Thanksgiving Starts Early Roundup

The law school is already starting to empty out in anticipation of Thanksgiving.

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Martin Luther King, Jr., was no fan of anti-Zionism. While some quotes to this effect have been fabricated, the famous one ("When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You're talking anti-Semitism.") is quite real.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) defends the traditional definition of vegetable.

New Mexico Secretary of State becomes the latest pol to wildly inflate the existence of voter fraud, only to find that it remains a minuscule problem. Unfortunately, rather than conceding error, she just retreats into ever-more ludicrous bluster about how her opponents are "partisan" and how even one instance of fraud is too many. Can't somebody teach conservatives the meaning of efficiency?

The Harvard Law Review's Supreme Court Foreword -- this year by Dan Kahan -- is up. It focuses on motivated cognition as a barrier to "neutral" constitutional decisionmaking, looks very interesting.

Gaddafi helps sow a society-wide ethos of anti-Semitism in Libya. Gaddafi is overthrown. People throw off anti-Semitism? Nope -- people call Gaddafi a Jew. Sigh.

Party of Lincoln!

PPP just did a polling grab bag in Mississippi, but their most interesting question was a hypothetical presidential match-up between Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. Lincoln prevails by a 55/28 margin -- buoyed by a sterling 76/10 showing margin amongst Democrats. Republicans are somewhat less keen to support the founder of their own party against the man who led a treasonous government in defense of slavery, giving Lincoln only a narrow 45/36 plurality (independents actually split even 44/44). Oddly, this is not paired with any noticeable desire to actually secede -- only 10% of all voters wish to leave the union, 4 points lower than those in Hawaii and Texas (both formerly independent countries).

On the other hand, Mississippi GOP voters have finally cracked 50% support for legal interracial marriage, jumping to 52% from a poll earlier in the year finding only 40% support (overall Mississippi breaks down 60/23 in favor of keeping interracial marriage legal). So things are looking up, albeit slowly.

Progress is Progress

Making a movie out of Ender's Game has always a little like the cinematic version of Duke Nukem Forever -- it has been "in the pipeline" basically for as long as I can remember, without any noticeable progress. On the one hand, DNF did eventually come out; on the other hand, it was apparently terrible. So there's room for optimism and pessimism.

On the optimistic side, apparently the name of the actor playing Ender has been released, which seems like an important first step. On the pessimistic side, the article describes the "game" the children play as "a cross between the Quidditch matches of Harry Potter and the Jedi light saber battles from Star Wars." Umm, only in the sense that it has nothing to do with either. The game is essentially zero-g laser tag, where the laser's actually can freeze you in place. Nothing like Quidditch, nothing like light sabers.

AZ Sup. Ct. Reinstates Redistricting Chair

I mentioned earlier that Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) had threatened to impeach Colleen Mathis, the chair of the state's independent redistricting committee, nominally for relatively non-specified malfeasance, in reality because the commission produced a map that was "only" slanted 4-2 in favor of Republican safe seats over Democratic ones (with another 3 seats competitive). Well, she followed through with their threat and the Republican-controlled state senate impeached Mathis. Mathis and the commissioned then sued, and today the Arizona Supreme Court just ordered her reinstated. The order is here, with a fuller opinion to follow.

Like David Nir, I am a bit surprised by this decision -- not because I didn't think the move by the Arizona state senate was a reckless abuse of power (it was), but because I thought this could easily be considered a non-justiciable political question. The Court concluded that it was not (not being particularly knowledgeable about Arizona state law, I have no idea whether they are correct or not), and found that the letter Brewer sent to Mathis spelling out her "allegations" did not rise to the level of offenses warranting impeachment.

A Chink in their Armor

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this seems like it would create a rather severe weakness in the IDF, no?

Israel Defense Forces soldiers should choose death before they remain at army events which include women's singing, a top settler religious leader said in an interview on Thursday.
[...]
[I]n a radio interview on Thursday, Rabbi Levanon criticized a possible ruling that would forbid religious soldiers from leaving events over women's singing, saying that IDF soldier should choose death before complying with such an order.

"[The IDF] is bringing close the day in which rabbis will have to say to soldiers 'you have to leave those events even if there's a firing squad outside, and you'll be shot to death," Levanin said.

I have to say that a soldier who can be driven to suicide by the sound of a woman singing probably isn't that useful to a modern military. Or perhaps Palestinian militants can just replace rockets with boomboxes of Lady Gaga.

Reflecting on the Race Card

In class yesterday, we discussed "the race card" and its counterpart, "the 'race card' card". To say that someone played "the race card" is to say they made an accusation that something or someone is racist maliciously, in bad faith, or (perhaps) with insufficient evidence. "The 'race card' card", then, is complaining that a statement which allegedly makes an accusation of racism is illegitimate or out-of-bounds as a tool for shunting the discussion away from the merits of the claim.

We talked in class about how the fears which undergird the race card were legitimate. Given (a) the widespread belief that racism is deeply, gravely wrong, and (b) the lack of widespread agreement on what racism is, being tagged with the charge of "racist" has the twin properties of being potentially career-ending and extremely unpredictable. I analogized it to how the death penalty was described in Furman v. Georgia -- akin to being struck by lightning. It is no wonder that people are very anxious around the subject. "The 'race card' card" is an attempt to defuse this seemingly dangerous power.

On the other hand, the attempt to silence "the race card" via "the 'race card' card" is severely problematic on its own. Most obviously, questions about whether something is racist or supports racial inequality are really important, and it is a discussion that needs to be had. We can't say we're trying to build the best, most just country America can be while effectively exiling a huge area of moral dispute from critical inquiry. And while there are legitimate reasons why people are wary of that conversations (see above), there are also illegitimate ones -- namely, people content with the status quo who would rather not see it challenged, rightly or not. The potency of "the 'race card' cad" allows them the ability to permanently defer and thus suppress that discussion.

One bit of evidence for the latter effect is that "the 'race card' card" is deployed exceptionally broadly, even in situations where nobody is being called a racist, even in situations where the prospect of racial injustice isn't on the table. I thought of this while reading this analysis of President Obama's recent polling. The poll notes that Obama's approval ratings are quite low amongst Whites (36/61), while still being relatively high amongst non-Whites (67/32). The piece doesn't say "thus, Whites are racist." It doesn't even really say anything about racial justice issues at all. The only normative conclusion it draws is that, in a country that has a lot of White people, losing Whites badly is not a good sign for one's re-election prospect.

And yet, what was the first response that got broadcast on CNN?

Well, Jack, it’s nice to see CNN is still a valued member of the president’s re-election campaign. Let’s just further divide an already divided country by trying to make this about race. The president is in over his head and people are beginning to realize this administration has only made a bad economy worse.

In effect, this is accusing CNN of playing the "race card" for Obama, simply by virtue of the article making note of a demographic split. That is less indicative of someone genuinely worried about being "hit by lightning", and more someone who wants to shut down a discussion before it starts.

My own views on this topic are close to those expressed by Professor Hirsch, encouraging a default towards discussion and a presumption of good faith. That cuts both ways -- we should assume that a person advocating a policy we believe to have racially unjust effects does not consciously harbor malicious thoughts towards the group in question, but we should also assume that the person making the accusation of potential racial problems is doing so honestly and because the legitimately believe there is a problem that needs addressing.

Our Eyes Turn Eastward....

Occupy Judaism bigwig Daniel Sieradski analogizes the eviction of Occupy Wall Street to Jewish exile, noting, of course, that "As Jews we know: Exile is not nearly the end." Yet all I could think of was that, having been exiled, perhaps Occupy Wall Street will share too in the Jewish experience of having many folks believe that exile was just, proper, and should be permanent, and express outrage and fury if Occupy Wall Street ever tries to return to New York or, indeed, exert any sort of political influence whatsoever.

In related news, the JTA has a good piece up on the continued marginalization of anti-Zionist groups as they attempt to hijack Occupy Wall Street for their own agenda. You can sense their frustration: one anti-Israel OWS member was furious that Stuart Appelbaum (president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union and of the Jewish Labor Committee) was coordinating efforts to connect OWS with organized labor, and another complained of how "[v]ocal members of what many know as the 'progressive except Palestine'* demographic take over and obstruct expressions of solidarity with the Palestinians even when the majority in the larger group supports it."

