Settler MAGA and Settler Susan Collins

The Dispatch has an interesting article about how violent attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian civilians are "dividing" the settler movement. In one corner, there are those who insist the attacks are aberrational. They condemn them, but also clearly see a significant part of the problem as the "embarrassment" they cause to the settlement cause.

“An overwhelming majority of the settlement movement opposes these acts,” Oded Revivi, a former senior figure in the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization of all the local authorities in the West Bank, told The Dispatch. He said the violence posed both a moral problem and a threat to the legitimacy of the settlement movement. “This is an extremist minority that, quite simply, does the settlements no favors,” he said. “It puts the settlement movement in an embarrassing position and undermines its legitimacy because of these acts.”

Then there is the corner that actively endorses the violence.

In an interview with The Dispatch, Yehuda Shimon—a lawyer who volunteers with Honenu, an organization that provides legal assistance to Israelis facing criminal proceedings over nationalist-related offenses, and a settler himself—unequivocally defended acts of violence by extremist settlers.

At first, Shimon denied that there was such a thing as settler violence at all, repeatedly pointing to Palestinian acts of terrorism. “The entire ‘settler violence’ campaign is something the left-wing media made up. There is no such thing as ‘settler violence,’” he said. He later acknowledged that there is “very limited violence” by settlers, but quickly added that it stems from the fact that “settlers are fed up with taking it,” arguing that Israeli authorities haven’t done enough to prevent terrorist attacks on Jews in the West Bank.

The second reason Shimon cited for settler violence: retribution. “Revenge is a feeling that exists among all peoples,” he said, invoking the American response to the attack on Pearl Harbor as an example. Shimon then made the case for collective punishment: “There is no such thing as uninvolved people. If they had eliminated Sinwar and Hitler when they were children, that would have solved a lot of problems.”

This isn't even the half of it -- Shimon did an interview with the BBC that was unabashedly genocidal ("I think now, after they killed one Israeli, we need to kill all the people in Tal and Sarra, even Jit and Farata.... One Jewish life, it's 10 million [Palestinians]."). He is a true sociopath and a monster, and we shouldn't diminish that a whit.

It would be easy to dismiss Shimon as an outlier, and take Revivi at his word that the "mainstream" position is condemnation of violent settlers. But that is in many ways far too convenient a take. Shimon himself might genuinely be an extreme example, but the article makes clear that it's his people that ultimately are holding sway over Israeli government policy in the West Bank. They're the reason why the IDF "stands down" in the face of violent settler activity; they're the reason why the Israeli government intercedes to sabotage efforts by the security services to actually try and clamp down on Jewish terrorism. It's very much akin to the relationship of MAGA and the GOP, where we're all supposed to pretend like the racists and the extremists are some outlier faction as opposed to the clearly dominant force within the movement.

Meanwhile, the "moderates" (if you will) give off extremely strong Susan Collins vibes. There's a lot of lip-chewing and brow-furrowing, and the regular expressions of "concern" over what's going on. But when push comes to shove, they aren't really willing to endorse substantial, concrete initiatives to crack down on settler terrorism. If they oppose violent settlers, they oppose doing absolutely anything to stop them even more.

The scourge of violence by settler extremists, aided and abetted by the Israeli government, against innocent Palestinians is at a fever pitch. It is in fact dangerous for Israel's security and public image; it would also be abhorrent and evil and demanding of opposition even if it had no negative implications for Israelis at all. Like with the GOP, it's good, I guess, when some people who are part of that "faction" eventually see the light and speak out against the violence and abuse. It's all hands on deck. But at the same time, we cannot wait for the settler leaders to come around to doing something (even if we do buy that they're actually interested in "doing something", which one may not) before we ourselves commit to do something. If the Israeli government wants to lash itself to the mast of protecting violent settler terror-thugs, they should expect to face the consequences of that choice in the international arena.

Trust and Traffic Lights (and Robots)

Suppose you stop at a traffic light. There are, say, four cars ahead of you. Eventually, the light turns green. When that happens, the first car goes. The second car waits to see the first car go, then it goes. The third car waits until they see the second car go before it goes, and so on. By the time you are able to start moving, several seconds have elapsed from the light turning green -- a lag that results from us double-checking that the car in front of us will actually move when it is supposed to. All those seconds could be saved if we all just trusted each other to go when the light turns green.

Now, obviously, there are many reasons why one shouldn't do this beyond just "trust". There's the obvious possibility that someone won't react immediately to the green light. There's also potential differences in how fast a car would move even if all cars started moving at the same time. And then there's complications if one car was turning instead of going straight.

Still, it does seem to me that robot cars, in communication with one another so they know how fast they'll be going, when exactly they'll start driving once the light turns green, and if any car is turning or doing something wonky, could circumvent many of these problems (if we trusted them to do so, that is). I wonder how much commute time would be saved by that change -- an impossible task for humans, but well within the capacity of a hypothetical fleet of driverless cars.

Lander Does For Self

The Jerusalem Post reports on Democratic congressional candidate Brad Lander being harangued at a protest (against a Hindu nationalist event hosted at Madison Square Garden) for being a "Zionist". This was notable because Lander ousted incumbent Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman in part by hitting him from the left on Israel/Palestine, and Lander has been a sharp and staunch critic of the Israeli government throughout his career (even as he still think Israel should exist).

Given that backdrop, there were a lot of crowing comments on the JPost story to the tune of "See? No matter how much you prostrate yourself before the haters, you'll never win." This is true. But the correct lesson to draw from it is exactly the opposite of what the commenters think it is. If the antisemites will be antisemitic no matter what, then the right thing to do is to do the right thing. Why not, if it won't make a difference either way? If Brad Lander thought that positioning himself as a sharp Israel critic would immunize him from antisemitic attack, he was naive and wrong. But I doubt that was his thought process. More likely, he took the positions he took because he thought they were right. So why should he let some antisemitic idiot coerce him into doing wrong?

There's another, subsidiary lesson to this story though, one that relates to the Hasan Piker line that if Jews don't distance themselves from Israel, "eventually someone’s going to come around and take action .. against American Jews." Even viewed as purely descriptive/predictive, the flaw here is the assumption that the antisemite has reasonable demands that Jews can meet. But that isn't the case. To the extent the antisemitic wants anything out of Jews, it is supplication and submission. And for that reason, the sort of person making such demands can never be fully satisfied, and the Jew who tries to accommodate them will be chasing after an endlessly moving target. Criticize Israel? Not good enough, you still call yourself a Zionist. Don't identify as a Zionist? Not good enough, your synagogue still has an Israeli flag out front. Don't attend the synagogue? Not good enough, you still go to Israeli restaurant. Don't patronize the restaurants? Not good enough, you don't cheer the thought of your Israeli family members being kidnapped or worse.

I'm told that the context for Piker's remarks was seeking to advise an anti-Zionist Jew on arguments that might persuade their co-religionists to be less Zionist -- a counter to the notion that Israel would keep Jews safe. The fact that this argument resulted in a massive, furious backlash from the bulk of the Jewish community might seem proof of the seemingly obvious point that Hasan Piker does not actually have a good read on how American Jews. But beyond that, the Lander example is one of many that shows why this logic is so toxic -- it places Jews on an infinite treadmill of appeasement that will never satisfy the antisemite (for he loves to watch the Jew run and sweat). The only thing it accomplishes is the suffocation of Jewish life, a battery of public commentary sequentially explaining why any way that any Jew does anything Jewish is wrong, wrong, wrong.

