Open Mic for the week of 3/10/25
It’s unofficially “Super Mario” day due to it being March 10 (“MAR 10”). So please have a SUPER MAR 10!
There’s a phenomenon where someone writes an essay about this or that but someone else wants to discuss something that has not yet made it to the front page.
This is unfair to everybody involved. It’s unfair to the guy who wrote the original essay because, presumably, he wants to talk about his original essay. It’s unfair to the guy who wants to talk about his link because it looks like he’s trying to change the subject. It’s unfair to the people who go to the comments to read up on the thoughts of the commentariat for the original essay and now we’re talking about some other guy’s links.
So!
The intention is to have a new one of these every week. If you want to talk about a link, post it here! Or, heck, use it as an open thread.
And, if it rolls off, we’ll make a new one. With a preamble just like this one.
University of Michigan Professor Don Moynihan has a good run down of the chilling effects going on against dissent currently: https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/real-chilling-effects
“Normally I record the classes I teach. It gives students who miss class a chance to catch up. I also make space in my classes to talk about what is happening in government right now. A couple of weeks ago, students asked we keep the discussions, but stop recording the class. They worried about any record of their words that might be viewed as criticism of the current administration, and somehow weaponized against them.”Report
From The Harvard Crimson: Librarian Who Removed Chabad Poster Is No Longer Employed at Harvard
Report
Maybe if she had tried to remove a book……………..Report
If only she had removed “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” instead.Report
ICE arrested a pro-Palestinian protestor with a Green Card and his precise whereabouts are not known currently: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/09/nyregion/ice-arrests-palestinian-activist-columbia-protests.html
This is bad.Report
This is classic dictator stuff. People need to take warning.Report
And yet they won’t. Because reasons.Report
I’ve already seen people whom I personally witnessed warn of the risk of the security state built up during the Bush administration under the guise of the “War on Terror” being used for political persecution domestically go out of their way to justify this detention because they disagree with his politics, so yeah, I’m not confident we’ll heed the warning.Report
Over-defining “support for terrorism” has downsides?
My goodness gracious! You’d think that the people who defended the cadets playing the circle game would be at the front of the line arguing that people should be allowed to speak freely.Report
It must get exhausting trying to make these comparisons, instead of just saying, “You know what, this is bad!” Especially when it involves comparing kids who ultimately were not punished by their college to a permanent resident who was detained, shipped who knows where (no seriously, his family didn’t know where), and who may be deported, for political speech. Did people overreact to those kids? Absolutely. Is it related to political persecution by the government? Dude, you are gonna need to write a coherent (I mean, by ordinary standards, not your own) essay with many thousands of words to make that argument, and I am 99.9999% certain you’re gonna fail.
I don’t even know, man. You thoroughly dominate this site’s comment section; pretty much all of it is a dialogue with you. This would be a better place to hang out, in an internet world in chaos right now, if you’d cut this bullsh*t out.Report
I’ve thought a lot about this comment (went for a run soon after, so I had time). I realize what I said was harsh, and while I stand by every part of it, I want to add some context.
For those of you who haven’t been around for 15 years, between 2009 and 2016, I commented on this site pretty much daily, so Jaybird and I have known each other for a very long time in internet time. We’ve had many conversations on and off of this site, and while I disagree strongly with this politics, that’s true of literally every single person on this site and always has been (there were some strong new deal/social democrats, and of course Freddie, once upon a time), so it doesn’t for the most part affect my respect for him, or my ability to recognize that he’s a very smart person who often has interesting things to say. Which is part of why I find this sort of Scheiße so fottutamente disappointing.Report
Let me… clarify? With a bunch of premises that strike me as being not only true but uncontroversial.
Over the past few years (decades, maybe?) there has been a fairly raucous argument involving, among other things, “Free Speech” in our culture and it bubbles up especially on campuses. Maybe it bubbles up the most there.
Campuses, and the people who graduate from them, have an outsized influence on the culture.
In recent years, the most vocal have… what’s the most non-judgmental way to put this… let’s say that they got a little over their skis.