This, of course, is simply self-aggrandizing -- Americans of all political stripes tend to consider themselves supporters of Israel, and the more radical one gets in opposing the Jewish state, the more one's positions tend to approximate those held by, well, about 1% of the population. When the claims are more modest (e.g., supporting the creation of a Palestinian state side-by-side Israel), they maintain much greater support -- but that includes the very mainline Jewish organizations these groups claim to be acting against (like the AJC). It is a bit of a shell game -- redefine radically polarized and fringe positions (like one-stateism, or support for BDS, or belief that the entirety of the present conflict is Israel's fault) as generic "criticism of Israeli policies", and use that to try and claim sweeping popular support. In reality, the third camp still dominates amongst Jews, and is disinclined to support the agendas of, much less be co-opted by, those inhabiting the radical left or right.

Obviously, the entire "99%" mantra is somewhat of a fiction, but OWS has done a decently good job of keeping its focus on issues that are directly related to the massive wealth disparities in this country and the effects that has on equal opportunity and achievement (the metric by which "the 99%" is measured), which carry with them consensus in the movement. There is no such consensus around the notion that Jewish self-determination is a radical injustice, nor is it clear that the 99% are particularly interested in obstructing that project, which diminishes any argument that either OWS or its Jewish subset should feel compelled to step aside on these issues.

* I really do love this term, mostly because I think the same thing about the speakers as they of me. Since we agree on things like "Palestinians deserve a state of their own", my so-called heresies are things like thinking that there should be both a state where Jews are the majority and one where Palestinians are, and that unique (and uniquely strident) opposition to Jewish self-determination (or even wrongs committed by Jewish institution) can be signs of anti-Semitism. In all other cases but Israel/Palestine, they recognize such standard anti-racist tropes like "letting historically marginalized groups define their own experience" and "minority groups can rightfully claim spaces of their own where they're in charge of their own destiny." When the topic turns to Jews, though, that progressive understanding magically evaporates.

New Paper Posted: Post-Racialism and the End of Strict Scrutiny

I've just put a new paper up on SSRN, "Post-Racialism and the End of Strict Scrutiny". The paper is, obviously, still a draft, but of course I'd love to hear your comments if you have time to read it. The abstract is below:

In recent years, a growing social consensus has emerged around the aspiration of a “post-racial” America: one where race is no longer a fault line for social strife or, perhaps, a morally significant trait whatsoever. This ambition, however, lies in tension with the most basic constitutional principle governing our treatment of race in the public sphere: that of “strict scrutiny.” Post-racialism seeks to diminish the salience of race to near-negligibility. The strict scrutiny of racial classifications, by contrast, significantly enhances the salience of race by treating it differently from virtually every other personal attribute or characteristic—including hair or eye color—extant in our society.

This article examines both the emergence of post-racialism and the development of the strict scrutiny doctrine in an attempt to resolve the underlying conflict. It concludes that the motivator behind both post-racialism and strict scrutiny is to remove the fear that race carries with it as a concept—fear that it any time race appears in our society it necessarily is the harbinger of ethnic strife or the resurrection of Jim Crow. The model for race should follow that of religion or indigenous status. In both cases, the identity axis has been the subject of severe conflict and oppression. Yet the effort to get “beyond” religion or indigeneity does not focus on, or even countenance, permanent suppression of these identities. Rather it seeks to remove the fear that when we do use these elements of our identity, we are necessarily inviting catastrophe.

As the saying goes, "download it while it's hot!"

Problem Solved

When Hillary Clinton was cropped out of a photo in an orthodox Jewish newspaper, I tweeted the following:

Problem: Hasidic men cant see pics of women w/out it being "sexually suggestive". Solution: Dont let Hasidic men read newspapers #thatwaseasy

As Haredi influence in Israel is growing, they're beginning to press such reactionary gender norms on the entirety of Israeli society. It is a huge problem, and quite scary actually, to see Israel starting to degrade from its pole position in terms of protecting liberal egalitarian values (on a different topic, see also).

Jewlicious just launched a "women's voice" movement, which encourages women in Israel to sing and hum in public, directly as a challenge to Orthodox groups who wish to see them (literally) silenced. And while I sign onto that project (the women's project, not the Orthodox silencing one), I'd add what I wrote in the comments over there, to wit:

If the problem is that Orthodox Jewish men can't hear or see women without being plagued by impure thoughts, then the solution is that Orthodox Jewish men shouldn't be allowed to leave the house.

Problem solved.

UPDATE: And now the problem is crossing over to the IDF, where members of the military's old guard are urging the Israeli armed forces to check forces that threaten women's equal stance in the military.

My Big Fat Gay Orthodox Jewish Wedding

The very first, in fact, officiated by the first openly gay Orthodox Jewish Rabbi, Steven Greenberg. While gay weddings have been done for some time in the Reform, Reconstructionist, and (more recently) Conservative Jewish communities, this marks a milestone amongst Orthodox Jews.

Congratulations to the happy couple!

Yes, It's Cliched

But I'm as tickled as anyone about the whole 11:11:11 on 11/11/11 thing.

Though it also is one of those "grappling with my mortality" things when I remember that this is the last time something like this will happen in my lifetime (I am pessimistic at my ability to survive to the year 2111 -- though I guess making it to 2:22:22 on 2/22/22 is pretty likely).

Narrow Interests

The Washington Jewish Week has a new piece up on the ongoing skirmishes between the liberal J Street and conservative Emergency Committee for Israel. The story's focus is on the ECI taking credit for reducing the number of congressional signatures on a J Street-backed letter -- even though everyone agrees that the letter is "staunchly pro-Israel". In fact, the ECI hasn't quibbled with the letter's content at all. It simply is wreaking havoc for havoc's sake -- and declaring victory because fewer legislators are putting their names on a document defending Israel's security.

And so a J Street spokesperson replied "It's a sad day when ECI puts narrow partisan interests over Israeli security and calls it a victory." To which I say that's far, far too kind. The ECI's entire raison d'etre is to put narrow partisan interests over Israeli security. I asked some veteran Jewish journalists whether they could think of a single instance where the ECI hadn't done this -- where it had acted to put Israeli security over narrow GOP partisan interests. So far, no response -- but it's a fun parlor game you can play with the whole family.

Of course, it shouldn't surprise us that the ECI's commitment to Israel is so thin. That's what happens when you let the notoriously mercurial Noah Pollak be Executive Director of your allegedly "pro-Israel". What you get is a group that cares a lot about seeing Democratic politicians defeated, and very little about seeing Israel survive and thrive as a secure, Jewish, democratic state.

Another Hajaig-Style Apology

After a speech where she darkly warned about "Jewish money" controlling America, South African official Fatima Hajaig issued an "apology" that somehow managed to be more offensive than the original statement. Its hallmarks included claiming that the statement was only anti-Semitic in the minds of the beholder (alongside the classic I-apologize-if-you-were-offended structure), and spent the vast majority of her time reassuring everyone that she would not be cowed in expressing anti-Israel rhetoric or her belief that the evil hyper-sensitive Jewish Zionists were the real problem in any way, shape, or form.

Union activist Steve Hedley apparently was taking notes. We reported on him for referring to a Jewish interlocutor as a member of the "chosen people", implying in the course of it that this would cause the Jew to feel better than him. Now he's, well, sort of apologized (via TULIP):

The phrase “chosen people” refers to the Jewish people, comes from The Torah and is repeated in The Bible (Deuteronomy 14:2. It has been adopted by right-wing Zionists as a Biblical justification for the seizure of Palestinian land, which they see it as their God-given right. However, I accept that my use of the phrase in the context of the highly inflammatory argument with aggressive and disruptive intruders trying to wreck a public meeting and provoke a reaction, was unwise and I regret using the phrase. I apologise to anyone who may have been offended by this remark.

I have never been, nor will I ever be, anti Jewish, or racist against any nationality or ethnicity. Neither will I refrain from criticising Israeli state policy towards the Palestinian population where that policy is discriminatory, oppressive and racist. I regret that I was provoked into making statements that could be deliberately and maliciously miscontrued by right-wing Zionists who are openly hostile to trade unions, openly consort with the neo-fascist EDL and who wish to smear my reputation and that of my union.

"I'm sorry that I let evildoers provoke me saying into something that they were able to manipulate." My heart just wrenches. It is worth noting that I know of no evidence that "chosenness" is an important or even noticeable part of right-wing Israeli rhetoric justifying seizure of Palestinian land. I'm dubious given the actual religious meaning and pedigree of the term, and suspect that Hedley is simply lying here, but I'm open to evidence to the contrary.

The apology, incidentally, is prefaced by several paragraphs of accusation that paints the victim of his anti-Semitic assault as a consort of the EDL who was there to disrupt the meeting in service of an anti-union agenda, as well as the classic "can't tolerate criticism of Israel charge". You can read the victim's account of the story here, as well as his response to Hedley's faux-apology, which he calls "defamatory".

But Once You Get To Know Her!