So again, if you think that taking the "right" stance on Israel/Palestine will satiate those who enjoy watching Jews squirm, you're wrong. It won't. But to reiterate: the lesson to draw from that is not to take a wrong stance. It's to take the right stance because it is right. The haters will hate you no matter what you do, so don't do it for them. Do it for self.

The Flight 93 Court

"The Flight 93 election" was a term used by conservatives in 2016 to justify voting for Donald Trump. The basic idea was that, even though Donald Trump was essentially everything we, well, knew he was -- a racist, an idiot, a wrecker -- the absolute, desperate need to stop Hillary Clinton from being elected required action that may well be suicidal. "Charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. [But] if you don’t try, death is certain."

Of course, to state the thesis is to underscore the absurdity-cum-perniciousness: the tier one emergency requiring conservatives to abandon all prudence and storm the cabin, was .... the possibility that a bog-standard Democratic politician might win the presidency. It is the prospect of ordinary democratic governance that was the emergency, and that shouldn't be forgotten. As Jamelle Bouie has noted, a running theme of contemporary conservative ideology is the belief that democratic outcomes are fundamentally illegitimate if they result in traditional White men losing. This is what unifies everything from birtherism to January 6 to the attack on mail-in ballots to great replacement theory.

In that vein, I think we might do well to start thinking of the current Supreme Court as a "Flight 93 Court". Over the past several months, it has interceded again and again -- with increasing levels of recklessness -- to sow chaos into the democratic system to the advantage of the Republican Party and the detriment of Democrats. First (well, not "first", but we'll start here) we had Callais, gutting the Voting Rights Act to enable Republican gerrymanders throughout the south and hopefully net the GOP a few more crucial House seats. Callais was followed by Milligan, and then today the Supreme Court's decision to intercede and (for now -- it's a wonky procedural posture) block a challenge to Donald Trump's efforts to sabotage mail-in voting in advance of November's election.

Aside from their obvious partisan tilt, what stands out about these decisions is their perversion of normal legal rules and processes -- blasting past the Court's own nominal guardrails to reach the preferred political result. The most obvious specific is the so-called Purcell principle, which supposedly forbids courts from issuing late-breaking alterations to the rules governing elections in close proximity to said election, but has very quickly developed the implicit caveat of "...unless doing so would benefit Republicans." But there are others. The Court's slaughtering of Humphrey's Executor -- and not just that they did it, but the way they did it; clearing the path for Trump's firings on an emergency basis notwithstanding the clear then-operative precedents that made them obviously unlawful -- spoke to a Court that is positively scrambling to let Trump consolidate as much power as possible, as fast as possible.

It is no revelation to anyone -- even someone as ideologically cocooned as John Roberts -- that these cases are obliterating the Court's legitimacy. Reforms like Court-packing, once viewed as fringe complaints from sore losers, are rapidly becoming litmus tests for any serious Democrat seeking higher office. It is almost impossible to imagine the Supreme Court surviving in its current form in the next Democratic trifecta. Last year, Justice Barrett lectured critics that "agree or disagree with the decisions that the court reaches ... we are engaged in a legal enterprise." The prevailing sentiment among liberal legal observers is to reject precisely this: that we are well past simply disagreeing with the decision the Court reaches, and into the terrain where the Supreme Court should no longer be viewed as engaging in a legal enterprise at all.

Given this cascading, calamitous drop in the Court's public esteem, what is prompting the Roberts Six to press forward? It's not commitment to legal principle -- again these cases stand out for their lack of consistent principle and their deviation from established precedential and doctrinal pathways. Rather, these cases give the unmistakable sense of a Supreme Court that is ready to do anything and everything -- no matter how reckless or lawless -- to stop the Democratic Party from taking power in 2026 and 2028. Nobody seriously thinks that the Court is announcing "law" in any meaningful sense, if by that we mean principles that will govern Democratic and Republican administrations in equal measure. The Court's rush to intercede to maximize Donald Trump's personal authority will not carry over to a Democratic administration. The Court is throwing caution to the wind because it views a Democratic political triumph as an existential threat. It is the charging the cockpit, knowing it might die.

Much like the original "Flight 93" justification, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that, for the most part, the existential emergency prompting the Court's charge is little more than the prospect of Democrats winning. I'll concede there is a slight difference in this context because of the aforementioned emergent Democratic consensus that the Supreme Court needs to be utterly transformed at the nearest possible opportunity -- but again, that is a tide of revolutionary sentiment that is entirely of their own making. A regular, modest conservative Court would not have prompted this sort of backlash (precisely because, to crib from Justice Barrett, legal professionals do know how to distinguish between outcomes they disagree with and outright judicial lawlessness).

So the Court is locked in on its path. It will endorse all of Trump's lawlessness, it will imperil democracy itself. It may kill us all in the process. But standing in the ruins of a shattered electoral system, they'll at least be able to tell themselves that they did everything they could to stop Democrats from winning.

More Catholic than the Bishops

When I wrote Liberal Jews and Religious Liberty, my goal was to demonstrate how conservative proponents of expansive religious liberty exemptions would prevent liberal religious claimants from accessing those same protections. For example, I predicted that conservatives would challenge the authenticity of Jewish religious commitments insofar as they were liberal (and thus presumptively non-religious in a universe where true religion = conservative Christianity).

With that in mind, this is a great story about brewing contretemps between the Attorney General of Florida, James Uthmeier, and the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops over the subject of vaccine mandates in schools. Florida law requires that private schools in the state's voucher program to allow parents to religiously exempt their children from school vaccine mandates. As an expression of their own religious commitments, however, Florida's Catholic schools do not want to permit such an exemption, as part of its pursuit of the "common good" and ensuring that its schools are safe havens for the elderly and children who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons.

In a fit of extraordinary arrogance, Uthmeier (who is himself Catholic) simply asserted that the bishops had "no legitimate religious reason" for denying vaccine exemptions. When the bishops replied that it was not for a state official to tell the Catholic Church what its religious commitments are, Uthmeier whined that vaccine mandates would represent a "completely new teaching." There were a lot of theological/antisemitic reasons why I felt Jews would be especially vulnerable to this sort of authenticity-policing, but it is striking to see that even the Catholic Church can have the authenticity of its religious views questioned when it speaks in a more liberal voice.

Uthmeier also questioned "whether a private school that doesn’t follow state laws protecting parental rights and deeply held beliefs should still be permitted to participate in state programs and receive state funding." This is, indeed, the million-dollar question that will arise again and again now that the Supreme Court has detonated historical barriers between church and state in allowing (and in many cases compelling) state funding of religious schools (and this very controversy illuminates why government "entanglement" with religion was historically seen as such a threat to religious liberty). 

Of course, the question Uthmeier raises is not intrinsically partisan -- in other cases, the variant will be a religious school that wants to discriminate against LGBTQ kids in defiance of state laws requiring equal treatment. But this situation represents a particularly weak case for denying a religious exemption to the church, since the entire premise of the Florida law is about protecting rights of conscience. It can't hold that out as a paramount interest and then withdraw it for religious claimants who express the "wrong" view.

Nonetheless, resolving these cases will be inherently messy, which leaves a lot of room for bias, which leaves ample opportunity for religious and political favoritism. So my baseline prediction remains that conservative adjudicators will grant the exemptions when it favors conservative beliefs (you can discriminate against the gay kids), and will not when it doesn't (you can't have a vaccine mandate). Either the Supreme Court didn't intend for that sort of religious preferentialism to be the consequence of its new free exercise jurisprudence -- or it did.