Sometimes in defenses of the indefensible while crying “Free Speech!” (for example, the protests against Gibson’s Bakery) and, other times, screaming about “hate speech” or similar terms to call for people to be punished for speech. “Freedom of Speech Doesn’t Mean Freedom from Consequences” is one of the ways this manifested… but another was the whole distinction made between punching up and punching down. I’m sure you remember those distinctions as well.
From people on the outside, a lot of these distinctions presented pretty identically to “*I* can do whatever I want while *YOU* have to stay in line.”
There were a handful of idealistic types who argued stuff like “we should have a culture that allows a broad space for this sort of thing and we should err on the side of giving a lot of leeway” and that sort of thing got responses of “why are you defending scoundrels?”
And this is where the whole “getting over their skis” thing comes into play.
People who were used to being able to say “Freedom of Speech doesn’t mean Freedom from Consequences” are going through a rough time while talking about the importance of a Culture of Free Speech.
While I agree that it is important that we have a Culture of Free Speech, it also seems to me that we’re well within experiencing the consequences of *I* can do whatever I want while *YOU* have to stay in line” when the person holding the whip changes.
For what it’s worth, I think that it is important that we have a Culture of Free Speech that allows for a lot of leeway when it comes to what people say, even on campus.
I’m pretty sure that the Palestinian Activist made sure that his acts and speech did not provide material support to groups that the federal government has marked as “terrorist”.
It’s 100% possible to criticize Israel without being anti-Semitic. And, heck, even if the guy skirted the edges of anti-Semitism, that’s not illegal either.
And it really sucks that we’ve reached the point where something like this happens and the response is cheers that something is finally being done than a full-throated defense of the importance of a Culture of Free Speech.
It’d be nice if our universities had an environment that fostered more of an Enlightenment Culture, don’t you think?Report
Yeah, I don’t think any of this is relevant, and still find it a particularly gross response to what is happening.Report
I find it relevant. It pretty much explains the backlash happening right now.
But if you don’t see what’s happening as a backlash, then these are just unconnected anecdotes, if not an attempt to change the subject through whataboutery.Report
Man, attacks on the free speech of those who support Palestine or criticize Israel have been happening for decades, in the media and universities. The only thing new here is that it’s the government doing it. So yeah, I think you’re miles off, but more than that, I think you’ve just chosen to make it about what you care about instead of the actual issue of the friggin’ government detaining someone for political speech.Report
Where did you think “you can engage in free speech, just not *HATE* speech” would end up?
Expressions of support for Palestine have been huge on campus for decades and have managed to withstand attacks for decades.
What changed in the last few handfuls of years? Anything? Is all of this just coming out of nowhere for you?Report
The only thing new here is that it’s the government doing it.
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln…………Report
Imagine if Biden even threatened this sort of thing.Report
I’m not sure Jaybird is right about that. Columbia is private but we’ve had 15-20 odd years of ideological purges, deplatforming incidents, and compelled speech at state schools (which absolutely are the government) and institutions like Columbia that probably wouldn’t exist without the benefit of public money.
Assuming this guy didn’t actually commit any crimes I think this is a serious escalation but if there’s a distinction it’s a matter of degree rather than kind. Everyone should think about where it all goes next time they cheer compelled diversity statements or firings over whatever speech not conforming to the latest trends in identity politics. At minimum I would say there is no reason to believe the political left in this country cares about freedom of speech. Which sucks since that was a big reason I signed up back in the day.Report
He wasn’t quoting me saying that.
He was quoting Chris saying that.Report
My bad!Report
If the “threats” were the least bit comparable to what is actually being done, you might have a point.Report
At minimum I would say there is no reason to believe the political left in this country cares about freedom of speech.
And the political right never has cared, and has, historically, been more effective in stomping on it.Report
I agree. I just also happen to not have an astoundingly convenient amnesia about what the last decade and a half or so of life have been like on this topic.Report
The Palestine/Israel debate is a special case, I’d posit. For whatever reason (usually cynicism), we’re not allowed to differentiate between criticism of Israel and anti-semitism. Until that happens, we’re just talking in circles.Report
Slade: we’re not allowed to differentiate between criticism of Israel and anti-semitism.