SurveyUSA has a new Minnesota poll out, mostly testing the numbers of Amy Klobuchar (D). As expected, she throttles her GOP competition by 30 points or so (and beats several bigger name GOPers who aren't in the race by double-digit margins as well).

The poll also tests Barack Obama, and things are a little tighter there -- he's up 6 over Romney, and 13 over Cain, Perry, and Paul. As for native daughter Michele Bachmann? She's down a whopping 28 points to the President.

Ouch -- that stings.

Only a Select Few Can Be Truly Authentic....

Adam Serwer has some well-deserved fun at The National Review's Victor Davis Hanson's attempt to declare what is and isn't authentically Black (Herman Cain, yes; Barack Obama, no).

Of course, the assumption that it's within Hanson's authority to police whom black people accept as a member of the community is itself a noxious form of paternalism. His argument doesn't actually work if white people don't get to decide for black people what being black means. It is perhaps, the first time ever that someone has argued that being "at ease" with white conservatives is proof of how authentically black you are, but you work with what you got.

The comparison between Cain and Obama isn't so much "volatile" as it is flattering to conservatives who, having latched onto Cain as a racial alibi, an explanation for the fact that the party of Lincoln hasn't broken 20 percent of the black vote since Richard Nixon, desperately need a symbolic figure of racial absolution. The only time conservatives aren't using trite arguments about black authenticity as an explanation for ongoing racial disparities is when they're relying on them to show everyone how well they understand the soul of the Negro. Hanson doesn't bother to explain how it is that the overwhelming majority of black people haven't discerned that Barack Obama is a fraud and that Herman Cain is the second coming of Marcus Garvey, but that's because their "brainwashed" opinions don't actually matter. The sole purpose of establishing Cain's racial authenticity, premised as it is on Hanson's rather limited view of what constitutes "the black experience," is for Hanson to flatter himself and his ideological allies as racially enlightened.

As we know, the relevant locus point for thinking about Blackness in America is a Black politician whose support amongst the Black community hovers around the Planck Constant.

Technical Error Roundup

This one might be a bit more haphazard than most, as it incorporates some election night celebration. As for the title, my laptop had its hard drive replaced, and in the middle of doing so my wireless card somehow snapped. So that has to get fixed too.

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My comment to this post set of a twitter war between myself and the Republican Jewish Committee, centered around my observation that if disliking Bibi means hating Israel, then disliking Obama means hating America. Why do Republicans hate America so much, anyway?

Occupy movement inspires unions to get bolder.

Andre Berto is dropping his belt to pursue a rematch against Victor Ortiz, which may pave the way for a match between Randall Bailey (42-7, 36 KOs) and Carson Jones (32-8-2, 22 KOs) to claim the vacant belt. I like both guys, but I'm a particularly fervent Jones fan, so I approve. Bailey is average at best in all dimensions of the sport save one: concussive, brutal, devastating, one-punch power. So it should be good.

Though Blacks are far more likely to be imprisoned for it, it's White kids who actually are more likely to use drugs.

Mostly a good election night for Team Blue: Maine voters reinstated same-day voter registration, Ohio voters tossed Gov. John Kasich's (R) anti-union law, Mississippi(!) voters decisively rejected a "personhood amendment" that would declare life begins at conception, and won massive victories in most Kentucky statewide races as well as an Iowa State Senate election that preserves their control of the chamber. Also, one of the chief xenophobes in the Arizona State Senate, Senate President Russell Pearce, was successfully recalled by another (more moderate) Republican.

On the negative side, the Virginia state Senate will likely flip by an agonizingly small margin (86 votes in the pivotal race) and Mississippi approved a voter ID law (and elected a new GOP governor -- no shock there).

UPDATE: Another bit of good news: Dems have retaken the Wake County (NC) school board. That's a big deal: Wake County had been one of integration's few true success stories, and the GOP board that swept to power last cycle was looking to undo that.

DC Circuit Upholds ACA

And like the 6th Circuit, it was a high-profile conservative stalwart (actually, two) who took the lead. Judge Brent Kavanaugh found that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case under the Anti-Injunction Act, while Judge Laurence Silberman (joined by Judge Harry Edwards) reached the merits and upheld the act. The opinion is here, with Silberman ultimately declaring that "appellants cannot find real support for their proposed rule in either the text of the Constitution or Supreme Court precedent" (incidentally, only in the legal arena can a panel release opinions totaling 103 pages and declare that they are being "sparing in adding to the production of paper.").

It is worth emphasizing who these judges are. Silberman is a Reagan appointee and Kavanaugh was put on the bench by George W. Bush. Kavanaugh, like Judge Sutton on the Sixth Circuit, is considered a rising star amongst right-wing judges. And with respect to Silberman, there's no "rising" about it -- he's been among the most high-profile conservative judges in the country for decades now (Edwards, for his part, is a liberal stalwart). Perhaps for this reason, Stuart Benjamin expects Judge Silberman's opinion to serve as a template for a majority opinion upholding the ACA from either Justice Scalia or Kennedy.

Kirkland's Back

I thought it was wishful thinking.

A few years ago, James Kirkland was fast becoming one of my favorite fighters. He had impressed me in fights against Eromosele Albert and Brian Vera, and a knockout victory over Columbian slugger Joel Julio had him in line for a break-out fight. But it wasn't just that he won, it was how he did it. Kirkland fought with a raw passion and almost animalistic hunger I have never seen in another contemporary fighter. Some fighters have that look in their eyes like they're there to win a fight. Some fighters have that look that says "I'm going to knock you out". With Kirkland, it was different. His look said "I'm here to inflict pain". It made for a series of brutal, savage, thrilling fights.

Then Kirkland got sent away to prison for a parole violation (possession of a firearm). There are a lot of boxers who are troubled in various ways, but this seemed like a genuine case of just a poor choice -- Kirkland didn't attain the gun surreptitiously or in any context suggesting he had malign intent -- and a lot of folks in the industry backed him up come sentencing.

Still, Kirkland went away to prison, and there was no telling how that might change him. When he got out, he split with long time trainer Ann Wolfe and looked subpar in several comeback performances. Then came the shocker -- a first round knockout loss to unheralded, light-punching Nobuhiro Ishida. It was the sort of outcome that seemed to confirm everyone's worst fears. Kirkland wouldn't be the same after prison. His chin wouldn't hold. His once bright star seemed faded.

Of course, one could try to explain it away. Kirkland just needed to get back together with Wolfe. His chin couldn't be that bad -- after all, he'd beaten some big bangers, such as Julio. But to my ears, as someone who desperately wanted to see the old Kirkland, it rang hollow. You can't train chin. The Ishida loss wasn't on a fluke shot -- Kirkland just looked bad in there.

It felt like wishful thinking.

The match-up against Alfredo Angulo was one that had been on many a fan's wish list before Kirkland went to prison. Both were come-forward brawlers who thrived on pressure and packed a punch. But after Ishida, how much could the fight really promise? Kirkland and Angulo both had pressure and both had power, but only one, it seemed, had a chin. Angulo -- never down as an amateur or a pro -- was known as someone who could take a wallop. It seemed like only a matter of time, and possibly not much of it, before he simply overpowered Kirkland and ended the night.

And at first, it looked exactly like it would follow that script. Both men came out firing at the bell, and the brawl was on. But thirty seconds in, Kirkland was dropped by a rocket right hand that would have ended most men's nights. He beat the count, but proceeded to be on the receiving end of a pounding for the next 1:30, with the referee almost stopping the fight.

Kirkland was barely hanging on, and I was silently pleading Don't stop it. Let me have my war. Kirkland can still come back. There can still be the fight I dreamed of tonight.

With the punches Angulo was landing, it seemed like wishful thinking.

But Angulo finally punches himself out. And Kirkland -- showing incredible recuperative powers -- turned the tables, stunning Angulo and dropping him at the end of the round to even the score. It was the first time Angulo had ever been down, and he was hurt.

Round one was a round of the year candidate. From then on though, the old Kirkland was back.

Angulo was still hurt going into round two, with Kirkland applying monstrous pressure. The fight became a savage affair, but Kirkland's training with Ann Wolfe paid off, as he showed incredible endurance and tenacity as Angulo slowly began to break. After a 10-10 first round, I scored the fight a shutout for Kirkland who -- it must be said -- was still taking plenty of shots that would have been lights-out for many fighters. It was an incredible display.

By round six, Angulo's legs were gone and he had slowed nearly to a crawl. He was showing incredible heart, but it was getting close to the "physical safety" point for him. Finally, trapped against the ropes and eating punches, the referee stepped in. It was a good stoppage, giving James Kirkland a TKO6 victory.