What's in the Polling Water in the Midwest?

When Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic nomination for Michigan Senate in a nail-biter, there was some talk about this actually being a disappointing outcome for the insurgent left given late polling that suggested El-Sayed running away with the race. This struck me as basically centrist cope -- one doesn't get to claim a moral victory of losing more narrowly than expected when you outspent your appointment by approximately seven trillion dollars -- but it did race significant questions about what went wrong for the pollsters.

Tonight, David Crowley narrowly upset Democratic Socialist Francisca Hong to win the nomination for Governor of Wisconsin in another race where late polling had given the progressive a commanding lead. In contrast to the Michigan race, I think this really does reflect poorly on Hong, as for an "outsider" candidate she couldn't have asked for more a glide path to the nomination watching her field of competitors implode around her (Crowley actually dropped out of the race a month ago before jumping back in, which is wild).

(Meanwhile, in Minnesota, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan easily won the Senate nomination over Rep. Angie Craig in another progressive/moderate showdown, though this felt more expected.)

So we now have two major midwestern Democratic primary races that were defined by huge polling misses, both in the form of vast overstatements of the strength of the lefty candidate. The big question is what does this mean for November? Does this suggest an electorate that is more conservative than polls are letting on? Or is it actually just showing that there are more "normie libs" whose voices are being drowned out? More than the results, that's the question that's going to keep me up at night.

Moral Luck Sucks

Every once in awhile, I fall into a deep, existential panic over the concept of moral luck.

Moral luck, per the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "occurs when an agent can be correctly treated as an object of moral judgment despite the fact that a significant aspect of what she is assessed for depends on factors beyond her control." It presses against a very common intuition, which is that we should not be held accountable for things that we did not choose or which are out of our control (i.e., the products of "bad luck").

For example, suppose two drivers each strike and kill a pedestrian. One did so after carelessly running a stop sign. The other was driving perfectly carefully, but a pedestrian happened to jump out on the street and was struck. The first driver we generally agree can be held liable, often even criminally liable; the second driver we do not, because the former made a bad choice (driving carelessly) while the latter did not.

But here's the thing -- all of us, even those of us who are generally good drivers, have probably run a stop sign at some point in our lives. I have, and I've gotten a grand total of one traffic ticket in my entire life.* 

Do you know what happened the time I ran a stop sign?

Nothing. Nobody was killed or hurt or frankly even noticed. Which is the case 99% of the time people run stop signs. It is a very unlucky 1% who run a stop sign exactly when a car or pedestrian is crossing as well and seriously hurt someone. Again, unlucky.  It is not in the driver's control whether someone jumps out into the street or not. Yes, the more often one runs a stop sign the more one plays the odds. But ultimately, it is purely a matter of luck that I was in the 99% that hurt nobody, versus someone else who hurt someone. Yet that pure luck distinguishes someone whom, at best, we might say deserves a $100 ticket from someone we'd say deservedly should spend decades in jail for vehicular manslaughter.

And that thought makes me dizzy. I'm very much a rule follower. Other than that one traffic ticket, I've never been involved with the law in any way, shape, or form. And yet, it is just a matter of good fortune that I -- living the exact life I've lived and making the exact choices I, the consummate rule-follower, made -- could have been sent to prison for decades with nobody thinking it at all unjust.

No moral to the story. Just sharing a thought that's responsible for this month's bout of insomnia.

* It was for an illegal right turn while driving to school. The route from my house to school included a right turn on a street with a "no right turn" sign operative from 7 AM - 9:30 AM. That didn't affect me, though, because I drove to school at 6 AM. But one day there was a two-hour snow delay, so instead of driving at 6 AM, I was driving an 8 AM. A cop posted up on the corner and probably bagged half the senior class. Yes, I'm still salty about this.

It's Not ALWAYS a Conspiracy

In a rematch of their 2024 contest, Democratic Rep. Wesley Bell prevailed over former Rep. Cori Bush, whom Bell ousted in his own primary challenge last cycle. While Bell won the 2024 race by approximately 5 points, he's expanded his lead to over 20 this time around.

But I actually want to flag a tertiary point. When looking for a news report on the race and its outcome, I happened to click on the NBC article (for no other reason than it was near the top of the Google results). The story interviews two voters, both of whom supported Bush. Which I found a bit odd, given that Bush, you know, lost (and lost by a wide margin). The broader copy, to my ears, also seemed to center Bush's "theory of the case" (if you will) regarding Bell being "bought" and Israel being the critical issue.

If I were a different sort of person, I'd spin out quite the tale about this -- of media bias and journalistic narratives and a clear ideological agenda keyed against politicians like Bell and in favor of those like Bush. But my actual point is the exact opposite: there is no conspiracy here. Is it probably better practice for NBC to interview voters who support the winning candidate when reporting on said candidate winning their race? Yeah, I think so. But these things happen, and they happen to candidates from all across the political spectrum, and so plucking out one discrete instance of it and saying "See! See! They really are all out to get us!" is not actually a valid move -- whether it's on behalf of a Bell-sort or on behalf of a Bush-sort.

In any event, congratulations to Wesley Bell, Abdul El-Sayed, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, William Lawrence, Jeremy Moss, and all the Democrats who secured their nominations tonight. Let's get out there and win some seats!

Racist Idiots Continue To Be Mad That Caitlin Clark Is Not Racist, Part II

A few years ago, I flagged a fun phenomenon afflicting WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark. You see, as a White superstar in a league with many Black players, racist idiots really wanted Caitlin Clark to be racist. And when she declined, they got very mad at her.

This week, as teammate Sophie Cunningham more explicitly positioned herself as the darling of the right-wing grievance crowd, the knives are back out for Caitlin Clark.

It's hilarious how Walsh doesn't even consider the possibility that Clark doesn't think she's been subjected to "anti-white racism." The only explanation for her reticence to name it is that she's a coward. Likewise, it does not strike me as out of character that a fierce competitor like Clark is uninterested in bawling about how hypothetical trans competitors will be just too good for her to handle. But of course Walsh can't comprehend that a woman might actually have a bit of pride in her basketball abilities such that she doesn't fear open competition. Surely Clark must know she's an inferior, right? Right?

What this reminds me of, incidentally, is a story I've told a few times about how certain "allies" react to my account being Jewish at Berkeley. They start with the assumption that Berkeley is an antisemitic hellhole and come ready to lend aid and comfort to a Jew like me who must have suffered terribly during my time there. But to their surprise, I tell them that this wasn't my experience, and while it certainly wasn't an idyllic paradise and I won't speak for anyone else at a huge campus like UC-Berkeley, I generally was quite comfortable as a Jew there. And this response is infuriating, and my would-be "ally" turns on me with a vengeance, convinced that only a spineless, self-hating Jew would refuse to confirm their narrative about pervasive Berkeley antisemitism.

And then they wonder why folks like me don't recognize them as the true allies of the Jews.

Clark is going through the same thing. A bunch of right-wing white knights ride out on her behalf to defend against the terrible mistreatment and oppression she labors under. Clark demurs, indicating that this is not her experience and not a description she identifies with. And then her would-be saviors savage her for her impertinence -- she's a coward, she's spineless, she's a race traitor. No doubt, they will continue to wonder why Clark doesn't view them as her buddies.

