth of criminal behavior from the more petty and simple to the more serious and highly organized." The analysis summarized the dozens of similar prosecutions in a 24-page document. 

[...]

The charges against Trump were not important

In New York Magazine, Jonathan Chait argued that Trump's convictions "did not represent his worst crimes" and that the charges themselves were "marginal." Similar arguments have been made by many other commentators.  The charges against Trump stemmed from a conspiracy to conceal information from the public in the critical days before the 2016 election. Especially after the leak of the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump brags about sexually assaulting women, Trump's moral character was at issue. News that he had allegedly had an affair with an adult film star would have been a major story. At a minimum, it would have diverted attention from Hillary Clinton's email usage, which dominated coverage in the closing days of the campaign. It's unclear how much of an impact Stormy Daniels story would have had on the electorate. But it wouldn't have had to do much to change the course of history. A shift of 80,000 votes across a handful of states would have tipped the balance to Hillary Clinton. 

[...]

There was nothing unlawful about how Trump tried to influence the election

Brad Smith, a former FEC commissioner, argued that the payments to Daniels did not violate federal campaign finance law because the money could be considered a personal expense, not a campaign expense. In making this argument, he ignores testimony from former AMI CEO David Pecker that there was an agreement to make these kinds of payments to protect Trump's campaign.  But there is a bigger problem with Smith's argument. The prosecution did not just argue that the payments to Daniels violated campaign finance law. They also argued that the money paid to former Playmate Karen McDougal violated campaign finance law and was part of the same conspiracy. And that money was not paid by Cohen, it was paid by AMI. If this was a personal expense why would it be paid by a corporation and never reimbursed? Smith does not address the payment to McDougal at all.

[...]

The jury was hopelessly biased against Trump

Congressman Nick Langworthy (R-NY) said that Trump was convicted not by a "jury of his peers" but a "jury of adversaries." He said prosecutors "found the venue" where Trump "couldn’t win." Trump was tried in Manhattan because that is where he chose to live at the time. It was also the locus of his crimes.  And there is evidence suggesting that one or more of the jurors was politically conservative. According to the court questionnaires, one of the jurors who was selected said they relied on Truth Social, Trump's own social network, and X, which has taken a sharp rightward turn under Elon Musk, for news. Another juror reported regularly watching Fox News and MSNBC. And according to reporting, one juror said that "he believed Mr. Trump had done some good for the country." Another juror found himself "agreeing with some Trump administration policies and disagreeing with others." A third juror said she appreciated that "President Trump speaks his mind." To avoid conviction, Trump's legal team needed only to convince a single juror. All of the jurors voted to convict Trump on all 34 counts. 

Popular Information has a solid article debunking the right-wing spin on the Trump business records falsification trial verdict that made Donald Trump a 34x convicted felon.

[misfitwashere]

November 21, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

NOV 22

Today, former Florida representative Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration for the office of attorney general. He did so shortly after CNN told him that they were going to report that the House Ethics Committee had been told there were witnesses to yet another sexual encounter between Gaetz and a minor in 2017. There was already evidence that he had sent more than $10,000 to two women who later testified in sexual misconduct investigations. The notes explaining the payments said things like: “Love you,” “Being my friend,” “Being awesome,’ and “flight + extra 4 u.” 

Trump transition spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer told Will Steakin of ABC News that discussions of Gaetz’s payments “are meant to undermine the mandate from the people to reform the Justice Department.” 

Gaetz’s withdrawal turns attention to Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth. As host of the weekend edition of Fox & Friends, Hegseth has no relevant experience to run a crucial United States government department, let alone one that oversees close to 3 million personnel and a budget of more than $800 billion. 

According to Heath Druzin of the Idaho Capital Sun, Hegseth has close ties to an Idaho Christian nationalist church that wants to turn the United States into a theocracy. 

Jonathan Chait of The Atlantic did a deep dive into Hegseth’s recent books and concluded that Hegseth “considers himself to be at war with basically everybody to Trump’s left, and it is by no means clear that he means war metaphorically.” Hegseth’s books suggest he thinks that everything that does not support the MAGA worldview is “Marxist,” including voters choosing Democrats at the voting booth. He calls for the “categorical defeat of the Left” and says that without its “utter annihilation,” “America cannot, and will not, survive.” 