Whenever you turn on the television to watch a boxing match, you dream you'll get to see a fight like this. Most nights, it's just wishful thinking.

Most nights, but not every night. Congratulations, and welcome back, James Kirkland.

Canadian Boxer or Jedi Knight?

I just put this up at Bad Left Hook, but I'll repost here as well (and if you prefer, here it is in Sporcle form):

(1) Bardan Jusik

(2) Janks Trotter

(3) Schiller Hyppolite

(4) Kyle Katarn

(5) Arash Usmanee

(6) Corran Horn

(7) Manolis Plaitis

(8) Ghislain Maduma

(9) Even Piell

(10) Denton Daley

* * *

ANSWERS: (1) JK (2) CB (3) CB (4) JK (5) CB (6) JK (7) CB (8) CB (9) JK (10) CB.

Huntsman Girls, Part II

Ryan Lizza profiles Jon Huntsman's three daughters (@Jon2012Girls). They just seem like really cool, smart, well-adjusted human beings. I like them. The story about the youngest one dating the son of Huntsman's Democratic opponent in the 2004 gubernatorial race is particularly hilarious.

Almost a Point!

Kentucky GOP gubernatorial candidate David Williams, on his way to a truly embarrassing thrashing at the hands of incumbent Democrat Steve Beshear, has decided to take the truly low road, attacking his opponent for participating in a Hindu prayer ceremony at a factory ground-breaking that was bringing desperately needed jobs to the state. The company which owns the factory is based out of India, hence the ceremony, and Williams proceeded to attack the proceedings as "idolatry", "prayers to false gods", and urged Hindus to "come to Jesus".

Now, in the course of all that Williams almost brushes up against a legitimate point. He said that he's a Christian, and thus he would not feel comfortable participating in religious ceremonies of other religions -- be they Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or whatever. I empathize with that: as a Jew, I feel very uncomfortable when asked to partake in Christian religious ceremonies -- though I note that my discomfort in this respect would likely spell the end of any political ambitions I harbor, as I doubt Williams' tolerance extends towards non-Christians who want the option to opt-out of Christian ceremonies (a confidence I'd have even without Williams oh-so-stereotypical foray into "isn't it time that someone stood up for (Christians) for a change?" victimology). But sure, in abstract, I think it is perfectly legitimate for Williams not to want to engage in religious ceremonies of non-Christian religions.

The problem is that obviously, Williams' objection goes not to his own (dis)comfort level, but that Beshear didn't share it -- and more specifically, that he didn't share the proper degree of revulsion to that strange religion practiced by those foreigners over yonder. The overall tenor was of rank religious bigotry; the sad flailing attacks of a man who is already on his way to a humiliating defeat.

Israel as Political Issue, Part II

Given his position he has to be more delicate about it, but I think the AJC's David Harris' clarification of using Israel as a "wedge issue" is roughly in line with how I described it.

The examples Harris gives are not of honest disagreements about policy. They're cases where the tail is clearly wagging the dog -- where President Obama's opponents are looking for something to bash him with and just concoct frivolous objections in the hope that if they sneer enough, it will cause "the controversy brews!" style reporting. And that, for the reasons I expressed, is something qualitatively quite different from honest debate over various policies the US can take towards Israel (or that Israel can take towards Palestinians).

Stand Out

I'm not sure what it is about women's boxing that inspires paroxysms of ridiculous sexism. The 2-minute round rule in women's boxing seems inexplicable to me but as an expression of sexism. We have Cuba, home of the best amateur boxing program in the world, announcing that it would not allow women to participate because "Cuban women should be showing off their beautiful faces, not getting punched in the face." Now, the AIBA is floating a plan to force female boxers to wear mini-skirts in the ring.

The claim is that the, er, distinctive uniform will help women "stand out" from their male counterparts. I have to admit, I didn't realize it was that difficult to tell women apart from men without the help of a skirt. Oddly enough, some male boxers do wear skirt-style trunks in the ring, which only makes the "stand out" point more absurd (my point being that boxers should -- within rules of safety and fairness -- be able to wear whatever style of trunks they like. But a mandatory va-va-voom rule for female boxers is absurd and prejudiced).

The Resistable Force vs. The Moveable Object

That was the joke moniker given to the 2010 Junior Welterweight clash between Amir Khan and Paulie Malignaggi. The title played off the fact that Khan had a notoriously weak chin, while Malignaggi is one of the most feather-fisted fighters to make it to boxing's elite echelons. As it happened, Khan completely overpowered Malignaggi offensively, stopping him in the 11th round (later, Khan even managed to rehabilitate his chin by winning a brawl with Argentine slugger Marcos Maidana).

But this title also may apply to the 2012 presidential election, argues Jon Chait. We have an unpopular incumbent presiding over a weak economy. On the other hand, he'll be facing off against a Republican who will likely be reviled by much of the electorate. It's hard to know how that will shake out -- reelection is often just a referendum on the incumbent, but Obama -- as much as his popularity has taken a hit -- still starts at a noted advantage over Romney and a gaping one over anyone else the GOP might put up.

Interfaith Dialogue: The Good and the Bad

The good: An interesting conference brought together various Imams and Rabbis to explore the commonalities between Shariah and Halacha.

The bad: The Vatican's new liaison to the Jewish community is very much getting off on the wrong foot.

Cribbing Hate

There is an annoying trend one can spot occasionally that declares Islamophobia to be the new anti-Semitism. The implication is that anti-Semitism is mostly a thing of the past, no longer a problem, and that the attention paid to it should now shift to prejudice and bigotry against Muslims. Of course, anti-Semitism is not over and vigilance is still required against it -- the effect of the meme is less to encourage attention to Islamophobia than it is to encourage ignoring anti-Semitism.

What is true, though, is that many of the tactics and mechanics of Islamophobia have clear, obvious parallels to anti-Semitism. This is a theme discussed in detail by Hussein Ibish, and an interesting new post at Middle Class Dub hits it home by pairing up quotations from Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher with contemporary anti-Islam extremist Robert Spencer. They make effectively identical claims using effectively identical styles. It's very eye-opening.

Israel to Accelerate Self-Dismemberment....

In response to Palestine's successful bid to gain membership in UNESCO, Israel has approved a wave of new settlement construction, apparently on the theory that hacking off one's own nose is worth it to spite someone else's face. Seriously, one gets the sense that radical Palestinians can just play Israel like a flute at this point. Do something Israel doesn't like, and watch as they furiously self-destruct.

Feedback Loop

Sometimes, the breathtaking dimness just bedazzles me:

So far this week, four of the world's top five oil companies have announced more than $24 billion in third quarter profits. And by the logic of Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), that should mean those oil companies deserve more subsidies, not less.

Speaking at a town hall meeting Oct. 22 in his home state of Florida, Stearns displayed a very sketchy grasp on how subsidies should work, explaining to Climate Progress that incentives should be given to mature companies, not early-stage companies.

"When somebody is successful, then you give them the subsidies and the tax credit," explained Stearns, talking to Climate Progress. In short, the rich get richer. This is how the 1% operate. No wonder income inequality is growing in this country.

For those in the slow section of the class, that's the exact opposite of how subsidies are supposed to work. Now, ideally, in a pure capitalist society there are no such thing as subsidies. But I'm not a pure capitalist, and subsidies often make sense as a way to get a new industry off the ground in the face of entrenched competition (e.g., environmental energy), or to maintain a public service that wouldn't be able to fund itself (roads, other public transportation options). The one area where subsidies make no sense is as some sort of governmental bounty for the already-profitable.

Death To....?

The Times Higher Ed has a piece up on the recent outburst by a Kent State history professor who yelled "death to Israel!" after a fierce exchange with a Bedouin Israeli ex-diplomat. The remark was swiftly condemned by the university President, and I'm reasonably content with that outcome. Unlike the recent UCI case, the remark was neither intended to nor had the effect of permanently disrupting the diplomat's event. And while this particular professor's record isn't exactly unblemished (he wrote a column praising a suicide bomber, and is alleged to contributed to a Jihadist website), there isn't the sort of pattern or practice of behavior that would lead, in my view, to a hostile environment. At the end of the day, he behaved like a dick, and was called out on it by the President of the university. Can't ask for more than that.

But AAUP President Cary Nelson (and my Illinois colleague, in the English department) disagrees with me, and I found his statement somewhat interesting:

Calling out a political slogan during a question period falls well within the speech rights of any member of a university community,” he said. “Expressive outbursts do not substitute for rational analysis, but they have long played a role in our national political life. More surprising, to be sure, is President Lefton’s invention of an absurd form of hospitality: you must not question the moral legitimacy or the right to exist of a guest’s home country. Awareness of history would suggest such challenges are routine elements of international life.

