Nip it in the Womb

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), who easily ranks in any top ten craziest Congressperson list, is now alleging that terrorist cells are exploiting America's birthright citizenship to create a new class of terrorist babies with American citizenship. It seems to me that the only way to stem this threat is to capture all immigrant mothers, and force them to abort their kids (the Executive has an inherent power to assassinate American citizens to be if necessary for our national defense, after all). Otherwise we're just training the next generation of terrorists (it's unbelievably to me that this argument is not actually a one-off).

MadCraziesSkillz

There was some sucky stuff that happened on the intertubes today (see here for back story), but there was one redeeming factor. I discovered MadCrazies blog, and I think I'm in love. Not as much love as I have towards the proprietor of this blog, of course, but a fair amount of love all the same.

The anti-Zionist bingo card is pretty good. But I really loved this passage on what it's like as a queer women when one goes out with guys:

Fun part is, going out in public with an adult human male is like an invisibility cloak! When you take one with you, you cease to exist not only as a queer but as a person at all! This is actually kind of nice sometimes. It doesn't matter what my male companion looks like, going out at night is no longer about "how many street harassers can I shiv".

For. The. Win.

And for the blogroll, I might add.

German-Arab Youths Attack Jewish Dance Troupe

Very scary stuff. And apparently the festival organizers, instead immediately calling the police when the thugs starting chanting anti-Semitic slurs and throwing rocks, tried to "de-escalate" the situation on their own. What the hell?

The Most Dangerous Game

The FRC is angry that Grover Norquist is joining the board of GOProud, a conservative gay rights group. One of the alleged sins of the group is that it will seek to leverage “concealed carry reciprocity” amendments whereby guns can be carried and recognized across state lines in order to create precedent that gay marriages legal in one state be likewise recognized in their fellows.

This, as David Kopel notes, is not an accurate summary of GOProud's position -- they support concealed carry laws so that gays and lesbians can protect themselves against rampant anti-gay violence. He suggests that the FRC should have instead made a slippery slope argument (that, regardless of intent, concealed carry reciprocity amendments would end up weakening state exclusion of foreign gay marriages), but adds the following:

obviously the FRC is free to organize is policy preferences any way it wants. Personally, though, I think that federal legislation which directly protects the Second Amendment rights of all Americans is far more important than whatever tiny effect the bill might have on gay marriage.

Well, Kopel might think that, but look at it from the FRC's point of view. Gay marriage will destroy democracy and is worse than child rape. Even an infinitesimal chance that such horrors might come to pass is far, far more important than any other legislation Congress might consider.

Let's Go 'Hawks!

It pains me to say that, but they deserve it:

Professional sports stars haven't played much of a role in the 40-year history of Chicago's Pride Parade.

Sunday's parade will be different, with the Chicago Cubs entering a float and a player from the NHL champion Blackhawks set to tote the Stanley Cup down North Halsted Street. ...

The Cubs' participation was encouraged by new owner Tom Ricketts, who wanted the Cubs to be seen as "good neighbors," a team spokesman said.

While players from this year's lineup won't be on the team's float — they'll be busy playing the White Sox — "Mr. Cub" Ernie Banks will.

Blackhawks defenseman Brent Sopel will be carrying the Stanley Cup in the parade to honor Brendan Burke, the son of Toronto Maple Leafs General Manager Brian Burke. Brendan Burke came out as a gay man shortly before dying in a car accident in February.

Brendan Burke was a student at Miami University in Ohio and worked with the school's hockey team. After opening up about his sexuality to the team, he spoke publicly about his experience growing up as a gay hockey player.

An excellent and touching gesture.

Teaching Peace Now a Crime

Roger Alford points out that the recent SCOTUS decision in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project "upholds a criminal ban on teaching international law". This is not a hyperbole.

Plaintiffs claim that §2339B is invalid to the extent it prohibits them from engaging in certain specified activities…. [T]hose activities are: (1) “train[ing] members of [the] PKK on how to use humanitarian and international law to peacefully resolve disputes”; (2) “engag[ing] in political advocacy on behalf of Kurds who live in Turkey”; and (3) “teach[ing] PKK members how to petition various representative bodies such as the United Nations for relief.”…

The Court first held that teaching international law fell under the category of “training” and “expert advice or assistance", and thus constituted material assistance to terrorist groups under the terms of the statute. It then held that restriction constitutional under First Amendment attack.