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume LXXXI: Migrants from Morocco

On Thursday, a large influx of migrants (reportedly 60,000) crossed from Morocco into Ceuta, a Spanish exclave on the mainland African coast. This has led to a lot of far-right chirping and no small number of conspiracy theories. And where there are conspiracy theories, well, you know what's going to follow -- it's a Zionist plot, done to "punish" Spain for its pro-Palestine advocacy.

At first it was just the usual assortment of Twitter randos, notable only for giving us the never-before-uttered phrase "Zionist-occupied Morocco". But it has definitely broken containment. Al-Jazeera has a "just raising questions" column that doesn't allow a complete lack of evidence to interfere with a "[w]hether Israel is indeed involved ... remains to be seen" conclusion. Then Javier Bardem got in on the action, with a profoundly weird Instagram post implying that actually Morocco is a European power invading African Spain (with the same "we don't know who engineered this crisis", but we sure feel confident suggesting it's Israel!).

One thing this particular incident inspired me to do is reflect on how I deal with statements blaming "Zionists" or "Israel" in this series. It's called Things People Blame the Jews For, and as approximately three million BlueSky users are quick to remind us, "Jew" is not a synonym of "Israel" or "Zionist". And of course, I do not contest that Israel does any number of things for which it can be "blamed" for (and which it would never occur to me to put into this series). So what does make a "blame the Zionists" post TPBTJF-qualified?

The basic answer is that I'll include an incident if it's clear that "Israel" or "Zionist" is standing in for the role Jews have historically occupied in conspiracy theories -- as a ready-available source of blame for generic bad things that have no significant connection to Israel or Jews at all (beyond the normal connections that can always be found between one significant social group and another). People race to that explanation not because it's objectively all that plausible, but because it will always feel plausible to those for whom "it's the Jews fault" always has an above-baseline ring of truth to it.

If one buys into the "punishment" argument, one could basically say that any bad thing that happens to any country which is critical of Israel can be plausibly suggested to trace back to Israeli malfeasance (see also: Egypt suffered from some controversial World Cup calls because Israel). This is very convenient for the leaders of said country, but not very convenient for people actually interested in the true sources of said bad thing.

Good Government Backsliding

One of Zohran Mamdani's signature policy initiatives just launched -- a tax on pied-à-terres. The tax would apply to second homes (i.e., those not occupied as a primary residence) worth over $1 million.

I won't claim to be a housing (or tax) policy expert, but this seems perfectly reasonable to me. Admittedly, given the cost of NYC real estate a one million dollar home maybe isn't as opulent as one might imagine elsewhere.  But a one million dollar second home undoubtedly qualifies as a luxury, and it is no foul to ask people who live in luxury to pay a little extra to support the rest of society.

So far, so good. Unfortunately, the rollout of the tax has apparently been beset with problems. The city released a list of 960,000 properties it thought "could" be subjected to the tax, far in excess of the 10,000 units predicted to actually qualify for the assessment. Reportedly, even though the tax is explicitly targeted at second homes, quite a few homeowners received letters telling them they were on the hook for their primary residence. And a relatively quick deadline set for challenging the assessment (near the end of August) has been paired with a malfunctioning mechanism for actually filing the challenge, causing panic amongst a significant quotient of homeowners who were not intended to and should not be covered by the tax:

Ohlerking’s notice said he could apply for an exemption to the tax by submitting proof online that the home was his primary residence. 

But, when Ohlerking, who is blind, logged on to the prescribed website with the help of his friend Jennifer Stadnik, they were met with a nonfunctioning blank white screen.  

So, the pair printed out a cache of documents to take to the Department of Finance’s Brooklyn office—only to be told by employees that the office couldn’t accept Ohlerking’s proof of residency at that time because they were busy setting up a designated intake center for people claiming they wrongfully received pied-à-terre tax notices, Stadnik said.

On Friday, Stadnik said the office called Ohlerking to tell him it would be able to help him on Monday morning.

I'll pause here to say two things. One is that part of good government is good execution, no matter what it is you're doing. Whatever one might think about the policy, the execution seems to have been a screw-up here, and for that the Mamdani administration deserves to take a few lumps. The other is that mistakes happen. No administration ever does everything perfectly. Taking a few lumps is one thing, but stories like this don't on their own justify some sweeping indictment that the Mamdani administration is essentially or uniquely incompetent.

And in an ideal world, that's all that would need to be said. But on BlueSky, I've seen an alarming number of posts not just excusing the rollout mishaps, but taking a tone of sadistic glee that people are being subjected to these mistakes (and an apparently Kafka-esque process for challenging said mistakes). "Oh yes, what a colossal mess, asking wealthy property owners to prove they live in those properties," sneered one journalist. An article in the Free Press titled "Why Mamdani Is Asking My Mom to Pay His Pied-à-Terre Tax" was met with a snarky "I'm guessing he's asking her because she owns a pied-a-terre" -- but the point of the article is that no, she doesn't, this is her primary residence (the author in question is Alex Berenson, and I deeply resent having to say anything remotely defensive on his behalf).

At the risk of being cringe liberal, it is never good to revel in another's suffering for its own sake. If Mamdani's tax is good, it's because it raises revenue from those who can most afford to pay to fund projects necessary for the good of the city as a whole. It's not good because it aggravates people who own lavish second homes in New York that they don't live in. It's certainly not good because it aggravates people who are mistakenly asserted to be owners of lavish second homes in New York that they don't live in. At that point, one is saying that it is good to immiserate the innocent in the service of attempting to immiserate the enemy class. This is not a healthy attitude. Once that sort of atavistic sadism is allowed to let slip, it always leads to dark places.

A few days ago, I said that "Half of Mamdani’s genius is convincing ordinary people that progressive ideas will materially benefit their lives and aren’t scary communism, and the other half is convincing terminally online leftists that basic good government is progressive and isn’t neoliberal shilling for evil corporations." I stand by that, and I don't think this blip falsifies the broader point that for the most part Mamdani genuinely has tried to focus on basic good government and that doing so is part of being a progressive, not a betrayal of it.

But it's pretty clear that many of his supporters, at least, have not quite internalized the lesson yet.

Blamed For (Not) Our Crazies

This year, animal rights activists in Oregon tried to get a petition on the ballot that would extend the state's animal cruelty laws to all animals, including those in the wild or being farmed for agriculture. That description may or may not seem extreme, but the practical upshots are absolutely extreme: a total ban on hunting and fishing, a ban on livestock slaughter, a ban on most forms of animal husbandry, even a ban on most types of pest control.

Unsurprisingly, it was not popular -- receiving essentially wall-to-wall denunciations from major politicians of both parties. Ultimately, it did not receive enough signatures to make the ballot, and one would think we could all chalk it up to "there are fringe radicals everywhere" and leave it there.

Or we could engage in our favorite pastime and say that the existence of this petition proves Democrats are terrible. Enter Erik Loomis' post on the initiative, which begins as follows:

Oregon Democrats: A Parody of Liberals

I cannot imagine a worse or stupider ballot measure than what Oregon liberals are trying to push here. Evidently, Democrats never want to win a rural voter ever again.

What's amazing about this is that the article Loomis proceeds to block quote tells us both that the initiative is poised to fail to qualify for the ballot and that it was generally opposed by statewide Democrats (and Republicans). So how does it reflect poorly on "Oregon Democrats"?

The people behind this initiative, I am absolutely certain, do not care a whit about "Democrats" or Democratic electoral prospects. It's a fair bet that they're not actually Democrats themselves. The only thing Democrats have done with respect to this initiative is successfully oppose it. Yet it's still framed as proof of Democratic idiocy and/or malfeasance.