The first half of this is true, but also somewhat besides the point. Obviously, expressive outbursts can be a part of national discourse. So too are critiques of those outbursts. Academic freedom doesn't mean freedom from criticism; to the extent the university president thinks this professor acted like a jerk, he shouldn't be immunized from being told so.

The second half, by contrast, just strikes me as strange. It's a "routine element of international life" for persons to have the very existence of their home states be challenged as a moral affront? I'm genuinely curious what other examples Mr. Nelson has in mind. After all, one thing one often hears from folks who think anti-Zionism plays by its own rules is that one essentially never hears the call "death to China" or "death to France." It isn't just guests from those countries which are spared the indignity -- such rhetoric isn't part of our discursive vocabulary at all for other countries.

I'm a little baffled, then, at what Nelson is referring to that he thinks is such a routine part of being part of international life. Any ideas?

The Changing DC Region

The Washington Post has a pair of fascinating articles on shifting residential demographics in the DC area. The first documents the decline of White enclaves in the region. The second looks at the rise of the overwhelmingly Black and very wealthy Prince George's County.

How does this work? Well, it seems that (at least in the DC area), barriers to minority groups moving to White neighborhoods are finally starting to crumble, and when members of other racial groups move in, Whites aren't moving out. That being said, Whites still aren't willing to affirmatively move into neighborhoods that are predominantly non-White, which allows spaces like PG County to continue serving as Black enclaves.

Anyway, they're both good reads. Highly recommended.

UPDATE: Ta-Nehisi Coates has characteristically great thoughts.

Huntsman Girls

(A) Why does Jon Huntsman have to be a Republican and (B) Why does he have to run this year?



I still am baffled by why Huntsman is running this time around. But he is one of the last men standing in the "not insane" wing of the GOP, and to his immense credit, he's mostly managed to hold that line while running this time around (of course, that probably has something to do with his less than scintillating poll numbers).

Israel as Political Issue

There's been a recent spurt of chatter around an ill-fated "civility pledge" promoted by the ADL and AJC that some conservative groups claim is an attempt to stifle criticism of President Obama's policies on Israel. The pledge worries about increased attempts to "politicize" the support of Israel.

Obviously, it is absolutely true that in a deliberative system, there must be free reign to criticize policies one finds disagreeable. Conservatives who have genuine concerns about the President's policies regarding Israel should of course be free to make their case -- if they think Obama is bad for Israel, they're entitled to say so. And of course, by the same token, if I think various conservative political leaders are bad for Israel, I have the right to say that too (this, of course, also goes for judgments on the advisability of Israeli policy positions too -- whether in the form of critiques of the Shalit deal or critiques of settlement expansion).

But there is something else going on here, related to the idea of politicization. In the arena of politics, many issues are taken not because one is firmly attached to a particular stance, but simply because they're the opposite of one's opponent. Say I'm a Democrat running for office against an incumbent Republican, and that incumbent gives a speech on foreign policy. I'm never going to come out and say "That was a really great speech. I think we're more or less on the same page on these issues -- good job, buddy!" That's not my job. My job is to try and defeat my opponent. So of course I'm going to try and create a narrative where the speech was bad and promised bad things for America or our allies.

This sort of politicization, though, is obviously a very bad thing, because it means significant portions of the public debate on Israel are not occurring because of genuine disagreements on the merits of our policies towards Israel, but rather are simply fig leaves for a political campaign against the President. With regards to politicians, it's probably unavoidable. But where we do have the right to vigorously police the line is on ostensibly "pro-Israel" organizations that are really just stalking horses for a given political party. The Emergency Committee for Israel clearly meets this description. When it releases a statement on Israel, it is not because it has made a considered judgment that a given action is in Israel or America's best interests. It makes its statement because it has made a political calculation that it can do damage to the President with it.

The problem with the ECI, in other words, isn't that they have disagreements with the Obama administration on Israel and the temerity to express them. The problem is that, in effect, they don't have disagreements with the Obama administration on Israel because they don't have a stable or coherent position on Israel at all. Israel is a tertiary concern for them; just a useful rhetorical tool for trying to secure a domestic political victory. And using Israel as that sort of political football is something that the Jewish and pro-Israel community absolutely should be opposing, vigorously.

Project Runway Season 9 Finale!

Anya wins! Josh doesn't win! It's the best Project Runway day ever!

Okay, calm down. Yes, part of the reason I'm excited Anya won is that she's just so gosh-darn likeable. And yes, the fact that she may be the single hottest human being on the planet probably didn't hurt either. But I do think that her win was deserved, particularly given what was overall a weak fashion week display by the entire quartet.

Start with Kimberly, who has been very hit-or-miss all season. That gown she closed with was great, and verged on being show-stopping (it fell a little strangely to my eye, which was all that stopped it). But beyond that? The Ivory piece was cool but a little disconnected from the rest of the show. That aquamarine tinfoil piece was just strange, and I didn't see what was cool or sexy about that tiny crafts-project cut-out in the pinkish dress. Most importantly, too many of the pieces just looked a little plain.

Viktor was always the big competition for Anya as far as I was concerned this season. He's one of the best technicians on the show, and he's consistently made pieces that -- while perhaps not as purely elegant as Anya's -- showed a good fashion eye and were always well-made. Unfortunately, he had (maybe his first) major stumble on the show's biggest stage. Those sheer black gowns were ugly. It's such a shame too, because those mirror pieces were great and the prints were wonderful. Jill and I actually disagreed that the first piece was anything to write home about (we both thought the skirt was a little Mad Men), but that gown? Probably the best piece of the entire show, for any designer. Oh, and way to show Josh how it's done with those purple pants.

Speaking of the devil, Josh's collection was better than I thought. I agree with Laura Bennett that when he keeps his color palette under control, he actually makes some very nice clothes. But there were some flops here too. The opening draped outfit made his model look preggers, and don't get me started on those vomit-inducing green bike shorts. Nina was right that they looked better photographed than they did on the runway, but when they walked -- gag me. The plastic pieces were genuinely cool, and he had a couple of outfits early that had a neat vintage vibe to them, but overall -- too much hot pink, too much lime green.

So that leaves us with Anya. And let's focus on the weaknesses first: it was relatively one-note, and it didn't show a lot of range. Against superior competition, I'd be inclined to give that a lot of weight. But the clothes themselves were beautiful. People are saying "Uli did it better", but I thought Uli deserved to win her season too. Her opening outfit set the tone of her show beautifully and mixed colors fantastically. The closing gown in black and white with the fuzzy edges was likewise fabulous. And I agree with the judges that Anya, more than any of the designers (except maybe Viktor) has a brand -- you can see her in every piece, and there is a woman (a particular type of woman with a particular type of body, to be sure) who absolutely wants all those pieces and wants to be her.

One thing I'd say in Anya's defense is that I do think, over the course of the show, she made a genuine effort to push herself as a designer and branch out -- with varying success, but more than you might expect given her relative novice status. Her first stab at Fashion Week was to try and really stretch beyond herself again, and she got nailed by it. So she said "you know what? This show is going to be Anya-being-Anya." And it worked. She makes beautiful clothes, she has a fantastic natural eye for design, and (with some construction lessons), I think she has a future.

Black Support for Obama Remains Strong and Steady

The New York Times can barely contain its astonishment that Blacks aren't fleeing the President in droves:

In a recent Pew Research Center poll, black voters preferred Mr. Obama 95 percent to 3 percent over Mitt Romney, “which is at least the margin he got in 2008,” said Michael Dimock, associate director for research at Pew. “There’s no erosion at all.”

Even more noteworthy, less than 10 percent of black voters in a New York Times/CBS News survey taken last month said that Mr. Obama had failed to meet their expectations as president, while nearly 3 in 10 said he had exceeded expectations. Among nonblack voters, 4 in 10 said he performed worse than expected, while only 5 percent said he had done better.

Blacks are hurting in this economy (even more than other segments of American society). But they don't blame the President. They blame an extremist and unyielding Republican Party that is committed to protecting the rich and soaking the poor, that holds most Black voters in contempt as unthinking and still "on the plantation", and that made it its mission from inauguration day to destroy Barack Obama no matter the cost.

They're smart cookies. They know who to blame.

AZ Governor Threatens Impeachment of Redistricting Comm. After it Refuses to Gerrymander

Shocking news out of Arizona, where Gov. Jan Brewer (R) is threatening impeachment proceedings against the state's non-partisan redistricting commission because it failed to sufficiently gerrymander the maps for Republicans. The map it released has 4 safe GOP seats, 2 safe Democratic seats, and three competitive ones -- hardly something Republicans should be bawling over.

