Partial Expression and Anti-Discrimination Law

Today, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, by a 2-1 vote (Judges Stras and Shepherd in the majority, with Judge Kelly dissenting), held that it was unconstitutional to apply Minnesota's anti-discrimination statute (which covers sexual orientation discrimination) to a videography company that wanted to get into the wedding video business but objected to filming gay weddings. Insofar as the statute required the videography company to treat same-sex and opposite-sex marriages alike (i.e., film both of them), it violated the videographer's free speech rights, since it effectively compelled them to express favorable attitudes towards same-sex marriages (which they in fact object to on religious grounds).

In the context of anti-BDS law debates and others, I've been writing a fair bit about how cases like this well-illustrate why liberals should be wary about endorsing sweeping interpretations of the First Amendment as conflicting with (and trumping) anti-discrimination claims. As "First Amendment Lochnerism" swells in influence, there is more and more of a risk of huge swaths of anti-discrimination law being struck down as unlawful discrimination. After all, anti-discrimination law inherently asks that people associate with those they'd rather not associate with, and implicitly register their approval of social relations they might not approve of. If this is interpreted as an affront to their free speech rights, then anti-discrimination law as a whole is in mortal peril.

That said, it is clearly the case that there are genuine and nettlesome free speech problems that can emerge in cases like this. And I do not think they can be ignored just because the plaintiff is engaged in for-profit work. Movie-making is, after all, often a for-profit business, yet it would be catastrophic if the government could say therefore there is no free speech rights available to directors or screen-writers in the content of their creations.

So -- are wedding videographers or photographers different? And if so, how?

The core distinction the majority seems to rely upon is that between "expressive" and "non-expressive" activity. Something like making a movie is an expressive act. It is artistic, it requires editorial judgment, it is the creation of art. Movies are thought of as a reflection of a creator's expressive vision; a medium for them to transmit a particular thought or view about a slice of the world. Contrast that to serving food at a restaurant: this is not typically thought of as a means of sending a message. Compelling someone to make a movie they don't want to make would do violence to their First Amendment rights. Compelling someone to serve food to someone they don't want to feed would not.

To be sure, all activity can be "expressive" in some sense -- for example, a bigot might say that requiring him to serve a black customer at his restaurant implicitly expresses the view that the customer is his equal and worthy of service. But the idea behind the distinction is that most people do not typically view the act of serving food at a restaurant to be expressive, and so requiring restaurants to serve customers in a non-discriminatory fashion doesn't burden speech even if it "incidentally" has certain expressive feature (like "I'm willing to serve this customer").

The court concluded that making a wedding video is an expressive activity. The videographers, in their words, use their "unique skill[s] to identify and tell compelling stories through video." "They exercise creative control over the videos they produce and make 'editorial judgments' about 'what events to take on, what video content to use, what audio content to use, what text to use . . . , the order in which to present content, [and] whether to use voiceovers.'" This is all quintessentially expressive in nature, and so compelling a business to effectively "editorialize" in favor of a wedding they disapprove of is a First Amendment violation -- it forces them to directly, not incidentally, express thoughts they disavow.

There's some force to this. But something about it kept nagging at me, and I was trying to nail down what it was. Here's my best stab at it:

Nobody hires a wedding photographer or videographer for the purpose of expressing their genuine views about the wedding. Their job is to make the bride and groom, and their special day, look and feel great. For all I know, our photographer showed up to our wedding and thought that the decor was tacky and that Jill and I were a disaster for each other and that the Jewishness of it all was an offense to God. But of course, he didn't express any of those views, even in his "expressive" photographs. That's not his job, and he knows it, and everyone who sees his photographs knows it too. The flip side is that, when people look at our (lovely) wedding photographs, nobody says "wow -- your wedding photographer must have really thought your wedding was beautiful" (let alone "he must have really approved of your wedding").

A wedding photographer does engage in expression -- but only partially. There are expressive elements to what our wedding photographer did, that can be directly imputed to him: the virtuosity of a shot, or the way he used lighting, for instance. But note the contrast: if I look at my wedding photos, I do impute to the photographer artistic decisions about the staging of the shot, but I don't impute to him views about the merits of the wedding itself. Photography is expressive, but in this case not comprehensively so. It is, we might say, "partially" expressive, and it seems reasonable to say that First Amendment protections only extend to the part of the expression that reasonably, not incidentally, is imputable to the author of the speech.