Like Gaetz, Hegseth is facing stories about sexual assault. Yesterday, officials in Monterey, California, released a police report detailing a 2017 sexual assault complaint against Hegseth. The report recounts chilling details of a drunk Hegseth blocking a California woman from leaving a hotel room and then sexually assaulting her. A nurse reported the alleged assault after the woman underwent a rape exam. Hegseth says the encounter was consensual, but he paid the woman a settlement in exchange for a nondisclosure agreement. He was never charged.

Trump’s pick for secretary of education, Linda McMahon, is also short on experience in the field of the department she has been tapped to oversee. She once incorrectly claimed to have a bachelor’s degree in education when she was trying to get a seat on the Connecticut Board of Education and is known primarily for her work building World Wrestling Entertainment. And she, too, has been entangled in a sex abuse scandal. In October, five men filed a lawsuit claiming that she and her husband, Vince McMahon, were aware that former ringside announcer Melvin Phillips was assaulting “ring boys” who were as young as 13.

A spokesperson for the Trump transition said of McMahon’s misrepresented credentials: “These types of politically motivated attacks are the new normal for nominees ready to enact President Trump’s mandate for common sense that an overwhelming majority of Americans supported two weeks ago.”

But Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence makes McMahon look like a prize. As military scholar Tom Nichols points out in The Atlantic, former representative TulsI Gabbard is “stunningly unqualified” to oversee all of America’s intelligence services, including the Central Intelligence Agency. Nichols notes that her constant parroting of Russian talking points and her cozying up to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad make her “a walking Christmas tree of warning lights” for our national security.  

Former Republican governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley suggested that Gabbard is “a Russian, Iranian, Syrian, Chinese sympathizer” who has no place at the head of American intelligence. A Russian state media presenter refers to Gabbard as “our girlfriend” and as a Russian agent.

And then there is Trump’s tapping of Robert Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy has no training in medicine or public health and, in addition to being a prominent critic of the vaccines that have dramatically curtailed disease and death in the U.S., is an outspoken critic of the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health.

There are a number of ways to think about Trump’s appointments. The people he has picked  have so little experience in the fields their departments handle that Erin Burnett of CNN suggested that he is simply choosing them from “central casting”—a favorite phrase of his—to look as he imagines such officials should. Indeed, as Zachary B. Wolf of CNN pointed out, while President Joe Biden vowed to make his Cabinet look like America, Trump’s picks look “exactly like Fox News.” Trump has actually tapped a number of television hosts for different positions. 

That so many of his appointees have histories of sexual misconduct is also striking, and underlines both that they share his determination to dominate others and that they do not think rules and laws apply to them. 

But there is another pattern at work, as well. In a piece he published on November 15 in his “Thinking about…” newsletter, scholar of authoritarianism Timothy Snyder explained that destroying a country requires undermining five key zones: “health, law, administration, defense, and intelligence.” The nominations of Kennedy, Gaetz, Hegseth, and Gabbard, as well as the tapping of billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to run the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to destroy the administration of the government, are, according to Snyder, a “decapitation strike.” 

“Imagine that you are a foreign leader who wishes to destroy the United States,” Snyder writes. “How could you do so? The easiest way would be to get Americans to do the work themselves, to somehow induce Americans to undo their own health, law, administration, defense, and intelligence. From this perspective,” he explains, “Trump's proposed appointments—Kennedy, Jr.; Gaetz; Musk; Ramaswamy; Hegseth; Gabbard—are perfect instruments.  They combine narcissism, incompetence, corruption, sexual incontinence, personal vulnerability, dangerous convictions, and foreign influence as no group before them has done.”

But that destruction of the United States is so far still aspirational. The constant references to Trump’s supposed “mandate” are misleading. He did not win 50% of the vote, meaning that more voters chose someone other than Trump in the 2024 election than voted for him, and even many of his voters appear to have misunderstood his policies. 

According to Jonathan Karl of ABC News, Trump’s loyalists have tried to shore up support for his nominees in the Senate by threatening the Republican senators: "If you are on the wrong side of the vote, you’re buying yourself a primary. That is all. And there’s a guy named Elon Musk who is going to finance it.” 

