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As They Do

The ongoing fallout of the Dobbs decision, and the way it's made manifest the GOP's extreme and retrogressive anti-abortion priorities, has caused no small amount of soul-searching amongst Republican politicians. We saw, for example, a slew of Arizona Republicans race to disavow their own hand-packed-picked supreme court's decision to resurrect a pre-statehood near-total ban on abortion. Donald Trump also came out and said he opposed a national abortion ban. What should voters make of this about-face? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Why not? Because Republicans are, to be blunt, lying. No matter what they say, no matter what press releases they write, no matter what interviews they give, when push comes to shove, they will absolutely either endorse or acquiesce to the most draconian possible limitations on female reproductive autonomy. That's the full truth. The list of supporting evidence on this is essentially endless, but I'll just give two examples: Exhibit A: Arizona, where the GOP-controlled legislature -- fresh off their oh-so-pained public squirming over the aforementioned state supreme court ruling -- has continued to block legislative efforts to actually, you know, repeal the offending law. Exhibit B: Florida, where Senator Rick Scott rapidly backtracked from his own heresies calling for greater moderation on abortion after that state's supreme court reversed decades-long precedent clear the way for abortion bans by clarifying that of course he'd support even a six-week ban if given the opportunity. These are two among many. I suspect that over the next few months, we will continue to see more Republican rhetoric that gestures at some sort of "moderate" or "compromise" position on abortion, occurring right alongside more extreme tangible implementations of the right's extremist anti-choice agenda (what's going to happen when the Supreme Court permanently allows states to murder pregnant women in defiance of federal law). Even as rhetoric, it's hollow -- the "exceptions" they promise are nugatory or impossible to implement, the "deals" on offer are to impose unwanted bans on blue states while letting red states be as extreme as they desire -- but more than that they're lies. No matter what they say, no matter what they earnestly promise, no matter what soul-searching they might promise, where Republicans are in charge what they will do is push for and defend the most draconian abortion bans they can possibly get away with. There's no lever that will get Republicans to behave differently; no weird trick that can change their minds. Where they have power and hold office, this is what they will do. Our only option is to deprive them of that power. No matter what they say, no matter what they believe, anyone who is taking any steps right now to assist Republicans taking or keeping office is tacitly endorsing extreme abortion bans. There's no way around it. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/CTdAlLR

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What To Make of Trumpist "Genocide Joe" Chants

Yesterday, political observers witnessed the seemingly-odd phenomenon of a bunch of Trump supporters at one of his rallies chanting "genocide Joe" as the former President spoke on current goings-on with Israel, Palestine, and Iran. "Genocide Joe" is a term used generally by pro-Palestinian leftists who think President Biden is complicit in what they deem a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. So why were Trumpists echoing the chant, given the widespread view that Trump would be an even more full-throated and brutal backer of Israeli policies towards Palestinians? First, I'll give the obvious answer and the one that I think is right: Trump and Trumpists relate to "genocide Joe" on no deeper of a level than "this is an anti-Biden chant by people who hate Biden, and which seems to tweak off Biden supporters." There's no substance here, no evidence of some important policy shift. The instinctual "let's go Brandon"-ness of it all, and that alone, is enough to make it appealing to Trumpists whose politics run no deeper than Cleek's Law. That being said, there is something to be said here about the possible injection points of pro-Palestinian politics into the modern conservative movement in general and Trumpism in particular.  There's a superficial consilience, of course, between the claims by more normie libs that the "genocide Joe" leftists are functionally pro-Trump, and the imagery of actual Trump rally-goers adopting the chant. And I also think that the growth of anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian sentiments coming out of the hard right (which comprises, of course, an influential segment of Trump's base) is still being underestimated -- it is a burbling movement that will stay largely under the surface right up until the moment it isn't.  But it's also worth highlighting something more basic: Trump is really impressionable. Like, almost comically so. He is so devoid of substance that his politics are basically that of a Skinner box rat: he just gravitates towards whatever he feels garners him adulation and/or that which feels painful to his enemies. To that end, it's often occurred to me that one could probably exert an unreasonable amount of influence over Trump's political trajectory just by priming him with the right leading interview questions: "The people sure do love you when you do X!" "Isn't it terrible how Biden and the Democrats are doing Y?" Fill in any X and Y, and I'm pretty confident you could elicit public responses from Trump talking about the greatness of X and the horrors of Y.  It's no wonder that Trump heard his adoring fans chant "genocide Joe" and immediately agreed with them: "They’re not wrong, they’re not wrong. He’s done everything wrong." Everything can found in that simple passage: the people who love him are right, Biden's done everything wrong. "Genocide Joe" is being chanted by the people who love him; it is a chant that communicates that Biden is doing wrong; and that's all it takes to earn an endorsement. It's one reason why I think even relatively conservative Jews are idiots if they think Trump is a reliable friend. He's not a reliable friend to anyone, he's far too mercurial for that. And likewise, it does make me think that if the right people manage to whisper the right things into his ear at the right time -- give him the relevant positive feedback loops, make that lizard-brain develop the right set of associations -- one really could see Trump adopt a very different tone on Israel and Palestine than what we've seen so far. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/Hc8i5dr