Compare this to the words spoken by a wedding officiant. When she delivers remarks at the altar, most listeners would reasonably take them to be an expression of her own views -- if she says "you two make a great couple", that is (with perhaps some latitude for puffery) her own expressive view on the matter. And so if she was uncomfortable speaking positive words about any particular marriage (for religious reasons or otherwise), it would be wrong to compel her to do so.

But the distinction isn't between visual and verbal or textual mediums. On the one hand, a movie (as in one shown at the theater), is fairly thought to represent the vision and expression of the directors (and actors and screenwriters, perhaps collectively) "all the way down" -- not just in terms of technical attributes like how to frame a given scene, but also in terms of the message being communicated. If a documentary filmmaker presents a given subject in a positive light, that's generally imputed to the filmmaker -- they think positively of the subject -- in a way that doesn't track for a wedding videographer.

And on the other hand, text if a restaurant serves a dessert that says "happy birthday!" on it, nobody thinks that the chef is actually doing so to express his or her substantive views on the merits of your birthday (I hate to burst anyone's bubble here). That's true even though there may well be expressive elements to the dessert that I do attribute directly to the chef. If I see a beautifully designed cake that says "happy birthday" on it, I view the chef-qua-chef as expressing his or her own message in the design far more than I do in the "happy birthday".

So it's not enough to draw an expressive versus non-expressive distinction. I agree that making a wedding video is expressive, but I disagree that (under normal circumstances) it is expressive as to the merits of the wedding. Along that dimension, the videographer's implicit "endorsement" of the same-sex wedding they film stands on identical footing to the restaurateur's implicit "endorsement" of racial equality with regard to the Black customer they serve. In both cases, it is incidental, and so in neither case should it significant weight.

Indeed, it cannot be the case that any expressive component in a business transaction sufficed to render it entirely expressive and therefore wholly insulated from regulation under the First Amendment. Even in the food service example -- which we've relied upon as our easy case -- very much can incorporate an expressive dimension, for example, in decisions on plating, interpretations of dishes, and so on. A restaurant can say, accurately, that it exercises "editorial discretion" on these matters, and so could potentially have a First Amendment difference if the state tried to regulate its "editorializing" in these domains (I say "potentially" because while a state law which seeks to declare how a veal marsala must be plated would assuredly fail under the First Amendment, one which insists that a "veal marsala" must contain veal -- "interpretation" notwithstanding -- could at least feasibly survive). But surely the expression here is confined to that domain, and it does not mean that the choice in who the restaurant serves is now expressive as well.

Put (sort of) simply, the question is not whether the conduct has any expressive character. It's whether the expressive character of the conduct is what generates the allegedly compelled speech. If it doesn't, then the fact that a given piece of expressive conduct also comes attached to an implicit endorsement of a view that speaker disapproves of is incidental, in the same way that it is incidental where the conduct is not expressive at all.

I don't pretend that I've just offered a simple, knockdown solution to one of constitutional law's thorniest dilemmas. But I do think we live in an era where wildly expansive understandings of the First Amendment are being wielded as a weapon against huge swaths of the regulatory state, and anti-discrimination law is one of the most inviting targets. We need to start thinking more carefully about limiting principles, lest virtually all discrimination become enshrined with constitutional protection.

How Trump and Bibi Have Changed the American-Israel Relationship Forever

There's change in the air.

The decision by the Israeli government to bar two Democratic congresswomen from Israel -- Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar -- has led to unprecedented pushback against Israel by Democratic Party politicians. Even representatives thought of as pro-Israel stalwarts are furious, and they're not making any effort to hide their ire.

Some people are attributing this change to fear, or more accurately, the removal of fear. Democrats aren't "afraid" to criticize Israel anymore. They're no longer "cowering" before the all-powerful Israel Lobby.

But this misunderstands what's happening, because it misunderstands how the Israel lobby has operated in Washington.

