Making the Grade Roundup

It's grading season at Lewis & Clark. I have the entire 1L day class this semester across two sections of Con Law I, so it's a bit of a bear. But I'm almost halfway done!

You get a roundup.

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As a professor, I cannot fathom the hubris it takes to see one of your papers rejected from a journal -- the most normal possible experience for an academic -- and decide to parlay it into an entire New York Times column decrying "wokeness".

Florida is set to legalize kidnapping trans children from their families. But don't worry -- they'll only do it if the families love their kids and provide them with healthcare. Family courts in other states better start boning up on asylum law, because the phrase "well-founded fear of persecution" is going to become increasingly germane in cases where there's a possibility of the child being sent to Florida.

Local elections in the UK are seeing the Tories getting absolutely stomped. Over a thousand seats lost by the party, most of which are going to Labour and a healthy chunk of which are going to the LibDems and Greens. It's amazing what Labour can do when it isn't being led by a wildly unpopular antisemitic extremist!

Princeton under fire for hiring prominent BDS activist to a fellowship position. The twist? The activist is a member of the Israeli far-right. But the BDS thing is real -- he supported a divestment campaign against Ben Gurion University in retaliation for its allegedly "anti-Zionist" tilt.

The UAW has new leadership (I had half an eyeball on this, since I technically was a UAW member in my capacity as a UC-Berkeley graduate student instructor), and they're playing hardball against the Biden administration demanding compensation for how new electric vehicles may reduce the number of autoworker jobs.

One or the Other

From a Baltimore Sun article detailing how "red light cameras" are pissing off cops, who no longer can escape speeding tickets through "professional courtesy" (they also argue that the cameras sometimes catch on-duty cops who have a reason to speed but also a reason not to turn on their siren -- for example, arriving at a burglary where they don't want to alert the criminal to their imminent arrival):

Some officers appear to have come up with creative ways to stay red-light-camera-shy. Last year, city police accused two officers of putting stolen license plates on their unmarked cars. The investigation continues, but police sources said at the time that the officers either wanted to prevent drug dealers from recognizing their cars or wanted to avoid getting tickets from the cameras.

Those two possibilities do seem to capture the poles of potential justifiability, don't they?

WIP Talk Goes Car Talk

Douglas Baird presents "Car Trouble" -- how the Chrysler and GM bankruptcy fit into the broader state of bankruptcy law.

Rush Limbaugh Reads Naomi Klein!

Rush Limbaugh raises the specter of boycotting GM because it is now owned by the government (and thus, the Obama administration). Not being a fan of boycotts in general, I'm not a fan of this one specifically, though I am curious why a boycott of American government-owned corporations would be less justified than a boycott of Israel (obviously Limbaugh's reasons aren't particularly strong, but would a similar boycott with more left-friendly motives pass muster?).

But let's put that aside, and instead parse this bit:

Limbaugh reassures any GM workers who might be listening that the boycotters aren't angry at them. "They don't want to patronize Obama. They don't want to do anything to make Obama's policies work!" he explains. "This is an untold story, by the way. Of course, the government-controlled media is not gonna report anything like this but there are a lot of people who are not going to buy from Chrysler or General Motors as long as it is perceived Barack Obama is running it, because people do not want his policy to work here because this is antithetical to the American economic way of life."

Klein, of course, likewise claimed that her boycott was targeted at the policies, not the people, which presumably is supposed to shield her from their ire and insure it is instead directed at the proper source. Now, raise your hand if you doubt GM workers are really going to care one flying fig that Limbaugh says he doesn't harbor any ill-will towards them, when it is their jobs that will be lost and their families who will suffer, and blame the Obama administration instead. Okay great. Now, anybody who thinks Israeli families will think differently, lower your hands. Everybody's hands should still be up.

Via Balloon Juice

The Beast

Dude, I got to score me a piece of that ride.

Delaying the Inevitable is a Good Thing

Publius lays out an interesting argument for the auto bailout. Even if the bailout is destined to fail, even if the companies don't deserve it, even if we won't see a penny of the loan ever again, even if all it does is forestall the inevitable collapse of General Motors -- it still might be worth it. Why? Because the companies won't fail now. And now, in the middle of a major economic crisis, is not a time to let a major sector of our economy sink like Atlantis.

If the Big Three go under right now, given all the other economic strains, I genuinely worry that Michigan is going to turn into some sort of hell hole -- like sub-Saharan Africa or Iceland. Of course, the counter argument is that there is never a "good" time for huge employers to fail dramatically, so you might as well suck it up and get it over with. But, granting that statement as true, I can still say that some times are probably worse than others, and now certainly qualifies as a worse time.

That's New

I just got a push poll from, I believe, Ford Motor, asking whether I support the bailout (after regaling me with statistics about lost jobs and general hellfire and doom).

I told them I'm undecided. Which is true.

And Another Thing

Responding to Tom Friedman's column explaining why a gas tax holiday makes no sense, John McCain remarks:

Appearing on CNN's "American Morning," McCain noted his respect for the Pulitzer winner but said Americans deserve "just a little break this summer."

But then he went further.

"And I understand in New York City that you don't really drive a long way most of the time," McCain said. "But -- and then maybe you're chauffeured."

But McCain can't even get his digs right. Friedman doesn't live in New York City, he lives in Bethesda, Maryland (a DC suburb), and, as the article notes, drives a hybrid.

In the meantime, John Chait gives four reasons why Obama's refusal to pander on the gas tax holiday, and, of course, every economist in the world agrees with Friedman and thinks McCain is wrong here.

Drive In

Saudi Arabia is set to drop its ban on women driving in the Kingdom, in response to increasingly strident protests by women's rights activists. The effort is seen as an attempt to forestall growing unrest among the female population -- and as far as that hope goes, I hope the government fails dramatically. Still, this a big step forward, and I hope that the local Arab activists who took the lead in getting this reform enacted keep up the pressure.

Via Feministing

Vehicular Misogyny

...I love Garance Franke-Ruta.

[T]he gas pedal appears to be positioned for a male foot or else a giantess. Another 500 miles on, I finally solved the problem. It’s very simple, really. The Mustang is designed to be driven by women in heels. That’s the only way to properly maintain a high speed while avoiding foot cramps.

Truly, the perfect American car.

It is rather difficult to think of something more red-blooded American than a red Mustang, driven fast, in high heels.

The Legions of Hell Storm Detroit

Yet another victory for the forces of Darkness: Cerberus Takes Control of Chrysler.

It's especially good because reading out loud, it almost sounds like "Cerberus takes control of Christ."

Satan, 1, Holy Spirit, 0. Game on!