The real irony is that Murc's law was created at LGM!

There's a Print Club, and I'm In It

 

As some of you know, my recent hobby-obsession is art collecting. And while I don't limit myself to one particular medium, to the extent I have a concentration, it's on prints.

Being the self-reflective sort, I wondered why editioned prints in particular appeal to me so much. The standard "pitch" for prints is that they are a cheaper and more accessible point of entry into the fine art world than other mediums. We've talked before about how the same A-tier artists whose paintings go for a million dollars-plus have editions available you can snag for a thousand dollars or less.

Being a cost-conscious sort (and certainly not a megamillionaire), that's definitely playing a role. But there are some other things I like about prints in particular.

One is that prints are limited editions, but not one-of-a-kind. People who are purists about paintings over prints often harp on the uniqueness of the former. But I actually kind of like the communal aspect of sharing in a particular work -- at least, to a limited extent. A club that anyone can join is pointless, but a club that only has one member is pretty boring. Print ownership is like being part of an exclusive but still interesting club.

For example, the image pictured above is an etching I recently acquired by Leonard Baskin, titled "Artemis". In addition to his "regular" artistic career, Baskin founded and owned the Gehenna Press, which published limited edition fine arts books. One such book was an edition of the Greek tragedy Hippolytus, of which only 200 copies were made, and included with the book were ten illustrations, "Artemis" being one of them. Outside those 200, Baskin created a supplemental edition of 90, which is where my copy comes from. So 290 total -- not too many, in the scheme of things. And even better is who else is in that small circle. For "Artemis", I now know that a piece on my wall also is in the collection of (among other locales) the Delaware Art Museum and the Cornell University Art Museum. That's pretty neat! I won't claim that all or even most of the works I own are represented in museums, but I do have pieces that also are found in the National Gallery of Art, the Walker, the National Gallery of Australia, and Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum. That's a pretty good club to be a member of!

And lest we find all this talk of museums and exclusive clubs a bit too posh, there's a related phenomenon that I am quite sure plays a large role in my love for prints: they're numbered. "Artemis", for instance, is numbered 68/90 (the 68th example from the edition of 90). And I love those numbers.

Why? Well, you see, long before I was an art collector, I was a baseball card collector. That was my big childhood hobby, and while I've long since gotten out of that game, I still have my old collection. Interestingly, even as a child one of my favorite things to collect were vintage cards from the 1950s and 60s. But in terms of contemporary cards, the coolest ones were the rare inserts. And the coolest of the inserts were the cards with an individual serial number.

We in the baseball card collecting biz were very naive when this started to become a thing. The 1998 SPx Finite set's common cards were individually numbered to 9000 -- huge, by art world standards, but I remember thinking it was the coolest thing in the world. And of course, some cards were rarer, and some were a lot rarer. I have a Greg Maddux numbered to 11 and a Scott Rolen numbered to 25 that I kept in a bank deposit box for decades, less because of their value than because I was freaked out at the prospect of losing them.

Anyway, the point is that seeing a limited edition print numbered X of Y pulls on a deep, deep well of childhood excitement and enthusiasm and nostalgia. A painting may be unique, but it doesn't have the number attached to it. And while that might not be the most sophisticated impetus for a collecting interest, I think there are worse grounds for a building a hobby than that.

Say That I Do, Not That I Say

The other day, I put up a skeet complaining about the faction of progressive commentators who were mad at Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear for not just declaring Mitch McConnell dead and calling a special election to replace him. Their complaints generally took on the theme of aggrievement at Democrats who don't "fight" and a concurrent demand that Beshear "do something" rather than just sit around and vegetate while another Republican lie goes unchallenged. Why don't Democrats ever play hardball?

The problem with this hue and cry, I pointed out, is that it completely misreads what the "hardball" play is. As long as Mitch McConnell is missing, he can't cast votes -- functionally losing the GOP one sorely needed seat. If he dies (or we just decide he's dead), and Beshear calls a special election to replace him, that special election will be won by a Republican who can cast votes, giving the Senate GOP its seat back. Calling a special election helps Republicans. Keeping McConnell's seat in purgatory indefinitely helps Democrats. The hardball move isn't for Beshear to just unilaterally declare Mitch McConnell dead; the hardball move is for Beshear to say he'll do nothing until he sees a long form death certificate and then disconnect his phone.

Nonetheless, the amount of traction the "do something" calls against Beshear has gotten is worrisome. For starters, we shouldn't look past the fact that it is at best conspiracy theory adjacent (it is extremely unlikely that McConnell is secretly dead and that fact is being hidden by nefarious GOP operative -- if for no other reason than, again, his death would be good for the GOP as against the alternative of him lingering but incapable of casting votes). But beyond that, it is the apex of a certain type of brainrot which is so mad at supposedly sclerotic Democratic leadership that it fetishizes the appearance of "doing something" above all else. This is itself a gateway to fascism -- a feature of which Umberto Eco identified 30 years ago as including the cult of action for action’s sake. (“Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”) -- but even if it wasn't, it's just stupidity wrapped in an angry self-righteous shell. It's a large part of what gave us Graham Platner, and what made Platner immune to so many normally career-ended scandals until he finally wasn't -- all could be forgiven because "at least he's a fighter."

This is the problem. Too much of our political energy is being channeled exclusively through the lens of "doing something", where that marks out the sole criteria for goodness or badness, in a way that leads to counterproductive or just bizarre contortions. To give a different example, earlier today Nexus issued a statement defending New York City major Zohran Mamdani from allegations of antisemitism leveled by ADL chieftain Jonathan Greenblatt. Someone on BlueSky, while purporting to "applaud" Nexus for calling Greenblatt out, found the statement to be woefully insufficient. The "absence of action is deafening," he wrote. Nexus' "commitment to fight antisemitism rests on what you do, not just what you say/post."

So what is it that Nexus should have "done", as opposed to just "said"? They should have issued a "call for [Greenblatt's] removal from leadership."

Now, maybe that's a good thing for them to do, maybe not. But I could not help but point out that "calling" for Greenblatt's removal is ... a call. It is words. Again, that doesn't make it pointless -- Nexus doesn't sit on the ADL's board, so they can't actually "do" anything. The point is, though, that if there is a divide between "what you say" and "what you do", this falls pretty decisively on the "say" side of the line. And I flag this here because it seems pretty clear that this was an example of someone for whom "doing" is inherently good and "saying" is inherently inadequate, and so they just instinctively decided that their own preferred tactical intervention had to be a "do" even though it was exactly as much of a "say" as the statement whose inaction was so deafening.

To be clear, I'm not urging a return to cautious moderation. Much the opposite, I think Democrats need to be bold, and when they take back power, they need to exercise it. Recall my wishlist for the first week of the next Democratic administration:

By the end of the first week, I'd want to a complete pro-democracy package (including DC statehood) on the president's desk. I want to see prominent Republicans and ICE leaders who've committed crimes frog-marched in handcuffs. I want the corporate executives who approved "settlements" for Trump's frivolous lawsuits indicted for bribery. I want to see public resources and opportunities expressly redirected away from companies and firms who caved to Trump, and towards those who showed backbone, to show that there are penalties to being a quisling. I want the DOJ to announce an anti-corruption task force geared at identifying all the money stolen from the American taxpayer by the Trump family and clawing back as much of it as possible, and I want them to name and shame the Supreme Court as among the primary obstacles to providing accountability for their crimes. I want to uncover the corrupt insiders who bet on the lives of American servicemembers and have their identities blasted across every newspaper in America in advance of their trials. Do it all, do it fast, weather the storm, then consolidate your position.