Contrary to popular belief, the Israel lobby does not generally rely on fear and intimidation. It secured its power through many years of relationship-building, gaining trust, and establishing channels of communication. It was very rare that AIPAC or anyone else had to play "bad cop" (and in fact, AIPAC is very ineffective when it tries to take on that role). Democrats were not "silenced" on Israel -- yearning to speak out, but cowed by threat and menace. Rather, Democrats were enmeshed in a dialogic relationship with the pro-Israel community that relied upon mutuality and reciprocity; the sense that each side would listen and by listened to in turn.

And that -- decades of hard, arduous work -- has been almost entirely torpedoed over the past few years.

“There’s concern with regard to the U.S. government official involved here for politicizing his role and using his diplomatic platform to behave in a way that for the past 2 1/2  years that has been very undiplomatic,” said Halie Soifer, the director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, who served in the Obama State Department and as a Senate foreign relations staffer.

Dermer is especially despised among Jewish Democrats and pro-Israel Democrats for what they regard as partisan disrespect for their office and their pro-Israel bona fides. Jewish Democrats in Congress, who once looked forward to attending Israeli Embassy events, now are less likely to make an appearance.

Until the 2015 Iran speech by Netanyahu, Dermer maintained civil ties with Democrats. Especially galling for Democrats was that Dermer and Netanyahu agreed to a condition of then-Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, that the planning be kept a secret. (Planning for the speech started in late 2014, and Boehner surprised Democrats and the pro-Israel community with his announcement of Netanyahu’s speech the day after Obama delivered the State of the Union on Jan. 20, 2015.) 

Once Dermer worked with Republicans to ambush Democrats, he was seen as partisan.

[...] 

[Rep. Steny] Hoyer is especially infuriated because he extracted the commitment from Dermer to allow in Tlaib and Omar so that he could talk other lawmakers into joining a trip to Israel sponsored by the American Israel Education Foundation, an affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Hoyer got 41 Democrats to go, which is believed to be the highest number ever. Hoyer has led the trip for decades. 

Hoyer took the group to Israel, talked up the alliance and declared it a success before he was blindsided by the decision on Tlaib and Omar. While conservative Jewish groups hailed the decision, saying Israel was in its rights to keep out two lawmakers who support the movement to boycott Israel, pro-Israel critics said it gave ammunition to those who accuse Israel of being anti-democratic and an unreliable ally. 

Aaron Keyak, a longtime Democratic Hill staffer who is now a consultant to Jewish and liberal groups, said the anger ran deep precisely because of the trust that Jewish and pro-Israel Democrats had long placed in Israel and its governments. 

“These are friends going back decades pleading with their friends in Jerusalem and at the embassy not to let this happen,” Keyak said in an interview. “What helps sustain the U.S.-Israel friendships are the person-to-person friendships between our two governments. It was not just the overall relationship that was damaged, it was those personal relationships that were also betrayed.” 

This is the big change. It's not newfound "courage", it's not the removal of "fear". There's nothing new now that would make Democrats less "fearful"; it's not like Mossad Hit Squads went on vacation this summer. What's new is a failure of trust; the knowledge that this relationship of mutuality and reciprocity now clearly flows entirely one way. Democrats have learned, in a very real and visceral way, that all those years of dialogue, all that time invested in building a relationship, counts for absolutely nothing. The Israeli government is happy to sell them all out for .5% boost in the Knesset poll and a pat on the back from Donald Trump.

This relationship took decades to develop. The damage that's been done just this week (to say nothing of the past few years) will take at least as long to undo -- if it ever can be.

Collected Thoughts on Excluding Omar and Tlaib

I've got another kidney stone. It struck on Monday, and then I felt pain Tuesday, Wednesday, and today. Thursday was my only pain-free day this week, and I have to assume that was the universe balancing the scales and recognizing that the Israeli government's truly terrible decision to exclude Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) from the country was plenty enough aggravation on its own.

I went on a pretty vigorous tweet storm all through yesterday. Below I bullet point most of what I expressed on that site (which, as you may know, I've taken "private"), but my main takeaway is this:

There's no serious case that either Rep. Omar or Rep. Tlaib presents a security threat to Israel (I've seen some people insinuate that they might incite a riot at the Temple Mount which -- I'm not sure I can physically roll my eyes hard enough). In practice, the "risk" Omar and Tlaib present is simply that they will hear  mean things about Israel and then say their own mean things about Israel. That's the locus of the complaint about the "balance" of the trip; that's the locus of the accusation that they merely want to rabble-rouse. What people are concerned about is they will go to the West Bank, hear people saying mean things about Israel, and repeat those mean things back to American audiences.