The dissenters (Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor) responded:

[T]he majority discusses the plaintiffs’ proposal to “‘train members of [the] PKK on how to use humanitarian and international law to peacefully resolve disputes.’” The majority justifies the criminalization of this activity insignificant part on the ground that “peaceful negotiation[s]” might just “bu[y] time . . . , lulling opponents into complacency.” And the PKK might use its new information about “the structures of the international legal system . . . to threaten, manipulate, and disrupt.” What is one to say about these arguments—arguments that would deny First Amendment protection to the peaceful teaching of international human rights law on the ground that a little knowledge about “the international legal system” is too dangerous a thing; that an opponent’s subsequent willingness to negotiate might be faked, so let’s not teach him how to try?…

The risk that those who are taught will put otherwise innocent speech or knowledge to bad use is omnipresent, at least where that risk rests on little more than (even informed) speculation. Hence to accept this kind of argument without more and to apply it to the teaching of a subject such as international human rights law is to adopt a rule of law that, contrary to the Constitution’s text and First Amendment precedent, would automatically forbid the teaching of any subject in a case where national security interests conflict with the First Amendment.

It's not that the majority's concerns are unfounded. Any observer of international law is keenly aware that international law can and has been used as a tool of "lawfare" -- less to promote human rights protections and peaceful coexistence than to subvert these goals. But the dissent is considerably more right that it would be far more dangerous to prohibit speech simply because it could be used to promote ill-ends, prohibit training on peaceful coexistence because it could be used to sabotage the ideal. Whatever the shortcomings of the world's legal system -- and they are manifold -- it is one of the only clearly established alternatives to terrorist violence by NGOs, and thus it is clearly a benefit when NGOs and rebel groups adopt that approach above violent conflict.

The Supreme Court's decision is a massive triumph of despair over hope. And that's worrisome. Because no legal system predicated on individual rights can survive if our legal system defaults to fear.

The Perils of Being British

A British writer tries to figure out why he (by his own admission) is obsessed with Israel. After ruling out anti-Semitism (based off a deep searching of his own soul and the fact that He Has Jewish Friends (tm)), he thinks he's got it nailed: Unlike Zimbabwe, North Korea, Sudan, Tibet, or Burma, Israel is basically "an English county planted on the Mediterranean shores."

Oh joy! As the Judeosphere points out, this is scarcely anything more sophisticated than undisguised Orientalism. Burma and Sudan, they aren't civilized enough to care about. But Israel, why that's almost like Britain -- that is, if Britain was run by "burglars and con-men". It's all the joy of liberal guilt-induced self-flagellation, except the wounds show up on someone else's body. How grand.

Richard Lazarus Takes Post on Oil Spill Commission

Congratulations to Georgetown Law Professor Richard Lazarus, who was just appointed staff director of The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. Professor Lazarus, in addition to being an experienced Supreme Court advocate, is a specialist in an environmental and natural resource law, and will thus be an invaluable asset in, you know, trying to save the planet.

On a more personal note, Professor Lazarus was a personal mentor of mine back in high school (I was on the debate team with his son), and we've maintained off-and-on contact with him in the intervening years. In fact, we were supposed to meet to catch up earlier this month, but, as he put it, "something came up". I'll say!

Anti-Israel Protesters Prevent Cargo Ship From Unloading in Oakland?

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that a group of anti-Israel protesters, primarily affiliated with ANSWER, have successfully blocked (at least temporarily) an Israeli cargo ship from unloading in Oakland.

Becker [of ANSWER] said some workers [from the Longshoreman's Union] showed up for the morning shift, but virtually none did for the second. All agreed not to unload the ship or cross the picket lines, citing concern for their personal safety.

I find it very interesting that -- apparently by Becker's own admission (but the language is ambiguous here) -- the reason that the ship was unable to unload is because ANSWER threatened the personal safety of the dockworkers if they did (or at least, they perceived a threat to their personal safety).

Yeah, that's some peace movement. It's so nice to see that "leftist" advocacy has once again devolved into threatening workers -- if for no other reason than to reveal the true colors of the movements responsible.

Happy Father's Day!

Thanks, dad, for everything. I hope you realize that the fact that I left my card at the office in no way diminishes the thoughts behind it.

Bang It Out

I sometimes listen to music on my headphones at work. Unfortunately, the headphones are plugged into my laptop, which has a surprisingly excellent pair of speakers. Meaning that if I accidentally yank the headphones (inadvertant arm movement, leaning back too quickly), then the hallways of this prestigious, white-shoe law firm is suddenly filled with sound of whatever metal/guitar riff I'm currently listening to.

This has happened twice now -- and both times it has been tremendously humiliating.