A lot of the criticism of Israel involves reasoning we never use against non-Jews.
Urban warfare is “genocide” if Jews do it, but not if anyone else does. Israel shouldn’t be an ethnostate because ethnostates are bad, however all non-Jewish ethnostates get a pass. Israel should put up with terrorism that non-Jews would never tolerate. Israel is expected to deal with a generational Right to Return.
I’d say the big issue that we’d apply in normal situations is it’s lack of defined borders. It should just announce what land it considers it’s own and be done with it.Report
Israel already has announced what land it considers its own – and reinforces that announcement every time it permits a Jewish settlement on Palestinians lands.Report
Not surprisingly, I agree with this analysis. There are dozens of states that call themselves specifically Arab and/or Muslim complete with blasphemy laws, apostasy laws, and Sharia influencing actual law. Even for the people who don’t like it, the general attitude is that there is nothing we can do about it.
Plenty of other ethnostates elsewhere in the world like Japan, South Korea, North Korea, and Thailand that put their ethnic identity front and center. Even many European states do this in hard or soft matters.
It is the one Jewish state that gets criticized by the Left a lot because the Left considers Israel de facto illegitimate. If Jews still existed in Muslim majority countries and felt alienated by Islam being front and center than the entire world would just shrug at that.Report
By my reading of this, only the most pure of heart may render criticism of Israel.Report
Slade: By my reading of this, only the most pure of heart may render criticism of Israel.
No. I’m just saying we should be consistent.
There is a ton of media coverage on and even multiple states funding what are basically IslamicNazi arguments.
Their talking points get repeated and integrated into people without them understanding these arguments are judging Jews differently because they’re Jews.
The idea that Jews shouldn’t have a state but all other ethnotypes get a pass comes down to “because they’re Jews” reasoning.
Ditto the idea that Jews shouldn’t be able to respond to terrorism, ditto the idea that they shouldn’t be able to have an urban war.
Apply these situations to other countries and it looks insane.Report
We’re going to need a cite for this: “multiple states funding what are basically IslamicNazi arguments”.Report
Slade: We’re going to need a cite for this: “multiple states funding what are basically IslamicNa.zi arguments”.
If you mean “the funding” then most of the media in the Arab countries is state controlled. Their various positions in the UN are also state controlled. Al Jazeera has an English feed, try listening to them for a while.
If you mean the arguments themselves, then the idea that the Jews control everything is na.zi antisemitism, as is the idea that they are especially evil and should be held to different standards because they’re evil.
If the arguments only make sense when used against Jews and make no sense at all when applied to non-Jews, then that’s a problem.Report
Like Dark Matter says, there should be at least some consistency in this. There are people who can speak about the evils of Western imperialism in “Islamic lands” without irony but also lambast Israel for being an “evil racist ethnostate” at the same time. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that “Muslim state/lands good, Jewish state bad” unless you are an Islamic theocrat.
The other big issue is that we Jews are always taught to support this or that cause because of our history of persecution but at the same time not treated as a real minority. At best we get “well, I guess it’s good that the Jews preserved their own culture” while celebrating other oppressed groups with masturbatory delight. At worse we Jews are called insular, clannish, greedy, and guilty of dual loyalty and international conspiracy for wanting the same things that other groups want.Report
Israel has The Bomb and has been expropriating land for years. It also has a well-justified sense of persecution and self-preservation that manifests itself in some pretty ugly ways sometimes. It carries outsized weight in American foreign aid and policy. No right thinking individual believes that country is going to disappear.
As an American, whose tax dollars get spent in the Middle East, I’ll reserve the right to criticize the recipients of that aid without having first passing a purity test.Report
The bomb is kind of useless if it can never be used. If people think that Israel needs to withdraw from the West Bank and end the blockade of Gaza without any real deal and just endure a certain amount of terrorism, they should say so.