But -- and I mean this in all earnestness -- so what? So what if that's what happens? To be clear: I don't think Omar and Tlaib were coming just to say mean things about Israel. But even if they were -- there's no security threat. The state will survive (how pathetic would it be if it crumbled?). It'd be speech. It'd be discourse. That's the price of living in a liberal, free society. Sometimes people say mean things about you. Sometimes those mean things are unfair. Sometimes those mean things are entirely fair. Whatever. It comes with the territory (pun initially not intended, but I'll own it now). It's not a valid basis for a travel ban.

It used to be that Israel was emphatic that "come see us and you'll think better of us". Now Israel is terrified that if people come see them--at least, see them unchaperoned, without a constant guiding hand ensuring they see only the choice parts--they'll think of worse of them. That's the sign of a society in decay. To be sure, I think Omar and Tlaib probably would come away from their visit with a rather grim appraisal of Israel's treatment of Palestinians. But then, there's ample basis to appraise that treatment grimly--there's no inherent foul there. People can come to the West Bank and be honestly appalled by what they see.

Only police states confuse "people saying mean things" with security threats. A free society can survive--and perhaps even learn from--critics giving it grim appraisals. People talk a huge game about how Omar and Tlaib could "learn" from their trip to Israel and Palestine -- and no doubt they could. But the flip side is that Israel, too, can learn from the testimony of Palestinians laboring under occupation, and from efforts to bring that testimony to the fore. It is wrong -- not to mention insulting -- to treat discourse about Israel/Palestine as if it were a one-way street, where wise, omniscient Israeli/Jewish teachers dribble knowledge onto benighted, ignorant Muslims and Arabs.

Below is a recap of my other collected thoughts on the matter (many but not all of which were on Twitter):