These are, I hope one would agree, pretty "fight-y" in character. And importantly, I'd defend all of them on the merits of being good policy, not just as short-term political expediency but in terms of long-term political health. Critically, they are not good just because they give a powerful aura of fighting and acting. And by the same token, while many of these good things can be announced quickly, a lot of them to be fully operationalized do require a lot of the "boring" work of planning and organizing and thinking and researching in order to actually accomplish what they set out to do. Doing that sort of thing isn't backsliding, it's part of making action work.

It is absolutely true that a political movement, to be worthwhile, has to do some things. We're not a philosophy club; the point is to translate some ideals into practice. But the thirst for action needs to be tempered -- it cannot be its own justification. When we let ourselves indulge action for actions sake (again, even leaving aside the pipeline to fascism risk), we will continually bash our heads into easily avoidable walls and be mad at those not running full speed along side us. That's what we're seeing with the attacks on Beshear, that's what we saw for too long from those demanding everyone hop aboard the Platner train, and that will ultimately rip the party and the movement to shreds.

Permanent Hypermilitaristic Suppression of Palestinians Hasn't Failed Because It's Never Been Tried?

In a recent blog post, Nachum Kaplan claims that the shift in Israel's security orientation post-10/7 stems from its rejection of "the West's most dangerous illusions." It begins as follows:

October 7th was a catastrophic security failure for Israel and an intellectual demolition.

In a matter of hours, assumptions that had governed Israeli strategy for decades were exposed as manifestly inadequate.

So far, so good. Indeed, immediately after the attacks, I said something to this effect:

Hamas' operation represents an explosive repudiation of the notion that Gaza and Hamas could be besieged into obedience. The right-wing fantasy-nightmare that Israelis could (only) be kept safe through ever-greater oppression of Palestinians has been finally and completely falsified. From an Israel security standpoint, the rightwing playbook has only accomplished an unprecedented endangerment of Israeli lives in service of the furthest right-wing fringe. At what point do we say these policies are leading to nowhere but universal damnation?

Except, somehow, these aren't the "assumptions" Kaplan has in mind. In his telling, the policy structure that was exposed as inadequate is a brainchild of liberal internationalism inspired by post-war Europe, centered around shared economic prosperity and political integration. What is replacing it is a "harder" view of power, one that rejects the belief "that every conflict is a misunderstanding, every enemy a potential partner, and every murderous ideology an unmet socioeconomic need waiting for a development grant to address."

This makes me want to scream. I simply do not understand how someone can look at Israeli policy towards Gaza over the decade or so leading up to 10/7 and think it was characterized by economic interdependence under the umbrella of diplomacy and a rules-based international order that would keep everyone safe. That's just not what the policy was. It borders on delusion to assert that's what the policy was. The policy was that Gaza could be kept under indefinite conditions of besiegement and economic isolation, and Israel could successfully avoid significant security blowback because of its vastly superior military and intelligence apparatus.

That's the policy that was in place on 10/7. That the policy that failed on 10/7. It is maddening that the political faction that was in power on 10/7, and for virtually all of the preceding twenty years leading up to 10/7, and whose political raison d'etre was to savagely dismantle any semblance of this liberal, diplomatic, Oslo-inspired policy because it was not sufficiently "realist", can invert reality on this. It was not the liberals who set the policies or priorities that prevailed on 10/7. So why are we acting as if their outlook is what failed? Why are we acting as if "diplomacy and political resolutions are dead ends; the only thing that matters is the size of our tanks" is a strategic pivot, as opposed to returning to the same dry well?

If you want to be skeptical of political resolutions, I don't begrudge that skepticism. It's entirely understandable to imagine a future where there is a decisive political resolution imposed to "settle" the Israel/Palestine conflict, one which at least purports to protect the political, economic, and security interests of all parties, and it still ends up collapsing back into terrible violence and mayhem and oppression. But if you are going to be skeptical of that imagined, as-yet-unattempted future, then surely one must be at least as skeptical of the very real, absolutely-attempted past and present that fervently asserted military might was the only thing that truly mattered. One you are imagining to fail, the other already actually has failed.

Again, the inversion of who has to explain themselves to who is infuriating. Kaplan concludes by demanding that "those promising coexistence, deterrence through prosperity, or security through international guarantees must now answer a more brutal question. What happens when you are wrong?"

To which I want to reply, what if you're wrong? No, check that: you already were wrong! Kaplan's belief is that a "harder" view of Palestinians, one that is less concerned with diplomatic niceties or economic development (to say nothing of political equality) and one that relies on "military capability, credible deterrence, intelligence competence, and the willingness to use force" will keep Israel safe. That view is not a departure from the one that governed on 10/7, it is the view that was in force on 10/7 and which failed on 10/7. In a sane world, we who supported political equality and diplomatic resolution would not need to restore our credibility to the militarists, they would need to restore their credibility to us.

Perhaps Kaplan wants an "but even more so" version of the preceding years militarism. But we still, we can ask "what if you're wrong?" What if, it turns out, the near-exclusive reliance on military might, and the belief that Palestinians can be subjected to political subordination and economic devastation in perpetuity, does not prevent October 7ths from occurring? We have powerful evidence from experience on this point. And even if Kaplan wants to contest that his version of military power über alles is different from the prior iterations, "[w]hat cannot seriously be disputed is that the burden of proof has changed."

But people like Kaplan seem to genuinely not see this. And that is wild to me.

Confused Jews are Scared Jews

A small independent movie theater near me with a reputation for witty marquees put up the following display to advertise Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey":

Before there were the Jews ... there was The Odyssey.

This set off a lot of consternation. All the local papers have stories on it. It was included in an all-congregant email sent by my Rabbi, alongside other concerning events such as a Jewish community member's car defaced with swastikas (very concerning) and the majority of Oregon's House delegation voting against military aid to Israel (less concerning).

From my vantage point, the marquee is mostly confusing. I don't get it. It doesn't seem to have a clear point, or tie into any particular narrative (positive or negative) about Jews. Even at its most literal, it's not clear the Odyssey in fact does predate the existence of Jews. So why does this message feel so off?

The best answer I can give is that -- for better or for worse -- when I see something snarky that mentions Jews that doesn't have a clear punchline, my first assumption is that it represents some sewer meme from 4chan or whatnot that hasn't yet broken through into the public consciousness; a shibboleth that signals "I'm talking shit about Jews in a way (((they))) won't get and can't get me for." Remember "noticing"? Or the echo signs, for that matter? It's rarely good when people talk about Jews in elliptical ways, and so when we see people talking about Jews in ways that are opaque and confusing we rationally respond with alarm.

In any event, the theater's GM has now revealed his intentions behind the marquee ... sort of. Judge for yourself:

“My intention is never to influence opinion or fan flames, but to say: it’s okay to raise eyebrows, though I hope my messages reflect a depth of understanding others find in themselves but not always in the world around them,” said [Jordan] Perry by text message. “Through the media I consume, I believe modern-day antisemitism is exaggerated, mostly as a defense for Israel’s actions in the Middle East and its involvement in our politics, and my intention in referencing Jewish people on the marquee was to prod at everything being seemingly antisemitic with a statement that couldn’t possibly be construed as antisemitic.”