There seems to be a gigantic one way street where only Israel has agency and the Palestinians lack all agency. This one way street can be expanded to cover Jewish-Muslim relations globally, where the entire burden falls on Jews and we have to offer all olive branches while the Muslims get to treat Jews with horrible arrogance.Report
You’re not addressing the criticism part. The Palestinian leaders are idiots and the people who cling to any right of return are fools. To acknowledge that and also state that no one has clean hands over there is my point. By your reasoning the only agency Israel has is, “Look what you made me do.”Report
A lot of the Pro-Palestinian activist in the West argue that the only just solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict is in fact the disappearance of Israel. Sometimes this involves a South African solution and sometimes this involves all the Jews going “home.” This is why they adopted the specific framework of anti-Zionism and settler-colonialism during the protests and chanted “from the River to the Sea, Palestine should be free” and said that Israeli Jews should go back to Poland.
There is no evidence that they are lying when they say that or whether they, and the Palestinians themselves, will back down if given the WB and Gaza.Report
Slade: No right thinking individual believes that country is going to disappear.
The Palestinians do.
That’s what they say when the person on the street is asked. That’s what is in the original charters of both the PLO and Hamas. That’s why these various peace plans keep falling apart.
They believe they can make the Jews flee to Europe or something and they make their policies on that. That’s why we keep hearing about “colonialism”.
That’s also why giving up the Right to Return is such a non-starter, or even redefining it so it’s a right to return to a Palestinian state along side a Jewish one.
If we listen to what the Palestinians actually say then they’re pretty consistent. Even the rare support for “two states” requires the follow up question “can one of the states be Jewish”.
This means there can’t be peace and it opens the door for fringe groups in Israel to behave badly because they can’t make the situation any worse.Report
You left out right thinking.
Colonialism refers to steady encroachment on Palestinian land. It’s the same as Manifest Destiny.
At the same time, people in 1948 thinking that carving out a new Jewish nation in that area of the world was going to happen peacefully was the height of Great Power folly. Here we are, nearly 80 years later, still living with that.Report
Slade: Colonialism refers to steady encroachment on Palestinian land.
No. That’s a good example of the Palestinians saying something and the West spinning it into they’d be cool with two states.
The PLO’s charter, written years before the 67 war, had article 22 which spells out all of Israel is a colonial project, and multiple articles which make it clear they mean every inch.
When I listen to Arabic media, they don’t make a big deal out of “steady encroachment” because every inch of the land is disputed.
When I listen to podcasts that talks to random Arabs on street, the issue never comes up. Again because every inch of the land is disputed.
When the Palestinian’s talk about Israel the colony they mean all of Israel. As insane as it sounds, they’re still fighting over whether or not the Jews get a state.Report
TL/DR version: With the left, I always get the feeling that they always want Jews to support them because of our history of persecution. At the same time, they would deny us the things they grant to other groups they like because we are wypipo doing wypipo things. It is absolute demand for support in one hand and complete denial of rights in the other hand.Report
This whole “wypipo” being denied rights thing might become a problem if the only people who agree that Jewish folks aren’t white are White Supremacists and Jewish folks.
Remember when BIPOC, LatinX, and AAPI became a thing?
You’ll note the two groups of people who aren’t included in that.Report
Because we’ve been fed a constant stream of “wolf” accusations for decades. There’s nothing you can say about Trump that you haven’t said about all other GOP presidents during my lifetime.