• This was a terrible and unjustified decision. Let's lead off with that and give it its own bullet point all to itself.
• There is no reason to think that this decision was "what Omar and Tlaib wanted" since it made Israel look authoritarian and repressive. That is projection, to avoid speaking the more uncomfortable conclusion that "Omar and Tlaib might have had a point" in suggesting Israel acts in an authoritarian and repressive fashion.
• I neither think this decision was solely Trump's doing -- Israel "caving" to his pressure -- nor do I think he played no role in the decision. I think he successfully convinced Netanyahu to do something that he already kind of wanted to do in the first place, even knowing it probably was a bad idea. Trump was like the frat boy friend egging his buddy into doing another shot flight. That Bibi was probably dimly aware it wasn't the wisest decision in the world doesn't mean that he wasn't ultimately fulfilling his own desires. Ultimately, this was a decision of Israel's right-wing government and they deserve to take the full brunt of punishment for it.
• I understand why everyone is calling this "counterproductive" from Israel, since it will undoubtedly give a huge boost to the BDS movement. But, as I wrote in the Lara Alqasem case, that really depends on what Israel is trying to "produce". In many ways, Bibi benefits from an ascendant BDS movement, just as they benefit from him; and he likewise benefits from a world divided between conservatives who love everything he does and liberals who loathe him. So the fact that this decision puts wind in the sails of BDS, while further lashing Israel to a purely right-wing mast and alienating it from erstwhile progressive allies, is not necessarily a miscalculation -- it's the intended and desired effect.
• On that note, remember the other day when 21 Israeli MKs wrote to Congress and said that a two-state solution was "more dangerous" than BDS? Well, if you ever wanted an example of what it looks like to trade "increased BDS support" for "kneecapping two-state solution support", this was it (even though Tlaib isn't a two-stater -- Omar is -- this act was aimed like a laser at the most prominent base of support for two-stateism in America: that is, Democrats).
• On the other hand, shouldn't these right-wing Israelis be more excited to welcome Tlaib than most other Congresspeople? After all, she opposes the "dangerous" two-state solution! Oh wait, I forgot: in her one-state world, everyone gets to vote. That won't do at all, will it?
• I love Emma Goldberg description of how Israel will slide away from liberal democracy via Hemingway's description of how he went bankrupt: "Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly." And by love, I mean it gives me a sick feeling of recognition in my stomach.
• Justifying the ban on the grounds that Omar and Tlaib's visit wasn't "balanced" because they weren't meeting with Israeli or Palestinian government figures, only NGOs, and these are bad NGOs -- spare me. To tell visiting U.S. politicians "you can come, but only if you speak with the 'right' people/visit the 'right' sites/speak the 'correct' words" sounds like something you'd hear from the North Korean embassy. Omar and Tlaib should be entitled to visit with whomever they want to visit, and come to whatever conclusions they end up coming to. If those conclusions are unfair, we should trust the ability to defeat them with more speech, not enforced silence. But again: we can't conflate "unfair" with "critical". It's entirely feasible that a fair-minded individual hearing testimony from West Bank Palestinians will come to a sharply critical conclusion.
• Some of the attacks on the NGOs Omar and Tlaib were scheduled to meet with are the usual chad gadya (has a leader who's linked to a group which kicked the dog ....) nonsense, but there are some groups with some genuinely bad history. I've consequently seen people suggest that we need to also hold Omar and Tlaib accountable for their part in this fiasco for meeting with members of those groups. Fair enough: I'm happy to hold them accountable, weighted and prioritized in proportion to their relative culpability. In keeping with that metric, I might get around to returning to criticizing their draft itinerary sometime in 2035.
• Fine, one more thing on the itinerary: Am I correct in reading it as taking Omar and  Tlaib either solely or primarily to the West Bank and East Jerusalem? If so, it's entirely understandable why they'd refer to those locales as "Palestine".
• Rep. Tlaib initially applied for a humanitarian waiver to visit her family, which was approved, but then she backed out given the conditions the Israeli government was going to impose on the visit (basically, not engaging in "boycott activities"). The usual suspects are crowing: she cares less about her family than she does about boycotting! I say (a) Rep. Tlaib is well within her rights to not prostrate herself to the dictates of a foreign government seeking to humiliate her, and (b) what about the past few days gives anyone the confidence in the Israeli government's ability to fairly adjudge what qualifies as a "boycott activity"?
• The argument that Israel, as a sovereign state, has a "right" to exclude whomever it wants substitutes a juridical argument for an ethical (and practical) one. Sovereign states are formally empowered to do all sorts of terrible and/or stupid things. This was one of them. Hearing nominal anti-BDS folks make this claim -- which could as easily be applied to "universities and academics have the right to collaborate (or not) with whomever they want to" is probably causing another kidney stone to develop as we speak.
• The other thing is that Israel is proving itself completely incapable of exercising this "right" in a reasonable manner that distinguishes between genuine threats to national security and unhappiness that people sometimes come to Israel and then say mean things. One of the reasons we liberals seek to limit unchecked government power is precisely because of the suspicion that it won't be exercised responsibly or non-arbitrarily.
• Of course, the fact that Israel also exercises the practical authority to exclude people not just from Israel-proper, but the West Bank as well, gives lie to the notion that Palestinians even conceptually could have their right to self-determination vindicated solely by voting in PA elections.
• Silver lining: pretty much the entirety of the American Jewish establishment -- AIPAC, AJC, ADL, J Street, Simon Wiesenthal Center -- came out against this decision. Huzzah for that.
• Tarnish on even that silver lining: the Conference of President's weak-sauce statement on the matter. "Many of the organizations expressed disagreement with the government’s decision", but "Ultimately, the government of Israel made its assessment of the countervailing arguments and acted upon their conclusion." Really, that's what you're giving us? It's amazing how the Conference doesn't care about the "consensus" of the Jewish community when that consensus is a progressive one.
• When a prominent member of or institution associated with an outgroup does something awful, it is natural for members of that outgroup to feel acutely vulnerable. In part, that's because they know that this awfulness will be wielded against them; in part, that's because frequently they have feelings for or connections to the target person and institution, and it is painful to see them act in such a terrible fashion. Of course, that feeling of vulnerability needn't and shouldn't be the primary story as compared to those directly victimized by the awful behavior. But it is not per se wrong, or "centering", to acknowledge and validate the existence of the sentiment; nor is such an acknowledgment necessarily one that stands in competition with recognizing the direct damage of the instigating act.
• The next time a Democrat occupies the Oval Office, I have to wonder what sort of penance is going to be demanded from the Israeli government for years upon years of insult and humiliation. It's not going to be back to as it was before. It's not even going to back as it was in the Obama administration. Democrats will -- rightfully -- insist that Israel pay a price for what it's been doing these past four (if not twelve) years. The flipside of recognizing the importance of preserving Israel as a bipartisan issue is that Israel aligning itself fully and completely with the Republican Party is going to come at a cost. It will be interesting to consider what that cost will be.