A man who thinks antisemitism is greatly exaggerated, but also doesn't understand antisemitism well enough to comprehend why his marquee would be alarming. One might hope that this dissonance would prompt some self-reflection, but I somehow suspect it will do the opposite. 

Hand Foot Mouth Cock Sacky, Part II

Nathaniel has been sent home from daycare again, with suspected hand foot and mouth disease (aka coxsackie). As you may recall, he had this back in January. As you may also recall, I also had this back in January, with much more severe symptoms.

The timing is ... interesting. My parents were here to visit and literally left this morning. In fact, they were still at PDX airport when we got the call. I admit, my first thought was "great -- Nathaniel's sent home right when we lose extra babysitting." With a little time to reflect, I begrudgingly concluded that it was probably better that my seventy-five-year-old parents were not in our house with a highly contagious disease floating about.

As for Nathaniel, I don't begrudge him getting coxsackie again. He is a baby and his immune system is puny and weak. My immune system, by contrast, is strong and virile, and so I should resist the disease much better this time -- right?

We'll see. Right now, half of my brain is interpreting every twinge and ache as a blister that's about to burst forth, while the other half is wishfully insisting that these symptoms are entirely psychosomatic. I guess we'll know for sure in a few days. Hopefully, I don't nearly pass out in any public places this time.

You Got Meta In My Google!

I have a confession to make.

I enjoy googling myself. Okay? I admit it.

And as embarrassing as that admission is, I'm also going to really out myself as elderly and plea for help in using google.

So lately, when I google myself -- "David Schraub", in quotes, limited to hits from the last week or month -- a lot of the recent hits are from Facebook and, less often, Instagram. The little snippet you get from Google suggests that it's someone (a poster? a commenter?) talking about something I've written. But if I click the link -- nothing! The comment isn't there. I'm nowhere to be found on the page! The page and the Google snippet result seem to have nothing to do with one another. What gives?

Now, to some extent, the question of "is Google screwing up Meta or is Meta screwing up Google" feels like a por que no los dos? situation. But nonetheless, I am confused about what is going on, and what these search results purport to be. Does anyone know?

(And more broadly: does anyone know how to search for anything on Instagram? I only use it for art related things, but I confess I don't understand the app at all).

Avoiding the Obvious

Rabbi Seth Winberg, executive director of Hillel at Brandeis, has an interesting/infuriating essay up on JTA about the growing number of young Jews who express preference for a single, binational democratic state in Israel/Palestine. Winberg specifically is focusing on a subset of these Jews, those who are not true anti-Zionist believers but who remain supportive -- at least in concept -- of Israel as a Jewish, democratic state. What explains their support of this plan?

To this question, Winberg gives a summary that is, more or less, exactly correct.

The first, two states for two peoples, looks dead after the peace process has repeatedly failed to deliver that outcome for their entire lives. It’s certainly not an option according to the Israeli consensus, with only 15% of Israeli Jews currently supporting two states. 

The second, in which Israel annexes the West Bank and Gaza and rules millions of Palestinians who cannot vote, seems to be the vision of Israel’s current government.

The third option, one democratic country, imagines equal rights for everyone. To a young American of decent instincts and thin knowledge of the region, schooled to see the conflict as a matter of racial equality, the last sounds like simple justice: one person, one vote.  

This, broadly speaking, is exactly correct (if maybe a bit patronizingly put). There are three possible solutions to the conflict: some form of a two-state solution, a one-state solution without equal rights (i.e., apartheid), or a one-state solution with equal rights. If the apartheid option is viewed as unacceptable, and the two-state solution is viewed as unfeasible, that leaves door #3. It's really not that complicated. And if you're aghast at young Jews picking door #3, then your options are either to make apartheid sound acceptable (hopefully not) or make a two-state solution seem feasible. Again, not that complicated.

But here is where things fly off course. Instead of accepting the obvious point, Winberg veers off into a long digression about connections to Jewish peoplehood and imbrication in Jewish texts and patriotism and distinguishing between country and government. It's long and meandering and frankly I had trouble following it, but more importantly it just has nothing to do with the problem he accurately identified above.

Let's say a group of the young Jews in question takes on Winberg's ideal course of study. They spend a year in his dojo, burying themselves in Jewish text and ritual. They emerge with a genuine, emotive connection to the entirety of the Jewish people -- in Israel, in America, and around the world. They know full well the difference between country and government. They are proudly part of a live and living Jewish tradition.

They then return to the above trilemma: two states, one apartheid state, or one equal binational state. What's changed? Do they now find apartheid attractive? I hope not! Do they now see two-states as more feasible? I don't see why. Nothing has changed, and so nothing will change. The basic trilemma is identical to what it was before, and so the outcome will be the same as it is before.

Everything Winberg is suggesting about cultivating Jewish connection and peoplehood and authentic bonds may be good for its own sake. None of it changes the dynamics of the problem he's accurately identified. And the most maddening feature of all is that the answer to that problem actually is obvious. If you don't like the binational one-state option, and you're not willing to endorse the apartheid one-state option, then the only move is to do whatever you can to make a two-state solution viable. Actually viable, not just a talking point. That should be the full-court press move of Winberg and all the other Jewish organizations fretting about this problem. Do whatever it takes to bring a two-state solution to fruition, no matter who's standing in the way.

Of course, framed that way, it's obvious why the obvious solution is resisted. In the present moment, genuine, material, full-throated support for a two-state solution puts one in sharp opposition to the Israeli government (and a pretty wide swath of the Israeli Jewish populace too). That opposition is not just rhetorical, it'd be material too -- the government would actively be sabotaging your proposed initiatives, and so many of your initiatives would be directly antagonistic to the government (anything from sanctioning price tag terrorists to imposing boycotts on settlement goods to recognizing a Palestinian state on 1967 borders). For all the talk about separating the concept of Israel-as-a-Jewish-state from a particular suite of government policies, this is what Winberg and his ilk recoil from. They cannot bring themselves to occupy the position of clear and vocal opponents of the Israeli government.  They also cannot bring themselves to endorse either of the two alternatives to the two-state solution. So they start spinning out long complex essays with long complex proposals that sound attractive except for the part that they change nothing about the fundamental problem, which is that you have to back either two-states, one-state with apartheid, or one-state binationalism.

I'm picking on Winberg's essay not because it is unique, but because it is of a type. The trilemma above is a variation on the trilemma we've known about for years: Israel can be Jewish, democratic, or in control of the West Bank and Gaza -- pick two. You can pick any two, but you can only pick two. And everyone kind of knows this, but also resists actually picking the two. They say "it's essential for Israel to be a Jewish, democratic state." Okay, then you must support ending the occupation? "Well," they hem and haw, "I'm not sure about the timing, and there are genuine security needs, and after 10/7 Israel can't be expected to cede control over Palestinian territories." Okay, so if Israel has to stay in control over these territories, democracy means that the Palestinians who live there must get equal voting rights, yes? "No -- that would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state!" "So control of the territory but no equal rights ... apartheid then?" "How dare you! Israel must be Jewish and democratic." Round and round we go.

There's a lot about Israel/Palestine that is complicated. But this part of it is not complicated. Winberg is right that even among young Jews, there is not a wholesale rejection of the idea of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. What is there is a wholesale rejection of apartheid and a fatalistic sense that a two-state solution is unfeasible. That leaves one equal state. If one doesn't like being left there, your choices are to make apartheid okay again or to make a two-solution viable again. There isn't another move.