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West Bank Settler Terrorism Continues Unabated

These stories tend be overshadowed by what's happening in Gaza, but they're still happening with all-too-much regularity: At least one Palestinian has been killed and 10 have been injured in an attack by Israeli settlers in the West Bank village of al-Mughayyir, the official Palestinian news site Wafa reports. Footage shows cars and homes torched, allegedly by the settlers, as the IDF fails to gain control over the situation. The settler raid of the Palestinian village comes amid a manhunt for a 14-year-old Israeli boy who has gone missing from a nearby illegal outpost. Palestinians say the settlers have used live fire against them, in addition to hurling stones, damaging dozens of homes and cars. There's a lot of discussion about when and in what contexts we can use terms from Jewish oppression (e.g., "pogrom") to describe contemporaneous acts of oppression by Israel against Palestinians. I won't wade into that debate directly; all I'll say is "child goes missing and locals respond with a wave of violent attacks on local religious outgroup" is a chapter of history I am familiar with. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/zFyUvhn

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Glass House Cleaning

Anecdotally, the Israeli attack on WFK humanitarian aid workers delivering food in Gaza appears to be a tipping point for some people. On some of the (ostensibly) liberal Zionist forums I frequent, I saw people who just last week were arguing that the entire concept of "proportionality" shouldn't constrain Israel's military response now are shocked and appalled, and they aren't buying Israeli excuses about "maybe we thought a Hamas operative was in the area." Query why this event triggered the shift, but change is change. The JTA has a story on the reaction of various Jewish institutions to the strike. It breaks down pretty much exactly as you'd expect: the liberals being clear-eyed in condemning the killing, the leftists condemning the killing and situating as part of the broader allegation of Israeli genocide, the centrists expressing sadness for the deaths while obscuring responsibility. And then there's ZOA: Morton Klein, the president of the right-wing Zionist Organization of America, said that he did not know about the incident before being informed of it by JTA on Tuesday in the early afternoon. He said, “Now that you’ve made me aware of it, obviously I’m devastated that totally innocent people trying to do humanitarian work have lost their lives, I’m sure unintentionally.” He also said the ultimate responsibility for the aid workers’ death belongs to Hamas. “I blame Hamas. Every single fatality is blamed on Hamas for launching this war,” Klein said. “In any war you’ll have deaths of civilians that are unintentional. In a war, mistakes are made, targets are missed. if one takes the position that one doesn’t go to war if any innocents will be killed, you won’t go to war and Hamas tyrants will win.” I happened to read this right at the same time as I read Bret Stephens' latest column on "the appalling tactics of the 'free Palestine' movement." The thesis of his article is that "the mark of a morally serious movement lies in its determination to weed out its worst members and stamp out its worst ideas"; among his examples of the worst members/worst ideas was the infamous statement by a coalition of Harvard student groups, immediately after October 7, which held "the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence." One notices, of course, that this is exactly -- exactly -- the formulation that Mort Klein adopted vis-a-vis Israel killing the WFK workers: "I blame Hamas. Every single fatality is blamed on Hamas for launching this war." So one might ask if this "member" of the pro-Israel will be weeded out, and if his ideas will be stamped out. As someone who has watched repeated endeavors try and fail to hold ZOA accountable, I can tell you the answer: they're not. Stephens isn't wrong, exactly, when highlighting some of the repellant extremism that sits largely unchallenged in the pro-Palestine movement. But if the mark of a morally serious movement is its determination to weed out one's worst members and worst ideas, the pro-Israel movement is sitting in a terribly fragile glass house. The Israeli attack on humanitarian aid workers is about more than just the seven innocents Israel killed. It is another boulder on the scale of evidence which overwhelmingly suggests that -- "most moral army in the world" protests notwithstanding -- Israel's orientation towards innocent life in this conflict has been one of cavalier indifference at best, malicious destruction at worst. Protestations that "war is hell" and "don't second-guess the generals" are ringing increasingly hollow as against the near-uniform conclusion of media, eyewitness accounts, NGOs, international observers -- you name it. Some may be biased (but then, so are Israeli government figures and their apologists). But people are entitled to draw conclusions from the reality before their eyes. (Oh, and you should read the op-ed Jose Andres published simultaneously in the New York Times and Yedioth Ahronoth). via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/Uvsl8oY