But Arizona politics have of late taken a decided step towards the lawless, with Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio leading the charge by issuing indictments of his political opponents (where "political" here includes judges trying to curb his reckless abuses of power). So far, it hasn't seemed to dampen Sheriff Joe's political popularity amongst Arizona Republicans; so why not take a page from his book by threatening to impeachment independent commissioners as a suasion mechanism?

Zing!

I can't stand Jennifer Rubin, but I got to give her credit for the zing:

"You want a Washington Post journalist to comment on an anti-Semitic screed by some blogger?" Rubin asked. "My arms are not long enough to punch down that far."

It helps that the target is Erick Erickson, of course.

Influential Roundup

I had class today, and one of my students remarked that the Derrick Bell piece I assigned (Serving Two Masters: Integration Ideals and Client Interests in School Desegregation Litigation, 85 Yale L.J. 470 (1976)) was one of his favorites of the year. Of course it was -- Bell was a brilliant thinker who will be missed.

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Rush Limbaugh won't apologize to LRA victims after defending the terrorist cult group as simply a group of Christians that Obama wanted to oppress.

Tom Friedman assesses Barack Obama's foreign policy successes and failures.

The momentum to recall Scott Walker may have stalled, but it is still looking like a razor-tight race.

Some people have promoted this attack on nation-states as "the idea that will not die", but I'm supremely unconvinced. It is hardly the case that multi-ethnic states -- even those without weak governmental structures -- have been paragons of stability and harmony. And there are plenty of post-national movements that still have quite their share of blood on their hands.

San Francisco is a very, very strange place.

85-year old state senator releases a Rocky ad. Oh for cute.

Re: Occupy DC: "When the Jews show up, you know it's serious."

The mystery of why Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is seen as some sort of wonk, rather than a nutjob hack, endures.

Top IDF Officer Calls for Crackdown on "Price Tag" Militants

A top IDF officer is urging Israel to take a stiffer line on violent "price tag" settler activists, who have launched a wave of terrorist attacks on Palestinians (and some dovish Jews) in order to derail peace between Israel and Palestine. Other military figures joined and leveled criticism at high-profile Israeli right-wingers who sided with the extremists over the IDF and Israeli security interests.

Post-Panel Roundup

The last post was originally meant to just be the intro blurb for a roundup, before it got all long and unwieldy. So I spun it off, and now the roundup gets its own post with its own brief, snazzy intro.

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OneVoice brings in some high profile figures encouraging the development of grassroots momentum for a two-state solution.

Alyssa Rosenberg on the politics of Ellen Raskin novels. The Westing Game is one of my favorite books of all time, and one I can't wait to hand off to my kids.

A new paper shows the existence of racial bias in eBay transactions (specifically, baseball cards shown held by a dark-skinned hand sold for less than those held by a light-skinned hand).

This is probably behind a paywall for most of you, but if you have university access, I found this paper critiquing "moral minimalism" interesting (and I speak as someone who generally identifies as a moral minimalist). The cite is David L. Norton, Moral Minimalism and the Development of Moral Character, 13 Midwest Stud. Phil. 180 (1988).

Mah Rabu says something I've often wanted to stress: Defining Orthodox Judaism as "more religious" and other strands as "less religious" is kind of giving away the game. I'm not a Conservative Jew because I'm too lazy or uncommitted to Judaism to be an Orthodox Jew. I'm a Conservative Jew because I think we do Judaism right. If you're Reform or Reconstructionist, you should have the same confidence in your own beliefs. And while it's fine to experiment and figure out what's best for you, experimentation can and should draw from all sectors of the Jewish community.

Ta-Nehisi Coates hosts David Skeel talking about William Stuntz's views on jury nullification, with reference to Paul Butler. It's a good thing.

Post-Panel Recap

I spoke on a panel today. Myself and two other faculty members picked a case before the Supreme Court this term, and talked about it (background, analysis, predictions, etc.). I picked Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, a fascinating case about the ministerial exception in the First Amendment.

Basically, the ministerial exception allows religious organizations more-or-less free rein in the hiring and firing of clergy -- particularly, as against anti-discrimination law. So, if a synagogue fires its Rabbi, and she alleges sex discrimination, that case is just thrown out irrespective of the facts. The rationale behind the exception is that the Free Exercise clause, if nothing else, requires that religious bodies be allowed to choose who serves as their own minister. The government in effect telling the synagogue "no, you have to hire/keep on this Rabbi to serve as your spiritual leader" is incompatible with First Amendment protections. And while one could make an argument that such logic cannot survive Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith (holding that the Free Exercise clause generally does not require religious exemptions from generally applicable laws), the ministerial exception appears to remain on steady footing.

There is a big caveat to the above, however: the ministerial exception has never been ratified by the Supreme Court. It is a creature of the federal appellate courts, and while every circuit now accepts its existence, until Hosanna-Tabor the Supreme Court never heard a case on the subject. The reason behind that isn't hard to see -- intuitive as the ministerial exception is in principle, it can be devilishly difficult to apply in practice. Who counts as a minister? How deep into the payroll does it extend?

Hosanna-Tabor deals with a teacher at a Christian school who, on the one hand, taught secular subjects and had an almost-exclusively secular job description, but on the other hand was considered a "called" teacher and a "commissioned minister" at the school and church, and did do some religious functions in addition to the school's intended mission as being infused with a spiritual mission from top to bottom. Should her ADA retaliation claim be barred on the exception? Saying yes means potentially excluding huge swaths of employees from the entire thrust of anti-discrimination law protections. Saying no means answering some exceptionally difficult line-drawing problems regarding who does count as a "minister", and risks entangling the court in religious doctrinal disputes that may be the key factual controversies in why a given employee was terminated.

The talk went quite well, though I continue to be unhappy at just how much my public speaking skills have degraded over the years. My fellows spoke on the warrantless GPS tracking case and the notorious fleeting expletives case (as a professor, one relishes the chance to use various swear words in an academically sanctioned setting in front of scores of students). So hopefully, a good time was had by all.

The Bigot Crew and the Chosen Few

Deborah Orr's gratutiously nasty attack on Jews as a "chosen" people -- (deliberately?) misrepresenting the meaning of the concept in Jewish theology in order to present Jews as possessing a sense of communal superiority -- has been taking a ton of flack, and rightly so. It is a vicious piece of work that echoes anti-Semitic tropes of years past (and not so past), and deserves to be called out as such.

Particularly worth noting is a recent screed by a British BDS supporter who went into a "chosen people" tirade immediately following standard bromides about how he's not anti-Semitic, he has nothing against Israelis or Jews, he's really the best friend of Israelis and Jews, and in any event he's an anti-fascist so of course he can't be anti-Semitic. He then proceeded to go on an all-too-common bit about how a Jewish audience member (who I imagine questioned the legitimacy of BDS) "an absolute disgrace to the Jewish people", "a modern-day fascist" and "a modern-day Nazi" whose "friends in the media" are covering up Israeli crimes. And then, after being asked by another Jew in the vicinity whether he "felt better" after saying all that, he replied:

“Better than you, obviously. But then again you’re one of the chosen people so you might feel better than me, huh?”

Yep -- friend of the Jews indeed. But it is worrisome that "chosenness" is now entering the lexicon as an attack on Jews qua Jews. It is a sign that many anti-Semites who make their home in anti-Zionists circles no longer feel the need for fig leafs. They can use identifiably Jewish -- not Israeli -- terms to attack identifiably Jewish -- not Israeli targets. And they can largely do so with impunity.

Perry's Neo-Birtherism

Republican leaders are squirming as Texas Governor and presidential contender Rick Perry (R) once again questioned whether Barack Obama was born in the United States.

Though one would think that the release of Obama's long-form birth certificate would have quelled the "controversy" (indeed, it was what birthers claimed to have wanted all along), conspiracy theories die much harder deaths than that. And, true to form, birthers have regrouped under the simple explanation that the long-form birth certificate, like its short-form peer, is a fake. Perry, after a chat with birther doyen Donald Trump, offers that "I don’t have any idea" whether the document is genuine or not, thus giving perhaps the highest profile endorsement to the canard that there remains legitimate doubts regarding Obama's birthplace.

The irony is that I think at this stage in the game such conspiratorial nonsense hurts the GOP more than it helps (hence the nervousness by top Republican officials when confronted with Perry's comments). The worst case scenario for them, of course, is that Perry's birther flirtations help in the primary but make him toxic amongst the more, shall we say, "reality based community" of the general election electorate.