The republic is always going to end if Team Blue doesn’t get it’s way.Report
You really aren’t paying attention are you?Report
It’s like he read the story!Report
You were being a constant stream of wolf allegations because they were the correct allegations to make.Report
The people crying wolf 20 years ago weren’t just liberals and the left. There were tons of libertarians who, if they voted for one of the two parties, almost certainly voted for Republicans. In fact, in the wake of the Patriot Act, increased domestic surveillance, and the invasion of Iraq, a bunch of libertarians spent half a decade trying to convince themselves and their fellow travelers that they should abandon the libertarian-conservative alliance and build an at least tenuous libertarian-liberal alliance. In some ways, I think it was the aftermath of 9/11, and the split it caused among libertarians, between those who remained with the right and those who looked to the political center or alliances, that ultimately resulted in the end of libertarianism as an American political faction, and perhaps even as a political ideology altogether.Report
People were warned by the Democratic Party during the 2024 elections. Too many people did not believe what the Democratic Party said would happen and voted for Trump or decided to do KDP cosplay and say the Democrats were worse. The people in defiance are still raising their fists in blood thirsty defiance.Report
Serious question. Does holding a Green Card mean you can’t be deported for supporting Hamas and Oct 7th?Report
One of our immigration lawyers would need to step in but I believe involuntary loss of status requires being convicted of a felony. Saying Hamas is the greatest thing since sliced bread or that the Israelis had it coming or whatever isn’t a crime.Report
This guy is a leader of the Columbian protests, which has repeatedly resulted in the police arresting them. I’m not a lawyer and I haven’t been following those protests in detail, but I am wondering which lines have been crossed.Report
If they have grounds under the law so be it but from the reporting so far it is not clear that they do. At minimum they need to convict him first, and (again, based on my limited understanding) convict him of something pretty serious.Report
What I suspect the DHS argument is going to be is that this guy made a material misrepresentation on his green card application for not disclosing his support of Hamas on it, which is a terrorist group.Report
Is that enough to deport him?Report
Folks online are pointing to TITLE 8 / CHAPTER 12 / SUBCHAPTER II / Part II of the immigration law (do a find on the string “terrorist activities”) and quoting this part:
The argument is that support for the government in Gaza is support for Hamas.
Hamas has been designated a terrorist group since 1997.Report
There’s also the matter of the protesters supporting 10-7. That presumably is “endorsing terrorist activity”.
So yes, you can get deported for supporting Hamas and/or 10-7.
And if this is long time established law, then we’re also back to “wolf” accusations.Report
Did he protest in support of 10/7, or just in opposition to the then ongoing genocide? Do you have evidence he specifically supported the former? The Columbia protests were explicitly about the genocide, not 10/7.Report
Wiki says at times the Columbia protests were supporting 10/7. I have no idea what he personally said or did, however he was their leader so there’s that.
Chris: or just in opposition to the then ongoing genocide
It is probably not useful to lower the definition for “genocide” to the point where it applies to all wars.Report
The low definition of genocide thing is pretty much baked into the Convention Against Genocide, which adopted a pretty broad standard for it to prevent wiggle room at trials.
The arguments regarding the Israel-Hamas War regarding genocide is that the Pro-Palestinian faction is using the broad language of the Convention while the Pro-Israel faction is using the more colloquial definition of genocide and everybody is talking past each other. The Pro-Israel side is skeptical of the Pro-Palestinian side because they never seem to have used the broad definition before in regards to the I/P conflict and because they don’t apply this to say the Syrian Civil War or Yemeni Civil War.
My guess is that the Pro-Palestinian side decided to latch onto the broad definition of genocide in the Geneva Convention because they needed to district from Hamas and 10/7.Report
LeeEsq: …the Pro-Palestinian side decided to latch onto the broad definition of genocide in the Geneva Convention because they needed to district from Hamas and 10/7.
IMHO it’s “accuse the other side of doing what you’re doing so no one can tell the difference.”
On 10-7 the Palestinians (including but not limited to Hamas) killed every Jew they could get their hands on, which is “genocide”. That’s really ugly and showcases what the Right of Return would look like.
If Israel is also committing genocide, then everyone is committing genocide so no one is.Report
I’m way past the point of addressing genocide denialism at all.
Re: the protests, where in the Wikipedia page does it say they supported 10/7?Report
RE: genocide denialism
If the number of deaths is less than the number of births then is very hard to claim that Israel is killing everyone it can.
Given the Palestinian refusal to admit how many of the dead are militants, we’re stuck with various estimates which suggest the Israeli Army’s civilian kill ratio was pretty normal (or even good) for urban combat.
RE: the protests, where in the Wikipedia page does it say they supported 10/7
In fall 2024, activist groups including CUAD had begun to use rhetoric in support of Hamas and the October 7 attacks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Columbia_University_pro-Palestinian_campus_occupations#May_31%E2%80%93June_2,_2024:_Alumni_weekend_encampmentReport
I have no doubt that CUAD has members who openly supported armed resistance in Palestine. Pretty much every group does. I do not see any evidence that most, or even more than a few, of the protestors supported 10/7.Report
I do not see any evidence that most, or even more than a few, of the protestors supported 10/7.