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A Bridge Too Far

Immediately after the Key Bridge collapse, I wrote the following: Congress needs to pass $$ for the Key Bridge rebuild ASAP. The longer it waits, the more likely some insane r-w conspiracy develops about how “bridges are DEI” and suddenly the funds are being tied to burning Pride books or something.  Sigh.  This week, Pennsylvania GOP Representative Dan Meuser slammed President Biden for calling on Congress to fully fund the response to the Baltimore collapse. Meuser insisted it’s “outrageous” that Biden wants to fund repairs in their “entirety,” and even demanded that some of this money must be taken from “ridiculous EV expenditures.” [....] Some GOP lawmakers are already treating future funding of the Baltimore response as a future concession on their part. Representative Jeff Duncan says Congress should not spend “one more dime” of additional infrastructure money before a border wall is built, as if the need for disaster relief can be used to extort Democrats into funding MAGA priorities in return. [....] It gets still worse. Some right-wing media personalities are floating whackjob theories blaming the collision on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, on our supposedly open borders, and other MAGA preoccupations. Some “online influencers” and GOP politicians indulged in trivializing nitwit speculation and targeted Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott and U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg with other assorted hateful smears. Some predictions are too obvious to get credit for nailing. (H/T)  via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/kZ8JNwD

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March Badness

A GOP state legislator in Michigan, Rep. Matt Maddock, saw a bus with too many brown people near at the airport and jumped to the obvious conclusion: "Happening right now. Three busses just loaded up with illegal invaders at Detroit Metro. Anyone have any idea where they’re headed with their police escort?" It was Gonzaga's basketball team, headed to the Sweet 16 round. But don't let facts get in the way of some good racism and red-baiting: Maddock made his false claim in a month during which false and misleading claims about airplane flights involving migrants have proliferated on the political right. Hundreds of social media users quickly disputed Maddock’s post on Wednesday, but Maddock refused to concede. He replied to one of the many people who pointed out the plane and buses were likely for NCAA basketball teams: “Sure kommie. Good talking point.” Maddock continued to dig in on Thursday morning. He wrote a new post saying, “We know this is happening” and that hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants are “pouring into our country.” He added: “Since we can’t trust the #FakeNews to investigate, citizens will. The process of investigating these issues takes time.” Meanwhile, in Idaho the Utah women's basketball team was essentially chased out of the state after they endured repeated racial abuse at the hotel they were staying at in Coeur d'Alene (they switched to a different hotel in Spokane). It's nothing novel to say that athletics (and college athletics in particular) represent a prominent arena where young men and women of color are placed in the (nominally positive) spotlight of predominantly White institutions, and there are a lot of White people who really can't handle that. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/T8tRCn1