The Truman Show

Tablet Magazine has a neat profile up on Rachel Kleinfeld, founder of the Truman Project. The Truman Project is a left-of-center national security think tank meant to provide a counterbalance to conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation, and it has quickly established itself as a hot-spot for progressive national security thinkers.

Interestingly, Kleinfeld, an Alaska native, is the daughter of Andrew Kleinfeld, a federal court judge on the 9th Circuit. I know of Judge Kleinfeld, because he is a favorite amongst Federalist Society folk, and is a popular clerkship destination for truly devoted young conservative lawyers willing to spend a year in Fairbanks, Alaska. Judge Kleinfeld is conservative with a libertarian streak, albeit (like most Republican Jews) one whose familial roots are deeply Democratic. And now his daughter has returned to those roots as a doyen of the left's national security establishment. In a sense, it is reminiscent of Catherine MacKinnon, whose father was also a prominent conservative appeals court judge. And (heart-warmingly), in both cases from what I've heard father is quite proud and supportive of daughter, in spite of (presumed) political differences.

Finally, I would be remiss in linking to this profile without offering one of the funniest lines in it, provided by a leftist Truman Project skeptic critiquing their alleged MO: "It's a very testosterone-heavy approach, very, 'Fuck you, I'm a retired general and I have killed people with my bare hands and I will tell you that torture is bad.'" Partial to that type of epistemic credibility myself, I will nonetheless concede it made me smile.

Video Game Night Roundup

I've been on a bit of a gamer kick recently. Borrowed Mass Effect, beat that the other day. Then I pre-ordered the new Assassin's Creed. Then I bought Mass Effect 2, Fight Night Champion, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I beat Fight Night just an hour ago.

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Intriguing gambit: US goes to the WTO to argue that China's "great internet firewall" represents a restraint on free trade.

Hey remember when groups like the ZOA were aghast at the prospect of American Jews criticizing Israel? They lost that principle real quick.

Interesting bit on WaPo about Herman Cain's racial background.

Don't see this every day: Libertarian blogger asks whether we should abolish the corporate form.

Falling into Laps

The Forward provides a brief profile of the most notorious anti-Semitic sign-waver at the Occupy Wall Street protests. Basically, he's a homeless man who long did things like hurl anti-Semitic abuse well before OWS started. So it was easy for him to stand around with his signs in Zuccotti Park. Fortunately, other members of OWS have taken to holding up signs next to him calling him a dick. Since the man has the same right to protest as anyone else, that's really all anyone can do.

They Step Up as We Step Down

President Barack Obama has announced the US will begin a complete withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, to be completed at the end of the year. This, of course, is another major accomplishment for the Obama administration, and we can all be glad that our troops are finally coming home.

Meanwhile, Turkey has just launched a major invasion of its own into Iraq, where it continues to battle Kurdish rebels seeking an independent homeland based in northern Iraq and eastern Turkey. The current Turkish Prime Minister has promised that Kurdish rebels will "drown in their own blood".

Fortunately, then, anti-war and anti-occupation groups can simply refocus their ire on Turkey, which is invading another sovereign country in an explicit bid to maintain political dominance over a disenfranchised minority group that simply wishes to express national self-determination. That is what will happen, right?

A Sort of Settlement Freeze?

It's not all it's cracked up to be, but it'd still be a big move:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he's willing to freeze government construction in West Bank settlements as well as all construction on government land there. In return, he needs an agreement by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to resume direct peace talks.

According to a senior Israeli official, Abbas has not yet responded, but he has been threatening to resign if there is no diplomatic progress in the next three months.

The "government construction" thing is the qualifier -- much settlement construction comes on private land and is done by private developers. Still, the Ha'aretz article notes that Abbas needs something he can show to the Palestinian people in order to justify coming back to the table, and this might qualify. Moreover, mediators seemed surprised that Netanyahu was willing to take this step -- meaning that it might be just the sort of shakeup that the two parties need to get back down to brass tacks.

We can hope, anyway. The ball appears to be in Abbas' court -- hopefully, he'll decide to run with it instead of away from it.

UPDATE: Well darn.

Dead Dictator's Society Roundup

Gaddafi is dead! But other things are happening as well:

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Spencer Ackerman has advance copies of all the headlines that will flow from Gaddafi's death.

Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) slashes back at the GOP for tying him to fringe anti-Semites in the Occupy Wall Street movement. The consensus amongst non-partisan observers is that anti-Semitic incidents in the movement are marginal (though obviously disturbing and quite sick).

Rich Santorum boldly stands against contraception.

Reflecting on the police shooting of a young Black man who proverbially "did everything right", E.J. Graff worries that her own son will be next.

Deborah Orr is a charming mix of nasty and dumb, but unfortunately this canard of "chosenness" as Jewish supremacism hardly is limited to her.

There's nothing more American than being a second-class citizen. Today, gay and lesbian Americans are the most American of all.

Arab IDF Soldiers

I sometimes forget McSweeney's isn't just a humor magazine. They currently have an absolutely stellar piece up on Arab soldiers (mostly Bedouin and Druze) serving in the IDF.

The article makes a number of important points. On the one hand, it stresses that the army seems to be a genuinely inclusive social institution in Israel -- the author reports that Arab soldiers serving claim their service is the time they feel most like a true, equal Israeli. On the other hand, to the extent that army service promises enhanced opportunities for non-Jews after their tenure is complete, it seems to be failing. The government's abysmal treatment of the Bedouin community in particular -- a community which provides the IDF's elite desert trackers -- is simply shocking, and a disgrace to the veterans who have put their lives on the line for their country.

It is a piece I can't recommend highly enough.

The Restoration Project

In the New York Jewish Week, Ben Cohen has a good article up on "the scandal that wasn't". Put simply, Mearsheimer endorsed a book by a raging anti-Semite by the name of Gilad Atzmon. Atzmon is not a borderline case -- he is quite clear on his opposition to "Jewishness" of all stripes -- including anti-Zionist Jews (insofar as they have the temerity to identify as Jews). But while Mearsheimer did meet with a brief flurry of condemnation, the scandal, as White puts it, largely "petered out". It doesn't seem like Mearsheimer has been shamed in any way, or has been distanced any further from polite society than he was before. Cohen concludes:

So long as the target is Israel, or Zionism, or even Judaism as a set of ideas, anything goes; equally, any invocation of anti-Semitism on the part of critics is simply a smear to be dismissed.

Who, then, qualifies as an anti-Semite in John Mearsheimer’s world? One has to assume the bar is set very high: you would have to explicitly declare your hatred of Jews as individuals, for instance, or advocate that Jews should sit in separate subway cars. But if you use the Holocaust as a stick with which to beat the Jews, or slyly undermine its “narrative,” or assert that conspiracy theories bear some correspondence to reality, or argue that Jewish government officials are more suspect than others because of their dual loyalty to Israel, that’s not anti-Semitism, he would say — just an honest expression of legitimate opinions.

It’s worth remembering that when the term “anti-Semitism” was coined in 19th-century Germany, its authors were not Jews, but Jew-haters. They wore the badge of anti-Semitism with pride, creating political parties with such names as the “League of Anti-Semites.” The word was owned not by the victims, but by the perpetrators.

In that sense, nothing much has changed. The torrid controversies around anti-Semitism today indicate that the Jewish community has claimed neither the ownership nor the definition of the word. That’s why John Mearsheimer thinks his understanding of anti-Semitism is far superior to yours or mine. And that, you might say, is the greatest scandal of all.

This is the restoration -- the return of "anti-Semite" as a concept to the control of persons and groups generally hostile to the Jewish community. By and large, they would differ from their peers in not consciously adopting the labels (though occasionally you amazingly do see them flirting with it). But what they've done is retake control of the narrative. This runs counter to the general (proper) trend of the last several decades, in which the left has sought to give minority groups more control over how to characterize their victimization, and afforded them substantial (albeit not infinite) deference in when they declare themselves to be wounded.

We saw this with Alice Walker -- the presumed right to define Jewish lives for Jews, to tell Jews when they could and could not be legitimately aggrieved, to tell them what their past history was and what their present entitlements are. It is a restoration of power over Jewish lives. And it won't raise an eyebrow -- because non-Jewish domination over Jews is and always has been the proper state of the world, from which things like Israel are but infuriating anomalies.

Yay Disenfranchisement

A South Carolina GOP operative, Wesley Donehue, is taking some heat for tweeting "Nice! ... EXACTLY why we need Voter ID in SC" in response to an article entitled "SC voter ID law hits black precincts".