Shrug. Enough did to make it into wiki, whatever that’s worth. The better question is whether he personally said or did something along that line or whether the group he was leading did so.
We don’t have specific information. However we’ve managed to draw a potential line from him to legal deportation. Whether the gov can do that in court is a different question.
Protesting(*) is legal but supporting terrorism is not. Israel was at war with an openly genocidal terror organization. Opposing the war without supporting the terror organization requires clear thinking on an emotional topic.
(*) There are a good number of things that “protesters” can do in the name of protesting which also crosses lines. They don’t have the right to shut down education or harass random people even if they are Jewish and so on.Report
So I still see no evidence that Khalil supported 10/7, but let’s say he did — I don’t know anyone who supports the killing of civilians, but I do know people personally who won’t criticize Hamas for 10/7, so it’s probably not outside of the realm of possibility that he falls into that category — is that grounds for deportation?
Would supporting armed resistance in Palestine generally be grounds for deportation?Report
Chris: I still see no evidence that Khalil supported 10/7,
True. It’s “guilt by association” at the moment. However the margin of error is large and the idea of him supporting terrorism looks a lot more reasonable than it did at the start of this thread.
Chris: Would supporting armed resistance in Palestine generally be grounds for deportation?
Faict, the “armed resistance” groups in Palestine are resisting the idea of Jews and a Jewish state in the Middle East. That’s why they target civilians, it’s why their charters read the way they do, and so on.
So the answer to your question is going to be “yes”. Normal rules apply. Supporting terrorism is grounds for deportation.Report
Gennocide denialism? Like how people deny what was going on in the Syrian Civil War or Yemeni Civil War, whose death tolls far exceeded the entire I/P conflict, but wail and wail about Israel? Or the people who meet the killings of Alawites in Syria with a shrug while they would jump up and down and demand international action against Israel and every Israeli?Report
Hey man, as someone who’s repeatedly criticized our relationship with the Saudis, including providing them the weapons that they used to support mass slaughter in Yemen, you’re preaching to the choir.
And also in Syria, a situation that we were less directly involved in, but which our actions directly led to by destabilizing the region. I
I don’t know if Syria counts as genocide, and not just mass government killings, but I don’t think that makes it any better. I think there is some debate in the literature, however.
Yemen has a real case for being genocide, and there have been multiple calls for Americans generally, and genocide scholars specifically, to take a close look at it.Report
I mean, technically speaking, no, they were about not any behavior of Israel.
I’m sure protestors were saying things about Israel’s behavior, but the actual protests, the demands of the protestors, were explicitly about the fact that Colombia, a private school, was investing money in companies that benefited from the situation in Israel, or even were funding what was happening.
Those were the demands of the protest, that a private school stop doing actions with their investments.
This may seem a technical distinction, but it does matter if we start hypothesizing where the line of ‘supporting terrorism’ is. Because ‘You, a private company, are doing crappy things and I’m protesting you until you stop’, is…well, let’s just say that it’s hard to distinguish that from civil-rights sit-in. That’s basically all protests.
So there’s basically two choices:
Either the act of organizing the protest of Colombia (Not Israel, not US foreign policy, but _Colombia_) itself is what he’s being punished for. Aka, protests are illegal. (And before anyone says ‘No, only ones that do illegal things’, please spend like fifteen seconds googling how easy it is for the police to make a protest ‘illegal’ by randomly defining what is legal in situations where it is literally impossible for a group of people to obey or even know what they’re being told to do.)
Or he’s being punished for what certain people have _said_ at the protest, because some people might have hypothetically said things that were supportive of Hamas. A thing he has very little control of, was not the actual point of the protest, and can easily be used to make any protest illegal simply be undercover people slipping in and saying those things.Report
Even if the allegations against Khalil are significant to result in removal under the law, the real big issue is that nobody knows where the fish he is. You are supposed to be able to use the ICE detainee tracker to find out where he is being held and nobody can find out this information. There are procedures that need to be followed and they are not being followed in a very disturbing manner.Report
It looks like a Federal Judge has blocked his removal.