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The Looming(?) Haredi Draft

For many years, Israel has effectively exempted Haredi youth from the otherwise universal requirement (for Jews) of IDF service. This has been a serious source of tension and strife in Israeli society -- a rallying point for secular and moderate Jews who view the Haredim as failing to pull their weight, and an absolute bedrock priority for Orthodox parties for whom avoiding military service is their number one policy demand. The blockbuster decision out of the Israeli supreme court you might have read about doesn't quite compel the draft to start, but it does say that Haredim can no longer get their governmental stipends if they don't serve. In practice, the Haredi community is going to view it as the same thing -- an end to the system where they got paid to study Torah instead of serve in the army. I won't claim to be an expert on this issue -- this is where I comment as an "interested amateur" -- but here are some initial thoughts. One immediate way to identify a complete know-nothing hack is if you see anyone saying this ruling demonstrates that the Israeli government is starving for manpower or some other vulgar materialist explanation. The current government, which depends on the support of Orthodox parties for its majority, was and is absolutely dead-set against this ruling. That said, the current war and the strain it's placed on Israel's military capacities has certainly even further elevated this issue's salience amongst the opposition, and that may have helped create a further permission structure for the court to rule as it did. It is entirely possible that this ruling could bring down Bibi's government. The mercurial nature of the Orthodox parties is I think a bit overstated (people are so proud for knowing better than the naive story about the ultra-Orthodox being the primary drivers of Israeli right-wing extremism -- "they've joined left-wing governments before! Shas backed land for peace!" -- that they skip past the ways that this social cadre has genuinely shifted rightward in recent years). But this issue really is the sine qua for the ultra-Orthodox, and if the current government can't secure it, that's going to create a yawning fissure in an already creaky coalition. It might be weird to think of "more militarization" as helping bolster pro-peace impulses in Israel. But we might see some shift in that direction, for at least two reasons.  Number one, in general, if every social sector is sharing the burden of military service, that may put a damper on needless military adventurism. Parties that are happy to risk the bodies of other Israelis to defend settlement outposts may be less willing to do so once their bodies are on the line.  Number two, for the Haredi parties in particular, the only way they might plausibly get their exemptions back is in a world where Israel is less reliant on constant militarization. So that could create some possibility for working relationship with more liberal forces in the state; albeit an "alliance" that will always be on shaky footing. In any event, stay tuned -- this is a big deal. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/qBKeDWI

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End Spoofing

The Portland JCC, which also houses the local Jewish Day School, was swatted today. Elsewhere, the mom of a friend of mine nearly got victimized by a scam where someone used voice-altering software to impersonate her daughter and beg for money after she was "in a car accident". It's no mystery that these sorts of scams seem to be on the rise, and seem to be increasingly sophisticated. And I doubt I'm giving any hot take when I say that these scammers are absolutely, 100%, the lowest of the low. One common tactic in these thugs' repertoire's is "spoofing" -- basically, impersonating another number when they call you, so it shows up on Caller ID as your doctor or the IRS or a customer support center (or just hides the actual number that the person is calling from).  I don't know whether spoofing was involved in either of the above incidents. But I'm increasingly of the mind that we might need to just ban spoofing outright. I'm aware of the legitimate reasons for spoofing. A business wants a call to register as emanating from their main line, not whatever back office is calling you. Or someone working from home still wants to be identified as calling from their company, not their personal cellphone. I even can understand some cases where spoofing may have anti-fraud properties (it lets me know that the call is coming from someone at Aetna, which I may be disinclined to believe if the phone number is the random area code of wherever the nurse went to high school). But at this stage, I just don't see those real benefits as outweighing the costs. It doesn't seem like the phone companies have any real way to distinguish "bad" spoofing from good. And while I don't actually know the mechanics (so what I say next might be entirely wrong), it seems to me that it would be technologically-easier to simply ban the practice outright -- create no mechanism through which phone calls can "identify" themselves as anything but their unique actual phone number -- than to engage in what seems to be a losing game of whack-a-mole. And sure, I know in my heart that this is probably a lot more complicated than I realize (though I do genuinely believe that it's one of those things where, if there was some serious government regulatory muscle behind it, you'd see the telecom providers hop to it). But one of the joys of aging is that I get to cantankerously grumble about problems and just demand they be fixed, and I'm leaning in.  via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/WqlrTzE