If you hit his feed, Donehue spends a lot of time moaning about how people didn't "read the follow-up" tweets. Basically, what those tweets focus on is that many of the people affected by the voter ID law may be students who originally hail from outside the state. This, he says, raises the prospect that they are trying to vote in two states (South Carolina, and their states of origin), which would be fraudulent.

And yes, that would be. The problem, though, is that while one can't legally vote in two states in the same election, one certainly can elect to vote in South Carolina elections exclusively as a student, even if one originally hails from another state. Donehue has no evidence that the former occurs, and the latter is perfectly legal. Ergo, Donehue is excited about suppressing legal (mostly Black) votes.

When I went to Carleton, for example, I sometimes voted in Maryland, and sometimes in Minnesota (never both at the same time, of course). I can do that, because I could credibly claim to be domiciled in either state, and the only legal requirement for being a "citizen" of a state is that one "resides" there. See U.S. Const. Amend. XIV ("All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.") (emphasis added). Students electing to register in the state where they live nine months of the year is perfectly valid and accepted practice, and well within the confines of the word "reside". And if they do so, they are legally as "South Carolinian" as Donehue is.

At times Donehue seems to admit that the only cognizable legal problem is not students originally from Georgia deciding to vote in South Carolina, but rather people voting in both states at once (other times he indicates that yes, his problem is with people legally voting in South Carolina when they originally hail from another state). While this has the advantage of keeping him on the right side of the constitution, it also has nothing to do with the law he's defending. The risk of double-voting occurs because one might be simultaneously registered in two states. When I registered to vote in Minnesota, there was nothing that canceled my Maryland registration -- or, for that matter, nothing that would let them know that I was ever registered in Maryland or anywhere else in the first place. If I had shown ID when I registered -- guess what? -- that's still true. Worse yet, most voter fraud that does occur happens through absentee ballots. Guess what isn't covered by voter ID laws? Yep -- absentee ballots.

Donehue's slipperiness between a valid but possibly non-existent "problem" that wouldn't be solved by the law in question anyway (double-voting), and an extant but perfectly legal phenomenon, the blocking of which is aptly called voter suppression (students voting where they go to college), should be an indicator that his analysis isn't exactly on the up-and-up. Whether that's because he really is excited at suppressing the Black vote, or because he's just not all that bright and doesn't understand how the constitution works with respect to residency, is an open question.

Welcome Home, Gilad Shalit

After five years in captivity, Cpl. Gilad Shalit has returned home. Shalit's capture revealed some very dark things about a certain segment of pro-Palestinian activists (not to mention about Hamas, which held in violation of international law and basically incommunicando for the past five years), and his redemption from captivity is a joyous day. Even though there are reasons to be concerned about the utility of the deal that released him (and reasons to view it optimistically, as I'll explain below). But today is a day for happiness.

Still, it is important to try and tease out the implications of the prisoner exchange. The main argument against it, here made by Ilya Somin, is that by releasing Hamas prisoners Israel incentivizes future like kidnappings, thus causing a net loss. This, of course, is the standard reasoning behind a firm "don't negotiate with terrorists" position. And it's not exactly a stretch of a supposition -- various Palestinians, from Hamas officials to some of the released prisoners (this one a woman who tried to detonate a bomb after being admitted to Israel for medical treatment) -- have made just this claim (compare to Shalit, who upon release said of Palestinian prisoners: "I would be happy if they are released, on condition that they stop fighting against Israel.").

One could say this is Hamas exploiting an Israeli weakness. And in a sense, this is true -- but that is always the case when a terrorist organization is fighting a democracy. It is the same principle behind locating forces in residential areas and wearing civilian clothes -- it takes advantage of Israel's aversion to killing civilians and attempts to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Moral constraints often come at the expense of pure utilitarian concerns, and a clever (and amoral) enemy can exploit that. Still, one hopes that the adherence to norms of human dignity and solidarity can provide benefits of their own. The Israeli Supreme Court's mantra always stuck with me:

This is the destiny of democracy, as not all means are acceptable to it, and not all practices employed by its enemies are open before it. Although a democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its back, it nonetheless has the upper hand. Preserving the Rule of Law and recognition of an individual's liberty constitutes an important component in its understanding of security. At the end of the day, they strengthen its spirit and its strength and allow it to overcome its difficulties.

The fact of the matter is that -- some blustery rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding -- Israel does negotiate with terrorists. It knows that, and Hamas knows that. And that means that any time Hamas has an Israeli captive, they have leverage over Israel. Yesterday, they had such a captive. Today, they don't. And even if they try and get another one, there is a window of time that just opened where Israel is in a stronger negotiating position than it was before, and I'm hopeful that will lead to good things.

The State Does Care When Speech is Disrupted

Osama Shabaik, one of the UC-Irvine students convicted of willfully disturbing a lawful assembly when they attempted to disrupt a speech by Israeli ambassador Michael Oren, has a column up on the Jerusalem Post protesting his conviction. It is a little strange.

Shabaik's conviction was predicated off the fact that he and his cohorts attempted to prevent Ambassador Oren from speaking at a lawfully constituted assembly. Shabaik half-heartedly tries to downplay this goal, but mostly owns up to it. His argument against the conviction centers mostly on the grounds that this form of disruption is the only effective way the protesters had of communicating their message.

[Q]uestions and answers are not an effective form of protest against states, especially those engaged in war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. States enhance their power by creating a framework within which non-state players can challenge state policies. Due to an imbalance of power, to effect real change ordinary citizens must challenge state power outside of this framework. We did not wish to politely ask questions but rather to make a poignant statement. We came to protest Israel’s actions, and a Q & A session was not the means through which we wanted to act. An effective protest must voice its opposition in a manner that challenges the policies Oren represents and the framework through which those policies are propagated.

Let's break this down a little. States entrench their power by "creating a framework within which non-state players can challenge state policies" (here presented in the devilish form of a question & answer session). These frameworks -- for simplicity's sake, let's call them "time, place, and manner" restrictions -- must be broken out of in order for citizen's voices to have a real effect. Hence, the speech had to be disrupted.

One perhaps notices right away that this is not particularly well-argued. Whether or not ordinary citizens can challenge state power from within or without the framework's the state sets up for hearing dissenting views would seem to depend on the structure of the framework itself. Even if the "poignant message" the protesters wished to send was not one that could be expressed through Q&A (say, "Ambassador Oren is representative of an evil so grave one cannot and should not converse with it rationally"), it's not clear why that message could not have been delivered via, say, picketing. I'm dubious that the expressive message of the protesters could not be put forward in a way that was non-disruptive of the speech.

But perhaps the claim is deeper -- Shabaik is making some sort of Nietzschian argument about the need to break free of state bondage, regardless of the content of the chains. This might or might not resolve another tension in Shabaik's argument (whether the "framework" being protested here is American -- since we're operating under American law after all -- or Israeli), but it does perhaps explain why disruption was "necessary" to fulfill the expressive needs of the protesters.

The problem here is that -- if the goal is to lash out against state-imposed rules regarding speech -- it is unclear why they expect the state to play ball. They want all the glory of rebelling against the state, but then they get all aggrieved that the state might not react kindly to it. They bite one hand of the state while expected to be shielded by the other. It's like Gollum -- "The state is our friend/We hates the state!" -- and more than a little weird.

Now, this is in a sense beating around the bush: the protesters had more than just expressive desires but substantive ones as well, one of which was to prevent Ambassador Oren from delivering his speech in a public forum. Contrary to Shabaik's assertion, this is something the government (and First Amendment values) can and should care quite a bit about. Indeed, while Shabaik blithely asserts that "rights can only be trampled upon and censored by the government, not by individuals", nobody actually believes that. While most constitutional entitlements are only enforceable against the government, most of what government does is to try and protect various rights and entitlements of the citizenry against private encroachment. We have the right not to be murdered, and so the state provides police. We have a right to be able to make the case for our preferred policy positions in the public forum, and so the state provides rules by which that debate can take place in a fair and open manner. And this is reflected in the law that Shabaik violated.*

One rationale behind "time, place, and manner" restrictions is that they give the state the tools to ensure all sides of hotly-contested issues have the opportunity to state their case and be heard. While we are willing to allow tremendous diversity in how any person elects to state their case, one thing we don't generally stand for is for them to forgo that role entirely in favor of simply trying to drown out the other. Shabaik quite wrongly argues that the First Amendment instead is some sort of codification of The Wretched of the Earth wherein those "without power" are given free reign to determine which voices can be heard and which ought be silenced. The First Amendment most certainly does not instantiate that principle. Its mantra is for "more speech, not enforced silence."

* It is worth admitting just how much of an embarrassment Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett is to this line of argument.