That threat is a direct assault on the Constitution, which gives to the Senate the power to advise the president on senior appointments and requires their consent to a president’s choices, and one that also hands the U.S. government over to an international billionaire. Forcing a leader’s political party to get into line behind that leader is the first task of an authoritarian, who needs that unified support in order to attack political opponents. 

But, so far, the threat hasn’t worked: it could not save Gaetz in the face of public outcry. 

Almost as soon as Gaetz withdrew his name, Trump presented former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi as his replacement for the attorney general post. In March 2016, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) found that the Trump Foundation illegally donated $25,000 to support Bondi at a time when she was considering joining a lawsuit against Trump University. Her office ultimately decided not to join the lawsuit. 

Bondi defended Trump in his first impeachment trial, during which she was a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel. She supported Trump’s campaign to insist—falsely—that he won the 2020 presidential election. She is also a registered lobbyist for Qatar. 

Meanwhile, Republican perceptions of the economy have changed abruptly. As Philip Bump of the Washington Post notes, since Trump’s election, there’s been a 16-point drop in the percentage of Republicans who say they were doing worse a year ago than they are now. 

While that change is due to Trump’s election, in fact Biden’s policies continue to deliver. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters today that for the second year in a row, the average price of a Thanksgiving dinner has fallen. According to the American Farm Bureau, that price fell 5% this year, with the cost of turkey down 6%. Gasoline to travel for the holiday is also down to its lowest point in more than three years, by about 25 cents per gallon since this time last year, falling to below $3.00 a gallon in almost 30 states. 

Tonight, Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo suggested that Americans should keep scorecards of the country’s economic numbers, “charting where inflation, unemployment and GDP were at the end of Biden’s term and regularly updating it with Trump’s latest numbers.” He noted that “the country is now covered with embryonic factories, businesses, economic redevelopment projects and more courtesy of Joe Biden’s CHIPS act and the Inflation Reduction Act,” and predicted that Trump will claim credit for all Biden accomplished. 

Keeping track would help preserve those projects in the face of threatened Republican cuts and at the same time prevent Trump from being able to claim more credit for his administration than it has earned. 

—

[schraubd]

The Wrong Skills at the Wrong Time

Kathleen Parker is getting pilloried on social media for this column on John Fetterman's relaxed Senate dress codes, and particularly for this passage: As little as I have loved Republicans the past few years, coinciding with the rise of our own little autocrat, at least Donald Trump knows how to dress. I can’t imagine that even he would demean his office or his country by dressing down, as is now the “code” for senators. "Democracy dies in darkness" indeed.  I do have a twinge -- just a twinge -- of sympathy for Parker, however.  Sometime recently (I can't find it), I wrote a post about the misfortune when a given person's particular skills or virtues are not suited to the historical era they live through. At some times we might need the bold charge-ahead fearlessness of a marital warrior; at others, the crafty prudence of a backroom negotiator. It's unfortunate for the person who has all the virtues necessary for the former situation is living in an epoch where the latter is called upon, and vice versa. It's a cosmic unfairness, but not an actual one: history does not owe it to us to bend itself to our talents. But that doesn't mean we can't sympathize with the people caught on the wrong side of history's weave. With respect to Parker, the heat she's taking -- and rightfully so -- is about the profound silliness and tone-deafness to focus on this now. The juxtaposition of a failure to maintain a certain sartorial standard against "our own little autocrat" underscores its own ridiculousness. The thing is, perhaps there was a time when this sort of commentary would be appropriate and make sense. I don't agree with Parker on the merits anyway, but maybe if it were the 1990s there would be valid space for this sort of fashion-commentary to be a part of our political discourse. Or perhaps not. I was pretty contemptuous of the journalists salivating over taking a piece out of "earth-tone" Al Gore, and Jonathan Chait ten years ago delivered the fatal knockout punch to Sally Quinn's dewy reminiscence about the days of Georgetown Dinner Parties solving our all political crises. Maybe politics is always too serious for this sort of commentary to be anything but a juvenile distraction. But if things aren't always too serious, well, they're too serious now. And that means that, sadly for Parker, the skills she brings to the table are just not suited for the moment we're living in. It's unfortunate for her, and again, I do feel for her a little bit. But history is not going to bend to accommodate her on this. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/X0FQEJf

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Hegseth confirmation hearing as a lens for 2026 and beyond.