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Jewish Protests at Berkeley a Follow Up and Victory Lap

UC-Berkeley Political Science professor Ron Hassner has ended his sleep-in protest, stating that the university administration has agreed to all of his requests. In particular he flagged the following: (1) First, he asked that "all students, even the ones wearing Stars of David, should be free to pass through [Sather Gate] unobstructed. The right of protestors to express their views must be defended. It does not extend to blocking or threatening fellow students." The university has since "posted observers from the Division of Student Affairs to monitor bullying at the gate. These are not the passive yellow-vested security personnel who have stood around Sproul in prior weeks. The Student Affairs representatives are there to actively document bullying, abuse, blocking, or intrusion on personal space." (2) The second request was for the Chancellor to "'uphold this university’s venerable free speech tradition' by inviting back any speaker whose talk has been interrupted or canceled. The chancellor did so gladly and confidently. The speaker who was attacked by a violent mob three weeks ago spoke to an even larger crowd this Monday." (3) The third request was to fund and implement "mandatory Islamophobia and anti-Semitism training on campus". This has also apparently been arranged. I give Ron a lot of credit. First, he's not dunking on the administration here, in fact, he gives them a lot of credit: "It is my belief that campus leaders would have fulfilled all these requests of their own accord even in the absence of my sleep-in.... At best, our sleep-in reinforced the university’s determination to act and accelerated the process somewhat."  Second, it's important to emphasize that Ron's protest did not ask or come close to asking that Berkeley silence anyone else's speech, including that of the protesters at Sather Gate. While they should not be able to obstruct Jewish students seeking to travel to campus, they have the right to present their views as well as anyone. It is not a concession but an acknowledgment of the proper role of the university administration that he did not press for them to end the protests outright. Third, one might notice that Hassner's last demand was for antisemitism and Islamophobia training to be implemented on campus. In recent years, it has become almost cliched to hear certain putative anti-antisemitism warriors express fury whenever the fight against antisemitism is paired with the fight against Islamophobia, racism, or other forms of bigotry. They call it "All Lives Mattering" (although, when these coalitions against hate form and antisemitism isn't included in the collective, they call it "Jews Don't Count"). I've long thought that this was an abuse of the "All Lives Matter" concept, and it is notable that Hassner -- who not only has a ground-level perspective but who is actually putting his money where his mouth is in terms of combatting antisemitism -- doesn't see the pairing as a distraction or diminishment of what he's been fighting for but as an asset. More people could stand to take note. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/JP2DVb9

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Art Maven Roundup

All of the sudden, I've been on an art kick. The below image is a silkscreen I recently purchased from DC-based artist Halim Flowers. Flowers was convicted of felony murder as a juvenile and sentenced to two life terms. He was released after serving 22 years following statutory reforms aimed a juvenile offenders who had received life sentences, and now is showing in galleries around the world. Pictured: "Audacity to Love (IP) (Blue)" by Halim Flowers. The colors are meant to be reminiscent of the Israeli and Palestinian flags (blue and white, and red, white, and green). * * * Trump continues to show his contempt for American Jews, saying any Jew who doesn't support him "hates their religion" (and Israel). An in-depth story about a White supremacist who was elected to city council in Enid, Oklahoma, and the recall campaign to try and remove him. Given the well-covered softness in Biden's support in the Muslim community, it seems suicidal to me for Democrats to give into the repulsive Islamophobic attacks holding up the confirmation of Third Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Adeel Mangi (the story indicates that Biden has remained rock-solid in backing his confirmation, but there may be some misgivings in the Senate Democratic caucus). Writing on the sudden "heterodox" support for revisionist accounts justifying George Floyd's murder, Radley Balko flags what has been obvious for a long time: as much as this cadre likes to bleat about respecting truth, free-thinking, and rationality, it is as if not more beholden to ideologically-convenient narratives at the expense of reality. Pretty much everyone on the internet has been sharing this with their own story of the alt-center blowing past truth in order to push conservative grievance politics; mine was watching them stand in unblinking support of a hit piece on California's Model Ethnic Studies Curriculum even after it was revealed the author completely fabricated the inclusion of a seemingly-damning antisemitic quote. Interesting retrospective on the Israeli Black Panthers in JTA. The Supreme Court's frosty reception to the contention that government officials privately lobbying social media companies to take down misinformation is a First Amendment violation is the latest suggestion that the Court is finally losing patience with the regular drumbeat of insane legal theories emanating out of hyper-conservative Fifth Circuit. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/n6GxwX9