You Wish You Were Me

Dave Hoffman on the relative openness of US News Law School rankings:

A few weeks back, Bob Morse issued a stern warning to law school administrators out to game his rankings. In response to a problem created by “openness about our ranking model” Morse took a strong step in the direction of reform by…wait for it…threatening certain schools with punishment for gaming their employed-at-graduation statistic. For those who follow the rankings, this was a particularly galling and obnoxious post. The rankings model isn’t at all “open”: for most categories of concern, USNews engages in hidden manipulations of dubious value which make replicating the results quite difficult. See, e.g., LSAT percentile scoring, COLA adjustments; normalization, treatment of missing data, etc. Indeed, the rankings would likely fail the very low bar for openness and replication set by even a student-edited law journal, let alone a peer reviewed publication.

Oh, burn. Wait ....

(Emphasis is original, by the way)

Dershowitz Tries To Knock Off Pro-Israel Congresswoman for not Hating Obama Enough

Back in September, I became aware that Joel Pollak, brother of Commentary contributor Noah Pollak, was going to challenge Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), on the grounds that the latter was insufficiently pro-Israel. It struck me then as an odd choice: Rep. Schakowsky has a well-known and well-deserved pro-Israel reputation stretching through her whole career. Not to mention Schakowksy represents an overwhelmingly Democratic district that agrees with her on near-every issue and, um, doesn't agree with Pollak or his brand of conservatism.

Nonethelss, Alan Dershowitz, either out of loyalty to a former student or a desire to shrink the definition of pro-Israel such that its adherents could fit into a Saskatoon synagogue, has decided to endorse Pollak. It won't really matter -- Schakowsky has never even dipped below 70% in any of her re-election fights -- but it is a sad commentary on Dershowitz, whose only apparent beef with Schakowsky is her alleged failure to "speak out" on alleged wrongs done by the Obama administration toward Israel.

In any event, J Street has risen to Rep. Schakowsky's defense. Good for them -- there are serious problems facing Israel, the US, and the world today, and we need serious people like Jan Schakowsky in Congress facing them. Now is not the time to elect some random political neophyte whose campaign alpha and omega is "Obama is teh suckz". And shame on Alan Dershowitz for electing to sacrifice his pro-Israel credibility so cheaply.

Haredi Protests Planned Over Israeli Desegregation Order

The Haredi Jewish community in Israel is planning to protest the enforcement of an Israeli Supreme Court ruling which would require they desegregate their schools (currently, Ashkenazi and Sepharidc Jewish students are kept apart in these ultra-religious academies). If the parents disobey the court order, they risk a two-week jail sentence for contempt of court.

Am I the only one who really isn't bothered at the prospect of a bunch of racists being thrown in jail for awhile by the Israeli government? Seriously, my sympathy for these blots on the holy name is very, very limited.

Thurgood

I saw Thurgood today with some folks from Covington. It was very good. Laurence Fishburne was spectacular in his role, and often times was laugh-out-loud funny. I can't recommend it highly enough.

The most interesting thing about the play was actually the audience, however. Anytime Marshall mentioned a historical name or fact (Homer Plessy, Japanese Internment, Douglas MacArthur), the audience gave a collective "mmm", as if to say, "yes, I remember that from 6th grade Social Studies." And whenever Marshall announced the achievement of some civil rights victory, the crowd broke out into applause. As I said to a friend, it felt very "U-S-A! U-S-A!" to me. Albeit not in a good way -- more as a way of externalizing ourselves from the "past" Marshall was speaking about. I'm very skeptical that, if Justice Marshall were alive today, he would support our efforts to externalize racism as something "past".

UC-Irvine Bans MSU Over Israeli Ambassador Disruption

Wow. The formal decision letter is here, detailing the various provisions of the UCI student code that the Muslim Student Union violated when it persistently disrupted a planned speech on campus being delivered by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. As a result, the university has suspended the MSU for one year. I'm not an expert on campus free speech issues, so I don't weigh in on the legal issues this undoubtedly raises, but I do think this is probably going to turn into a much bigger controversy.

Via the VC.

HOFer

It seems like anytime someone gets inducted into the Hall of Fame (whatever sport), they give the same spiel. This is the greatest honor of my life. Nothing could ever compare to this. I'm without words. And then you have former lightweight boxer Danny "Little Red" Lopez (42-6, 39 KOs), on his induction yesterday:

"Getting inducted is a big honor, getting the ring and the whole shot," said Lopez, who fashioned a 42-6 record with 39 knockouts in a 10-year career. "I felt much better winning a fight in the ring, but this is comparable to it. Pretty close."

I love it. "This is a pretty nice feeling. Nothing like actually being in the ring and knocking people's skulls in, but you know, it's close."

Israeli Gaza Flotilla Probe Announced

It looks good to me (not that it will matter). The probe is being headed by a retired Israeli Supreme Court Justice, and includes members with both international law and military backgrounds. Two international "observers" (with unclear powers) will participate in the proceedings -- a Nobel Peace laureate from Ireland, and a military lawyer from Canada. The panel will have full authority to look into, among other things, the legality of the blockade writ large, the legality of the particular raid on the flotilla, particular questions about the rules of engagement applied to the flotilla operation and whether they'd been breached, the Goldstone commission and Israel's ability to investigate itself, and the behavior of the Turkish passengers on the flotilla and the IHH organization.