January 15, 2025

Robert B. Hubbell

The Hegseth confirmation hearing highlights the new strategy Democrats must adopt as a minority opposition party: Every temporary setback is an opportunity to frame the debate for 2026 and 2028.

With the capitulation of Senator Joni Ernst—a sexual abuse survivor and combat veteran—it appears that a nominee credibly accused of sexual abuse who opposes women in combat roles in the military will be confirmed as Secretary of Defense. That setback will sting. We must convert our pain into competitive advantage over every Republican who votes in favor of Hegseth.

Of course, Senator Ernst is not solely responsible for Hegseth’s confirmation; she is merely one of fifty-three Republicans brow-beaten by Trump into swallowing their well-founded opposition to Hegseth. Cowards, each and every one.

History will judge them harshly for condemning the men and women of the US military to service under a Secretary of Defense who is manifestly unfit and morally unqualified to lead the US military. We owe more to the men and women of the military—much more.

We owe them leaders with the experience and skills necessary to lead the world’s largest military into combat.

We owe them leaders who possess sober judgment unclouded by toxic dreams of white nationalism and adolescent notions of video-game masculinity.

We owe them leaders capable of keeping their word, respecting women, tolerating political differences, and empathizing with cultural and social backgrounds that do not map onto white, male, Christian jock.

Most of all, we owe them leaders who can directly answer troubling questions about serious lapses of judgment and character—something that Pete Hegseth failed at miserably on Monday.

When confronted with widely reported, well-sourced accusations of troubling conduct, Hegseth did not deny the accusations; instead, he merely characterized the accusations as “anonymous smears.” To be clear, a truthful accusation can smear a person’s reputation—a self-inflicted wound. Hegseth’s non-answers allow only one interpretation—an acknowledgment that the accusations are grounded in truth.

See Jonathan Chait’s discussion in The Atlantic, Pete Hegseth Declines to Answer (accessible to all):

In one notable exchange, Senator Mark Kelly asked Hegseth to describe a series of allegations about drinking and sexual harassment as either true or false. Hegseth instead robotically replied to each answer, “Anonymous smears,” even after Kelly reminded him that he was specifically asking for an answer of either “True” or “False.” What could explain the nominee’s reluctance to directly state under oath that none of the alleged incidents took place . . . .?

Tom Nichols of The Atlantic explains that the willingness of Republican Senators to support a manifestly unfit candidate inflicts a national security injury on the US. See The Atlantic, The Hegseth Hearing Was a National Embarrassment.

Per Nichols,

[Nomination] hearings are watched closely by friends and foes alike, in order to take the measure of a nominee who might lead the most powerful military in the world and would be a close adviser to the president of the United States. What America and the world saw today was not a serious examination of a serious man. Instead, Republicans on the committee showed that they would rather elevate an unqualified and unfit nominee to a position of immense responsibility than cross Donald Trump, Elon Musk, or the most ardent Republican voters in their home states. America’s allies should be deeply concerned; America’s enemies, meanwhile, are almost certainly laughing in amazement at their unexpected good fortune.

Timothy Snyder summarizes the reasons that Pete Hegseth is disqualified from service as Secretary of Defense. See Timothy Snyder, Thinking About (Substack), Pete Hegseth: The Short Course.

Timothy Snyder writes, in part: 2. Hegseth has zero notion of which other countries might threaten America or how. In his books this is simply not a subject, beyond a few clichés. 3. Hegseth does not believe in alliances. For him, “NATO is a great example of dumb globalism.” 4. Hegseth wants a political army that bans women from combat roles, is purged of "cowardly generals," and is anti-woke.

Finally, if you can stand watching Hegseth refuse to tell the truth, watch this masterful cross-examination of Hegseth by Senator Tim Kaine: Tim Kaine examines Hegseth.