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Jewish Protests at Berkeley

I wrote a few days back about goings-on at Berkeley regarding protests -- which turned destructive -- against an Israeli speaker and a general deterioration of the situation for Berkeley's Jewish community. A few other developments have occurred since then, both of which entail Jews becoming the protesters, rather than the protested. First, my friend and former colleague Ron Hassner has begun a sit-in in his own office, refusing to leave until the Berkeley administration takes action regarding a serious of demands he's made regarding how to address campus antisemitism. Second, a large group of Berkeley Jewish students marched on Sather Gate, where a different group of pro-Palestinian students had been blocking passage as part of their own protest (and reportedly have been haranguing Jewish students in the vicinity). Initially, the plan appeared to be to force a confrontation by attempting to pass through the gate; in the end, the Jewish marchers diverted around the gate, wading across a small creek before reemerging on the other side. I've given a recap before of my own experience at Berkeley, but that was from several years ago and certainly times and circumstances have changed since then. So I won't comment on the actual state of affairs for Jews on campus -- I'm not on the ground, and people like Hassner are. I do think this is an interesting example of Jews adopting what I termed a "protest politic" -- seeking change via the medium of a protest (as opposed to, say, a board resolution, letter to the editor, or political hearings). I wrote in that post that while I personally am averse to protests (not on general political or tactical grounds; it's a temperamental preference), it does seem that acting via protest -- sit-ins, marches, or even disruption -- was a way of marking yourself as being of a particular political class on campus and so a way of being taken seriously. At least on campuses, it seems that certain brands of protest have become the language through which communities communicate that they are part of the circle of progressive concern. We can identify an issue as a "progressive" one by reference to how its advocates perform their demands -- the medium rather than the message. If something is demanded through a sit-in or a march, that's an issue that's in the progressive pantheon. Something that is pressed through a Board of Trustees resolution, not so much. Again, I don't comment on whether these protests are "good", either in their tactical efficacy or their underlying demands. But I do find the adoption of this particular medium, and its comparatively transgressive character, to be an interesting development, and so I wanted to flag it. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/sNMxpjo

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Learning the Right Wrong Lessons

The Biden administration's decision to withdraw from Afghanistan should be viewed as a milestone moment in political courage. Instead, as both Scott Lemieux and Kevin Drum observe, it's probably one of his biggest political millstones. How did this happen? We need to be clear: Afghanistan had become a hopeless quagmire. As Lemieux puts it, we could stay "for six more months" in perpetuity and just slowly bleed more and more, or we could make a decision to leave. Eventually, someone would have to make the decision to leave, and the only question was who would rip off the band-aid. Three different presidents kicked that can down the road for someone else to deal with. It was Biden who finally had the guts to step forward, and he did so knowing he'd take a hit. There was no way withdrawing from Afghanistan was going to be pretty. Losing rarely is. But in the scheme of things, the withdrawal went about as smoothly as reasonably possible. Again, "reasonably possible" -- losing isn't going to be pretty. But all the armchair generals in the world still haven't offered much alternatives aside from "stay for another six months, and another six months after that." See point one. Biden should have earned praise for this call. Instead, he get hit with a brutal one-two punch -- one from the media, which positively excoriated him over the "chaotic" withdrawal; and then from the putatively anti-war left which gave him essentially no credit for the move and certainly showed zero interest in providing substantial political cover for it. Indeed, it is fair to say that the Afghanistan withdrawal was the negative turning point in Biden's poll numbers with the American people. Doing the right thing got him nothing with the left and got him scorn with the right. It can be hard to predict political fallout -- my students are now young enough that I have to emphasize to them that the moral taken from Nader 2000 was absolutely not "Democrats learned that they can't take the left for granted!" -- but even the most dimwitted politician surely will understand what obvious lesson to draw from this story, and it's not a good one. Nice work, team. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/jQRoUbV