Project Runway Season 22: Opening Thoughts

Long-timers may recall that periodic Project Runway chirping is a recurrent feature on this blog. The oldest post I was able to find about the show was yelling about Mondo's loss in Season 8 (of course it was), but I've seen every season and (I think) every spin-off, and started watching them live as of Season 5.

Anyway, the first episode of Season 22 just dropped. It's the second season on Freeform, whatever that is, or Hulu or Disney+ if you're a normal person. It's either a sign of how far Project Runway has fallen or how far Google has fallen that I cannot for the life of me find pics of the designers' looks from this episode, so I'm going off of memory and hastily fast-forwarding through my recording.

The immediate gimmick was that they're starting with a whopping 22 designers (For season 22! Get it?), but cutting six of them right off the jump. It wasn't even a real Project Runway challenge -- they got to bring a look from home, and just had to fit, edit, and style it. I actually don't mind the concept here -- let's let people put their best foot forward -- but the opening cut (six going home out of a bottom eight) was pretty brutal.

Anyway, I won't comment on everyone or everything, because who has the time, but here are my initial thoughts. First, the general stuff:

• The sassy chyrons continue to be the best innovation of the Freeform era. The stupid "to be continued" cliffhangers continue to be the worst. What, are you afraid I won't watch another episode if I'm not on tenterhooks from the last one? Try making a good product and you solve that problem.

• I've never liked Tyra Banks, and I can't imagine starting now. I suppose she's still better than Isaac Mizrahi. Still, even more than before, I just pray that Nina Garcia actually shows up for more than three episodes this season.

• JosephMcRae is polarizing, and I get that, but as returning designers go I'm not mad about it. The "eliminated by your fellow designers" bit he was subjected to last season was bullshit.

• Law Roach is polarizing, but I am liking him a bit more this time around. Jill was cackling about how he absolutely refused to engage with any of the contestants if they tried to joke around with him.

• There's clearly some tension between the RuPaul fandom that invades Project Runway now that their people are being cast on the show, and the OG PR fandom. I'm very much the latter, and know nothing about the former, which makes it weird to see people on Reddit talk about how they've only watched the former and have no exposure to the latter. Perhaps for that reason, it would be very funny to me if both the Drag Race alumni were eliminated immediately this season (and I think they both deserve it).

And now, the designs (or at least some of them).

• Overall, I thought this was a strong runway -- as one would hope, given the infinite time allotted. I'm not sure I'm convinced Andriy's look deserved to be in the top. I also cannot figure out why I liked his Russian bestie Bobby's look as much as I do, given that it looks like a comforter, but the heart wants what it wants.

• The hat was too much on JosephMcRae's look, but the pattern was actually gorgeous. Learn to edit, my man!

• Bi's coat genuinely did rock. What was originally under it genuinely was tragic, and it probably did need something else there to end up on top. Also, I hate to say it, but that sweatshop joke (a professor called him a "one-man sweatshop", and he was offended because "I don't sweat!") was hilarious.

• Chloe's look had some very good ideas -- the wide-open back was fantastic -- but it seemed to be ill-constructed.

• Octavius' look was pretty cool. He ended up in the middle, but said that if he was sent home it basically would mean "they don't like me." That sure seems like a healthy attitude.

• The collar on Jude's look was fantastic. I'm a sucker for a tailored suit though.

• Elizabeth's look didn't feel fresh to me. I don't hate it, but I felt like I'd seen it before.

• I'm a little sad we didn't get commentary on Anna's unconventional-materials-in-a-conventional-challenge look. It was very well done! Kudos to her for showing looks like that can hang with the big dogs!

• Look, Bryan: you can have the giant sleeve or the poofy stomach, but not both. Or do both and end up on top -- clearly, I'm not the one you need to impress.

Moving to the bottom designers.

• Jennifer is a former Project Runway model. That could have been a cool angle, and I didn't mind the Poison Ivy costume, but I get why it was sent off. Still rough to be the first one auf-ed though.

• I did kind of find the pants on Andrea's look interesting, and I liked the layers-on-layers concept, but it just didn't all work together. You could make a case for her staying on "has ideas" grounds, but her elimination is not protest-worthy.

• Lre the Artist was fine, but not notable. Goodbye! I won't remember you!

• There really weren't many outright bad outfits on the runway today. Dani's was one of them (did someone say "pirate princess"?). I absolutely cannot fathom how, in a world where three-fourths of the bottom designers were eliminated, she got a reprieve. Completely undeserved.

• Robby's look was also outright bad. He's part of the cliffhanger quartet, but I can't imagine he survives.

• Jeffrey's dress looked, as my astute wife observed, like a fungus.

• I liked the spiked purse Plane Jane's model was carrying. That concludes the parts of Plane Jane's look I liked. The spike-nipples were in particularly ghastly taste.

• The final member of the cliffhanger quartet (along with Jeffrey and Plane Jane) is R'Bonney. So here's the thing. Every few seasons, a designer comes on and brings out a look with an Assassin's Creed style hood. And every time, I like it, because I think that hood looks cool. And every time, the judges hate it, because reasons. At least this time around, I called my shot and said as soon as the model walked "I like that but the judges will hate it, because it has that hood." And wouldn't you know it if she's on the bottom, with Tyra Banks yelling platitudes about how it's good but that's not good enough.

So we have four designers in limbo, and three will be eliminated. Who will be the survivor? I like R'Bonney the best, but the judges will never reward someone they think is boring this early in the competition. And Robby's look was a trainwreck. So that leaves Plane Jane and Jeffrey. I guess I'm pulling for Jeffrey, since he seems less insufferable? Slightly?

To another great season, and may there be 22 more!

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume LXXX: The Fall of Graham Platner

(It's a TPBTJF double-header -- click here!)

Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner has dropped out of the race following accusations of sexual assault by a former girlfriend. Probably. He said he will, but he also said he's waiting until the last possible day for completely inexplicable reasons. Such a stand up guy.

Of course, nobody can blame any of Platner's backers for what went down here. It would have taken some sort of oracle to spot the red flags, like the Nazi tattoo, or the inflammatory Reddit posts, or the sexting, or the other women who had already said he was abusive during their relationship. You know, microscopic specks like that. There's a reason why folks like Ken Klippenstein feel as if they should apologize for nothing.

But even as Platner (probably) drops out, there are folks out there who see a conspiracy against him -- with varying degrees of explicitness on regarding (((who))) is behind it. Cenk Uygur said, with no evidence, that the accusations trace back to AIPAC -- apparently not realizing that he was paying AIPAC a compliment (if AIPAC indeed was behind us finding out that Platner's a sexual predator, which, again, they almost certainly were not). Platner's own withdrawal speech was filled with petulant complaints that he was the victim of "those in power" -- left vague as always.

But not everyone is being vague at all. In a since-deleted post, a "left of left" journalist named Mark Weaver went all in on defending Platner, up to including diminishing the allegations against him as (this is a direct quote) "lite-rape". But as others noted, Weaver also made a point to count all the Jew-y Jews who were involved in this conspiracy: The New York Times ("owned by the Jewish Sulzberger family"), "the Jewish Dana Bash", "Jewish anchor Jacob Tapper" (has anyone who's not an antisemite or Tapper's mother called Jake Tapper "Jacob"?), and Politico editor Jonathan Greenberger ("well, is Jewish"). I know I just wrote about Jews thirst for representation, but this is ridiculous.