Why I Feel Bad Roundup

Are you watching "I Feel Bad"? I'm excited for it -- not the least because it features British-Indian-Israeli-Jewish actor Brian George. The conceit of the show is Sarayu Blue's character going through all the things in her daily life that make her feel bad (like "I'm turning into my mother"). So in honor of that, here are some of things in my life making me feel bad!

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If the Ben Wittes who wrote that bracing Atlantic article explaining why, even though he knows and respects Brett Kavanaugh, he couldn't vote to confirm him was possessed by a demon, he'd have written this Eli Steinberg article on why, despite (in the very barest possible sense) "believing" Ford he still thinks the only way to "return to normal" and "get[] politics out of the pursuit of justice" is to vote to confirm.

Iran's Supreme Leader uses clips of Aly Raisman, among others, to argue that if women dressed more modestly (namely, wore a hijab) they wouldn't be sexually assaulted. That sound you hear is Raisman preparing to break another world record, this time for longest and loudest continuous cussing out of a single human being.

The Canary Mission -- the "pro-Israel" blacklisting site of (mostly young) people who are too-associated with BDS or Palestinian solidarity politics (read my extended thoughts on them here) has very closely guarded its funding sources. But the Forward found one of the donors -- and it's the San Francisco Jewish Federation. (Why I feel slightly better: the Federation concluded that it's funding guidelines were violated and promised not to allow such donations in the future)

More Canary! Here's a Zionist professor noting that he appears on the Canary blacklist despite opposing BDS, simply because he's also opposed certain proposed legal anti-BDS countermeasures (I wonder if I'm on there too?).

An American student of Palestinian ancestry was blocked from entering Israel to study at Hebrew University. Shades of the Michigan letter of recommendation case, except obviously 98% of people are scrambling to invert their position 180 degrees. Oh, and the Israeli ministry that excluded the student (who obtained a visa from the American Israeli consulate in Miami)? It apparently relied on reporting from ... you guessed it: Canary!

Jonathan Cohn reports on one of those annoying political realities that makes academics' and wonks' heads hurt: Bernie Sanders' "Stop BEZOS" bill was both utterly idiotic as policy, and yet likely responsible (in substantial part, at least) for Amazon's announced $15 minimum wage. It's not just "bad policy = good politics". It's that "promoting bad policies is good politics that sometimes can grease the path to good policies"! For anyone who cares both about good political and policy outcomes and really doesn't want to be a hack, that's a recipe for a big ol' frown-y face.

And They Never Saw a Latte Again

Some folks are buzzing about the fact that Conde Nast is ending its internship program after being sued for not paying its workers. This has led to some gloating from libertarian sorts, who are elated to inform us that when government forbids for-profit employees from working for free (or for pennies), sometimes the opportunity to work at starvation wages goes away!

Color me unconvinced. I'm truly unconvinced that nobody at Conde Nast will now be doing ... whatever it is that the interns did that allegedly kept them in the office 12 hours at day at $12 a day. The difference is now the person (a) won't be called an "intern" and (b) will get something approximating an entry-level worker's salary. This is not a bad thing. Indeed, it is kind of the point. Whatever wonderful experiences one gets by being one's own Devil Wears Prada extra is now available to people who actually need their jobs to pay money.

Triple Play

I know anti-FRC blogging is like a bad drug habit, but I just can't kick. They are just so unbelievably hackish it manages to make my blood boil. Today's daily update by leader Tony Perkins is a perfect example.

The first item is an attack on Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, which they illustrate via someone holding a match to the constitution. Even if the Akaka Bill is a bad idea, I fail to see (and the FRC doesn't even purport to explain) what it has to do with the FRC's broader agenda -- except insofar as that agenda is "harass liberals," which, to be fair, is the only unifying thread I've ever seen in the FRC's work.

This is aptly demonstrated in the second item, which is a rant about Charlie Rangel's tax reform bill. What is breath-taking here is the perfidy with language. Rangel's bill would "increase taxes" on many "married couples" (what a meaningless phrase -- Bill and Melinda Gates are a "married couple"), but it would "increase welfare payments through the earned income credit," something you may know as the "Earned Income Tax Credit", but while the FRC can't stand policies that actually help working families, they wouldn't be caught dead opposing a tax cut, so hence we have our little omission. Perkins concludes:

The overall proposal resembles more a Marxist proposal of redistributing income than something worthy of the leaders of the free world. I'd agree with Congressman Rangel that the tax system needs a major overhaul, but more in the direction of simplicity and equality, not of a socialistic labyrinth.

Come on, Tony. Red-baiting is so 1950s.

Finally, the last item tries to diffuse the Democratic Congress' accomplishments writ large (on the occasion of the House's 1,000th roll call vote). Here, at least, some of their problems bear a relationship to the FRC's stated policy aims, such as "presents to the abortion/pro-death community by supporting Planned Parenthood and passing a bill to increase embryonic stem cell experimentation, and gifts to the homosexual lobby by voting on so-called 'hate crimes' legislation," they open the list with neither killing babies nor killing homosexuals, but rather by opposing the minimum wage hike (and here you thought that the anti-Marxism rant was a one-shot deal!). It is, as Perkins puts it, but a "gift to the labor unions." How horrid! The working class gets all the breaks.

If there is a difference between the FRC and the propaganda arm of the RNC, I'm just not seeing it.