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Clown Cars Aren't For Driving They're For Clowning

At the start of the congressional session, I predicted that "endless stunt investigations is all the House GOP will do, because it's all they can agree upon". I'll give myself a pat on the back for that one, as the House -- on its second try -- decided to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for absolutely no discernible reason. It's dead-on-arrival in the Senate, and rightfully so, but we need to reiterate just how pathetic and embarrassing this was. It was embarrassing when it failed the first time, and it's embarrassing that it succeeded the second time. The nominal complaint -- that Mayorkas isn't enforcing border policy to Republicans liking -- is not only not an impeachable offense (except insofar as Republicans believe it's unconstitutional for them to lose elections, which appears to be increasingly their consensus view), but it's doubly-embarrassing to blame Mayorkas for inaction on the border given that congressional Republicans can't even pass their own bill on the border because they think doing so will help Biden in the next election (and because actual policymaking, unlike endless stunt investigations, requires actual position-taking). Republicans dealing with the fact that they are too chaotic and incompetent to even have, let alone enact, an agenda on the issue they say is a Crisis Invasion Destroying America!!1!!1! by impeaching a Democrat is the latest example of the crippling infantilization that has completely overtaken the party. The fiasco did give me a chance to call my Republican congressional representative, Lori Chavez-Deremer (R-OR), and Be Mad At Her, but to by honest my heart wasn't fully in it this time. I genuinely don't understand why Chavez-Deremer even wants to be in Congress at this point. She's not doing anything there -- she's certainly not legislating -- she just mindlessly nods along with whatever ridiculous circus show her more creative MAGA colleagues decide to put forward in any given week. One would think she could do the same thing much more remuneratively as a talk radio host, and with any luck after the next election she'll get that opportunity.  [Image: NYT] via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/RGlWn8f

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Blamed for Surviving

A new book tells the gripping story about a Polish Jew and brilliant mathematician who, during the Holocaust, pretended to be a member of the Polish nobility to survive the Nazi occupation. Janina Spinner Mehlberg's deception actually ran two layers deep: she worked for a Polish welfare organization during the war, while secretly being a member of the Polish Underground -- but in the Polish Underground, she maintained her cover as a Catholic "Countess" in order to hide her Jewish identity from her fellow resistors. There's much that could be said about this story, not the least the lengthy period where publishers ignored it out of a general disinterest in hearing survivor narratives. But I want to focus on something slightly different.  In her "public" role during the war, Mehlberg regularly worked with the Nazi occupiers, negotiating for more food or resources to enter the work camps by arguing that it would serve the interests of the German war machine (non-starving workers could replace German men sent to the front, for instance). Even this at best indirectly benefited Jewish inmates, who were typically slated for direct extermination -- the hope was that some of these provisions would end up reaching the entirety of the camps and so improve the survivability for Jews as well as ethnic Poles. Mehlberg, in short, may not have saved any Jews at all. And her "arguments" were ones expressly framed around aiding the Nazi's military ambitions. Yet I cannot imagine anyone reading her story and not thinking she acting bravely and heroically. This is why, whenever I see some soulless cretin on the internet running the "Zionists collaborated with Nazis" narrative, with a smirk and a sanctimonious "see how evil they are and always have been!", I positively radiate with fury. In the most horrifying circumstances imaginable, yes, Jews were forced to negotiate with Nazis -- and negotiate from positions of weakness and supplication. The "deals" we got obviously were not good ones, but that didn't make them any less necessary. To treat this as cowardice or betrayal is not just to miss the point, it is to act with an almost impossible cruelty towards the survivors and the Jewish community writ large placed in truly impossible circumstances. It blames survivors for surviving, and trying to help others survive as well. Even if I thought, with the benefit of hindsight and comfortable distance, that the deals were objectively "bad" (and I make no such claim), I would still never dare indict those who made them. I cannot imagine having the hubris or the heartlessness to do otherwise. I do not judge Mehlberg for doing what it took to survive. I do not judge her for trying her best, in the best way she could, to save innocent lives. It was not her who placed her in those circumstances. Anyone who tries to make her, or those in analogous circumstances, into a villain, is beneath contempt. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/KXDZVcW