Pete Hegseth’s confirmation will insult the men and women of the US military. And every vote to confirm Hegseth will be a mark of shame and dereliction of duty by Republican Senators. It is time to take names and keep score. The votes for Hegseth should be a point of attack in 2026 and 2028.

Jack Smith’s report, 24 hours later

Jack Smith’s report on Trump's election interference indictment is here: Jack Smith Report | DocumentCloud. Even if you do not read the entire 137-page report, you owe it to yourself to read Jack Smith’s 4-page cover letter to Merrick Garland transmitting the report.

Smith says, in part,

Our work rested upon the fundamental value of our democracy that we exist as "a government of laws, and not of men." John Adams, Novanglus, No. VII at 84 (Mar. 6, 1775). In making decisions as Special Counsel, I considered as a first principle whether our actions would contribute to upholding the rule of law, and acted accordingly. Our committed adherence to the rule of law is why we not only followed Department policies and procedures, but strictly observed legal requirements and dutifully respected the judicial decisions and precedents our prosecutions prompted.

That is also why, in my decision-making, I heeded the imperative that "[n]o man in this country is so high that he is above the law," United States v. Lee, I 06 U.S. 196,220 (1882).

The factual portion of the report focuses on five areas of illegal conduct by Trump:

Pressure on state officials

Fraudulent elector plan

Misuse of official power in DOJ

Pressure on the Vice President

Attack on Capitol by Trump supporters

The factual description of Trump's conduct is only 25 pages long (pages 8 through 33 of the report) and is easily accessible. I encourage you to read the summary of facts for yourself, but you will find them familiar. Most of the facts were revealed in the House January 6 Committee hearings (abbreviated as HSC in the report) and the Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC) investigation, transcripts of which are cited liberally in Smith’s report.

It is important that Smith reiterated his conclusion that there was sufficient evidence to convict Trump, even though that is the standard for indicting Trump. Given that Smith dismissed the indictment, he needed to remove any doubt that the dismissal was caused by anything other than the Supreme Court’s immunity decision.

The release of the first volume of Jack Smith’s report is an unsatisfying but important ending to his investigation. Jack Smith acquitted himself honorably, pursuing the investigation with vigor and dispatch. In the end, he followed the rule of law, even as that law was being invented by the Supreme Court on-the-fly in the middle of Smith’s investigation.

The failure of Merrick Garland’s DOJ to bring Trump to trial will be the subject of intense historical scrutiny. We will have the facts from insiders, soon. The debate about Garland’s responsibility has devolved into a binary argument of “He didn’t do anything for two years” vs. “He opened an investigation into Trump the minute he took office.”

Neither of those opposites fully describes the situation. What we do know is that Trump mounted an attempt to overturn the Constitution. He did so on live television. He had public accomplices. Trump and his accomplices represented an ongoing threat aimed at the heart of democracy. And he began his political comeback in late January 2021, when Speaker Kevin McCarthy made the first pilgrimage of rehabilitation to Mar-a-Lago.

After McCarthy’s meeting in January 2021, Steve Benen (not Steve Bannon) wrote this on the Maddow Blog:

But it's the larger context that matters most: the Republican Party briefly considered a post-Trump future, only to decide it's better off sticking with the defeated, unpopular, scandal-plagued former president who cost the GOP its power and who helped put their lives in danger a few weeks ago. The Associated Press reported overnight, "Republicans appear to be warming toward Trump, fully aware that his supporters are poised to punish anyone who displays disloyalty. With that in mind, party leaders are working to keep Trump in the fold as they focus on retaking the House and Senate in 2022."

By late January 2021, prosecuting Trump was the highest and most urgent priority of the DOJ. The fate of democracy hung in the balance. Trump had attempted a coup and was quickly re-consolidating his position as head of the Republican Party. Having an insurrectionist and coup-plotter as the head of one of the major parties is antithetical to the rule of law and mission of the DOJ.

Only weeks after the January 6 insurrection, Merrick Garland was responsible for marshalling the forces of the DOJ to ensure that Trump was tried and convicted before he could threaten democracy again. Garland failed in that mission. The details matter less than the outcome-determinative failure of Merrick Garland to move with the vigor and dispatch exhibited by Jack Smith.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]