So… there’s that.Report
It’s a habeus corpus petition.Report
Update, Khalil apparently showed up on the ICE tracker in a Louisiana detention center.Report
The answer is that it depends on a variety of factors including a lot of lawyers doing their lawyer thing and what immigration judge the get to. The material support for terrorist bar is pretty draconian and a low one for DHS to meet. It also always occurs doing stuff outside the United States not inside the United States.Report
There is a Mahmoud Khalil in Montreal as well, a student at Concordia.
He says some stuff that might be considered risible during the various protests celebrating justice and goodness and all that and I’m pretty sure that the two Mahmoud Khalils are being conflated.Report
Other languages aren’t exactly that creative when naming people either. Mahmoud and other variants of Mohammed are just as common as variants of John are in the West. Family names repeat a lot just like Smith, Baker, and Johnson repeat a lot.Report
Well, I’ve already seen one person give a clip of the one guy in response to the question “what did this guy say that was so bad?”Report
This guy has a thread about the CUAD (Columbia University Apartheid Divest) and what it talked about online.
If Mahmoud Khalil was affiliated with the CUAD, he’s going to have a rough time explaining this.Report
I’m confused. Khalil is not in any of those posts, and they’re all about Bangladesh.Report
I guess the question is “is he affiliated with CUAD?”
Because, if he’s not, no problem.
If he is, the question is whether “those posts are talking about Bangladesh, not Israel/Gaza!” is a good argument.Report
They’re definitely being conflated on Twitter by people celebrating his detention.Report
Kevin Drum died on Friday after a long battle with cancerReport
Really long. He publicly announced his diagnosis in 2014. I wasn’t a consistent reader, so after five years or so, when he kept turning up alive, I figured he had beaten it, but I guess that’s not really a thing with multiple myeloma.
It’s a shame. I had my political differences with him, but he was smart, and interesting, and I preferred a world and a blogosphere with him to one without him.Report
IIRC he whupped the cancer you’re thinking about, they found new cancer in his prostate as he was wrapping up the previous cancer, they went after that cancer but the treatment KO’d his immune system and an opportunistic infection nailed him and the docs weren’t able to shepherd Drum out of that.Report
Multiple Myleoma does not really go into remission and generally people can beat it for 10-15 years before it gets you.Report
Yeah I don’t disagree per say but I read him daily and my own imperfect recollection of the events were that he had the MM controlled and it was the prostate cancer that prompted the new round of treatments that walloped his immune system which prompted the infection which ultimately felled him.Report
He was one of the OG Blogfathers way back in the early oughts when he was “Calpundit”.
I liked reading him and quoted him a lot. The world is worse off without him.Report
I’m extremely sad about it. Another precious fragment of my beloved Blogosphere washed away in the river.Report
Oh wow. I remember when he announced his cancer, and that it was terminal, saying he was going to stop blogging, but then seeing him like a year later and thinking, “Wow, hope that means he beat it.” Then I saw his stuff occasionally for the next decade, and I forgot about the cancer. RIP.Report
One of my new theories and it is mine is that a decent chunk of the left remains politically ineffectual because they want to be tribunes of the oppressed rather than leaders of a majority. You don’t need to compromise on your positions if you are a tribune of the oppressed but can remain strident and adamant on every issue. When seeking to lead a majority, you need to compromise quit a bit to get the majority cobbled together.Report
Works fine for the shouty left online fringe. In my opinion a lot of our problems source to a lot of our current class of Democratic pols being past their sell by date and/or being unable-unwilling to state and stand up for their principles and instead just outsourcing them to consultants and the groups. Hopefully should be resolvable by the current stint in the wilderness and primaries assuming that Trump doesn’t blow the whole system to heck before the next election.Report
A big problem here is that the Democratic Party does not really have a base and every constituent group of the Democratic Party considers itself the true base. To the extent the Democratic Party has a based, it is probably black women of a certain age and/or the dreaded In This House winemom.