How Much Destruction Has Pearson v. Callahan Wrought?

Today, the Eighth Circuit ruled en banc, in Kelsay v. Ernst, that a police officer violently tackling a non-violent, non-threatening, non-resistant 5'0 130 lbs woman suspected of a misdemeanor, breaking her collarbone, did not violate anyone's clearly established right to be free from the use excessive force. To add insult to injury, the woman the police assaulted was the nominal victim that brought them to the scene -- a friend of hers had tried to toss her into a public swimming pool, someone thought he was assaulting her and called the cops, she tried to tell the police that it was just horseplay and they shouldn't arrest him, and so they naturally responded to this innocent misunderstanding by breaking her bones and arresting her too (for obstruction of justice).

The vote was 8-4, Judge Colloton writing for the majority, with Chief Judge Smith and Judges Kelly, Grasz, and Erickson dissenting.

Sadly, "Eighth Circuit is fine with police officers violently assaulting unarmed, non-violent individuals" is scarcely even news at this point. But Judge Grasz -- dissenting separately (he also joined the main dissent from Chief Judge Smith) -- also made a point to call out the majority for declining to decide whether, going forward, it is indeed unconstitutional to violently tackle a non-violent, non-threatening, non-resistant suspected misdemeanant. This refusal is permissible thanks to a 2009 case called Pearson v. Callahan -- where the Supreme Court said that lower courts could toss civil rights lawsuits solely upon finding that the alleged constitutional violation's unlawfulness was not "clearly established" at the time of the injury, without ever deciding whether the violation actually was unconstitutional. The paradox is that, by refusing to make the latter decision, the law remains not "clearly established", and the government conduct -- even, it must be stressed, conduct that actually is unconstitutional -- is permitted without consequence indefinitely into the future. Even if (and I know this sounds crazy) it is true that violently tackling non-resistant, non-threatening suspects is unconstitutional, the effect of Pearson is that courts never will be compelled to declare it so, and so this unconstitutional abuse can go on in perpetuity.

I'm honestly not sure if any case has a worse ratio of destructiveness-to-public-profile than Pearson. Qualified immunity jurisprudence -- and in particular, the incredible stinginess through which the courts assess whether a given right is "clearly established" -- would still be a disaster without it, but Pearson has turned it into a farce. As Judge Grasz (and several others, including other right-wing stalwarts like Judge Don Willett on the 5th Circuit) have observed, Pearson has locked victims of excessive force into a prison of the court's own jurisprudence, and then allows judges to toss away the key.

If there's anything positive to say here, it's the continued good work from Judge Grasz, who is rapidly becoming one of the great surprises on the Eighth Circuit since his confirmation in 2017 (he had been rated "not qualified" by the ABA after his nomination by President Trump, but was confirmed anyway by a 50-48 vote).

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume LIII: The Suicide of Jeffrey Epstein

Accused pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein has died in prison of an apparent suicide.

Given how connected Epstein was to a huge array of powerful political, economic, and cultural figures, this obviously was going to raise eyebrows. And since Epstein was Jewish, well ... let's let the Nation of Islam kick us off:




Meanwhile, a "satire" account that supposedly is imitating "SJW" leftists posted and then eventually deleted a tweet about how the Epstein's suicide was orchestrated by "other '-steins' and '-bergs' dispensing justice." Ironic antisemitism is still antisemitism. And of course, the neo-Nazi right is having a field day (this thread is sickening).