The panel "will be able to summon any person or organization to testify, or to give it information in some other fashion, on any issue it deems relevant," except that it can only access military files "directly relevant" to the operation, including those from a separate, internal IDF probe being conducted contemporaneously. It can, however, request additional inquiries if it finds the IDF probe insufficient. Finally, all statements given to the commission will not be admissible in any legal proceedings, to encourage candor.

Sounds like a pretty robust investigatory panel to me. But I still maintain it will mostly be irrelevant, because what people want out of their "investigation" is either an indictment or an exoneration (depending on their alignment). Well, that might not be totally fair -- I'd be surprised to see any significant protest from the pro-Israel folks if the country's own panel decided to excoriate the operation (this is purely a matter of relative credibility -- the same conclusions, reached in identical language, by an international body would be met with outrage). But if the panel mostly exonerates the Israeli behavior (and I suspect it will -- the legal and factual issues are simply too unclear to warrant broad-based condemnation), the anti-Israel crowd will pitch a fit no matter how independent the panel objectively was. And while it will claim that it's real objection is that an Israeli panel can't "investigate itself", I'm honestly doubtful they'd react much differently if an international panel reached the same conclusions in identical language (we'd just shift to complaints about the all-powerful Jewish Zionist Israel Lobby tainting the commission).

But that's all counterfactual. The point is, there is a panel now, it looks pretty robust and independent, and it will issue a report at some point. And my conjecture is that this report will have virtually no bearing on anything.

UPDATE: Ha'aretz's editorial doesn't seem to think this panel is that impressive at all. But I'm a little confused -- the editorial says the panel has no powers at all, but the article seems to make clear that it has significant subpoena power.

"International Standards"

The refrain about the Israeli probe of the Gaza flotilla incident is that it must conform to "international standards". And recently, I've been curious: What are "international standards"? Do they refer to anything specific? Or is it kind of like "international human rights standards", where "international" is deployed less for any substantive content, and more to piggyback on the fuzzy, cosmopolitan cadences of the word "international"?

Everything I've seen of international legal investigations, after all, tends to show they really don't have very high standards at all. Most war crimes tribunals, for example, are adjudged failures unless they secure convictions of high-ranking accused parties -- the "standard" is "guilty until proven guilty". There aren't particularly strong rule of law norms at the international level, there isn't a deep basis of precedent which acts as constraints against politicization, and there isn't a broad-based acceptance of the legitimacy of the international bodies to act as adjudicators. It makes the particular choice of rhetoric very, very interesting to me.

Abbas' Barak Moment

Shlomo Yosef has a very savvy read on Mahmoud Abbas' recent comments regarding Israel -- comments which are, without question, huge steps in a positive direction for the leader of the PA. For those of you who don't know, Abbas met with Jewish leaders in the US where he affirmed the historic connection of Jews to the land of Israel (citing the Koran for support), including the right of Israel to define itself as a Jewish state, disavowed a one-state solution (while noting its increasing popularity in the Palestinian street), and registered support for a joint Israeli-Palestinian-American committee to look into issues of incitement (by both Israelis and Palestinians). This is a rather big deal, for a few reasons. For starters, Yasser Arafat notoriously denied any historic connection between Jews and Israel, so this is in fact a substantial about face by Abbas. Moreover, for those worried about Arab leaders saying one thing to Western audiences and another to the Arab world, Abbas reiterated his comments when questioned about them by al-Jazeera.

Anyway, Mr. Yosef writes:

In doing so Abbas is having a Barak moment from 2000. Regardless of the claims and counter claims of what happened in Camp David in 2000, any Israeli in the street will tell you that Barak offered the Palestinians everything and Arafat walked away. It seems now Abbas is offering Bibi everything and is seeing if he will walk away. If he does this will give the PA everything they need to move off a negotiated track and on to a path of a unilateral declaration of statehood.

The question is whether Netanyahu is stupid enough to walk away, and the answer to that is obviously "yes" (I've spent a lot of time observing Netanyahu). But it's not inevitable. And as Mr. Yosef notes, this is a critical decision, for even if Abbas' statement is cynically motivated (and I don't care one way or the other whether it is or isn't), if Israel doesn't respond, they lose control of the discourse of a two-state solution, possibly indefinitely.

Don't take the opportunity to miss an opportunity. Now is the chance -- to seize a historic moment to negotiate peace, or to show that, yes, Israel is capable of being ruled by leaders as foolish as Yasser Arafat.