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Super Birthday

It's a big day today -- it's my birthday! We're having a bunch of friends over to our house to celebrate my birthday and for no other reason (there may some light entertainment on in the background). I saw a comic describe herself as in her "early-mid-to-late-thirties", and boy is that a mood. Hope you all have a wonderful day, however you spend it. And may 2024 be a peaceful, productive, just, and thriving year for all. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/R6Fy8xk

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Australian Police: They Were Saying "Boo-Urns"

One of the more shocking incidents witnessed in anti-Israel protests that occurred immediately following Hamas' October 7 attack was the allegation that marchers in Sydney chanted "gas the Jews". But while several witnesses testified to hearing the chant, local police have now determined that they do not believe those were the words that were spoken. Now, before I tell you what the police concluded was the chant actually deployed that day, I want to share a couple of reactions to this finding: The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils called for prosecutions of those who disseminated "false claims" that had unfairly vilified Palestinians and Muslims and harmed the "delicate fabric" of social cohesion. [....]  Protest organiser Palestine Action Group, which long maintained the "gas" chant was never uttered, called for widespread media retractions.  Spokesman Josh Lees suggested the wrongly captioned video was designed to damage the movement, pointing to "a long history of false claims of anti-Semitism used to silence critics of the state of Israel". Strong stuff! Now here's what the police concluded was being chanted: They "concluded with overwhelming certainty that the words used were, 'Where's the Jews?'" Deputy Commissioner Mal Lanyon said on Friday. Ohhhh. It was only "where's the Jews?"! I can see why the organizers are demanding an apology -- it's getting to the point where an angry mob can't demand to know where the Jews are without someone saying that's antisemitic (rolls eyes). The only offensive thing I see here is the poor grammar! For what it's worth, the umbrella Australian Jewish Association stands by its initial conclusion that the chant was indeed "gas the Jews." via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/Kie7UQ2

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"I Dressed Like a Crazy Pharoah for You Man!" (Azerbaijan Edition)

Azerbaijan is holding a Potemkin presidential election tomorrow. But what makes this one especially outstanding is that not only did the authoritarian incumbent put a bunch of fake "opposition" parties on the ballot, he's also having them release deliberately idiotic policy proposals so he looks better by comparison (h/t). The "opposition" candidates have brought some color to the election campaign by mooting a number of unlikely policy proposals: renaming the country the North Azerbaijan Republic, a nod to nationalist discourse that dreams of a greater Azerbaijan, including the ethnic Azerbaijani minority regions of Iran; formally claiming Armenia's Syunik Province as Azerbaijani; or sending Azerbaijani troops to support Russian forces in Syria. "They want to talk about all these stupid ideas in order to show that Aliyev is better [and] that these are the only alternatives," Open Azerbaijan's [Zohrab] Ismayil said.  Wasn't this a plotline on Community? The presidential "debate" was equally farcical: At a debate held before Azerbaijan's February 7 presidential election, the viewer could be forgiven for not being sure who was supporting the incumbent and who represented the opposition. "President Ilham Aliyev has kept his word and fulfilled every promise he has made," said one candidate, Fuad Aliyev (no relation to the president), at the January 15 public television debate. Another candidate, Zahid Oruc, argued that great Azerbaijani statesmen throughout history would all have voted for Aliyev. The president himself did not appear at the debate but sent an emissary, Tahir Budagov, to absorb some of the flattery. "Dear Mr. Tahir, do you know the strengths of the candidate you represent?" Razi Nurullayev, the head of the National Front Party, asked Budagov. "For years, our party has stated that we will liberate Karabakh and restore the integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan, but your candidate has done it," Nurullayev said, referring to Azerbaijan's recapture of the ethnic Armenian-dominated region of Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023. One almost has to respect the commitment to bootlicking. Almost.  via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/zuXplBM