Indeed, almost immediately on Epstein's arrest one already was seeing folks salivating at the chance to tie him to the Jews. Steven Salaita, for example, rushed to get on the train:


I bet it does seem like a good time, Steven.

He was joined by journalist Sarah Abdallah ...

Guess what world leader used to frequently stay at the apartment of Jeffrey #Epstein’s brother where underage European girls were trafficked?

No, not Vladimir Putin or any other Russian official.

But rather... Israel’s Ehud Barak.

Let that sink in.

— Sarah Abdallah (@sahouraxo) August 10, 2019

 ... and of course the cranks at MintPressNews:

Epstein appears to have ties to Israeli intelligence and has well-documented ties to influential Israeli politicians and the Mega Group. Yet, those entities are not isolated in and of themselves, as many also connect to the organized crime network and powerful alleged pedophiles.

— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) August 10, 2019 

Fortunately, President Trump -- ever the friend of the Jews -- has not endorsed this conspiracy theory, favoring instead the other conspiracy theory that the Clintons took him out.

A Galaxy FAR, FAR Away Roundup

In my last roundup, I noted that I was going on the law school job market this year -- a process that commences with the charmingly named "meat market" in Washington this fall. The first thing that law schools receive from potential candidates, however, is the "FAR form" -- a one page document that's basically the back of your law professor baseball card: all your key stats, from degrees to teaching interests to publications. The FAR form gets distributed to law schools tomorrow, and once it's out the hiring season has officially kicked off.

Though if you like, this roundup also can be sponsored by this video about Star Wars.

* * *

Lyft is going to buy carbon-offsets for its rides. Nice.

Famed Holocaust and antisemitism expert Deborah Lipstadt: Trump didn't go far enough in condemning White nationalism.

What happened when a Labour MP tried to intervene with the Israeli government on behalf of sick Palestinian children? She faced a torrent of antisemitic abuse, that's what. Shocking story, but it's the wages of anti-normalization.

I thought this was a really thoughtful discussion between Ken White and Elie Mystal on whether things like the North Carolina gun store billboard targeting "the squad" should be protected as free speech (both -- accurately -- observe at the outset that it is protected; the discussion is about whether that doctrine is correct).

The "Word Crimes" special issue of Israel Studies continues to generate controversy: the editors of the journal issued an apology acknowledging that "the special issue and our decision-making process regarding the publication were flawed", but also defending themselves against some of the more histrionic critiques. The editors of the special issue in turn replied to the journal editor's apology, as well as addressing the wider controversy, here.

In California, locally-assessed fees sometimes make new housing construction cost-prohibitive. Locally-assessed fees are assessed, however, because Prop. 13 took a chainsaw to localities ability to raise revenue via property taxes, and so they have to get creative if they're to bring money in.

RIP Toni Morrison.

Islamophobe Walks Out of Anti-Omar Protest Because Muslim Speaker Joined Protesters

The opening to this story, about a protest against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) organized by the newly-formed Minnesota Jewish Coalition, is absolutely wild:

An estimated 100 people showed up Thursday afternoon for a Minnesota Jewish Coalition-organized rally on the steps of the State Capitol in St. Paul, but a vocal few were very disappointed with the direction the event took.

Marni Hockenberg, a Republican activist who live-streamed to her Facebook account that she was outraged that Somali activist Omar Jamal was one of the speakers of the event, “Stand Against Ilhan Omar’s Antisemitic Ideas & Support For BDS!”

“What the hell are they having a Somali speaker for?” Hockenberg said on her Facebook video posted to her account under the pseudonym Marnie Mockenberg. “This is wrong. I knew there was something wrong with this rally. I’m out of here.”

Again, just so we're clear: the Somali speaker (Omar Jamal, Director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center) was part of the protest against Omar's' "Antisemitic Ideas & Support for BDS". Hockenberg is so intolerant of Muslims she can't even tolerate them agreeing with her on other Muslims. That's the friction point in the anti-Omar movement these days, apparently.

Anyway. Now that this rally is concluded, I'm sure the MJC will be organizing a similar rally targeting Rep. Tom Emmer and then another aimed at a Rep. Jim Hagedorn.

Any day now. Any day.