Ever since I was a college student, the most liberal parts of the Democratic Party insisted they were the real base and they seem to light their hair on fire every time a Democratic politician does something they dislike. Now this part is the terminally online.
You can see this on bsky every time a Democratic politician announces “we can’t just be the party of no, we have to be for something.”* Will Stancil** and others will run around in circles screaming and refuse to realize that Slotkin probably has half her voters telling her that she needs to be for something.***
*This does seem to be pathological and my guess is that it is because they don’t want to be Republicans who just say no.
**To his credit, he did attempt to run for office so he puts his ideas into practice.
***Though my understanding is that 2/3rds of Democrats at least now want a total wall of no from their electeds. Democrats have gotten better on this but not completely. There are too many Senators being wishy-washy about the CR which allows Musk and Co to proceed with their rapid and rabid cuts because they are demoralized and think any concessions will just be ignored.Report
I mean getting concessions and then having them ignored does make you look impotent as an individual politician and as a political party.Report
I don’t know why they’d give on anything without something in return. Let the Republicans own all of this.Report
I’m with Saul and inMD. There should, absolutely, be a wall of No from the Dems right now. If ever the McConnel strategy was justified from the Dems it is absolutely, undeniably justified right fishing now. Until the Muskrats are reined in, normal constitutional order is followed on spending/cutting and, preferably, unless Trump pulls his head from his posterior on tariffs the Dems should be in full opposition mode. The GOP has their trifecta- let them own their policies in full if they can pass them.Report
The Subterranean Border Defense Act just passed the house with a single “No” vote.
402-1.
Remember the black kid with brain cancer that the Republicans clapped for during Trump’s speech and the Democrats didn’t?
The online backlash has, apparently, started to get to some of the Dems on some of the 80-20 issues in the runup to the most important election of our lifetimes.Report
Sure, if there is a bill with true bi-partisan backing or in fact would be good for Democrats strategically (i.e. your 80/20 issue) there’s no harm in hopping on that train. Go for it. But that’s not what the core fights in Congress are going to be over. It’s all going to be about whether massive cuts in Medicaid are made as a partial offset for tax cuts weighted towards the wealthiest. That ain’t an 80/20 issue and the Republicans need to be left to do that one on their own, if they even can.Report
Obviously you can vote yes for the “Give Dems everything they want bill” or the “Agree that puppies are adorable bill” and anything similar. So long as you make sure you’ve read the thing.
But on every substantive bill the Dems should assuredly be a wall of no.Report
My impression that enough Senate Democrats were just going to cave in return for nothing to avoid a budget fight.Report
They may – though they will be cowards if they do.Report
It turns out that my suspicion is right:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/tally-3Report
How many people does it take to make a bill have bipartisan support?
Two?Report
Heck I imaging the current GOP would declare it bipartisan with one vote.Report
According to the linked article, there’s only 1 firm Dem yes vote.Report
Yep, madness.Report
To be slightly fair, I have seen people no position is not a yes or a no and I think most of them will vote no for cloture but we are still rudderless.Report
I’m willing to hold my fire until they actually vote yes, personally. If they go “no position” right up to the 11th hour and then vote no on cloture; basically a Sen. Collins stunt if they include some footsie; then I will have nothing but nice things to say about ’em.Report
As far as I can tell, Democrats are putting a lot of pressure on their Senators
The House CR passed on nearly party line votes with Massie and Golden switching sidesReport
Nothing says authoritarian like making freedom itself a felony.
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/texas-bill-identify-transgender-state-felony-rcna195642?cid=sm_npd_nn_fb_ma&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAAwXBSw6CMBAA0Nu4UxrjQk2MAaT%2BAgjUqGwIA8NPGJqCqWw8u%2B9V4yiHrWEQZIR6WKRSLtqa3san%2BVLjTxs7hH0BWVvnu7OOnxWD0qviB7Nd4ZhmyLxWyhMg1i5dony5Cj7rJiJL8GtKwIbWLyxyBQZHeom5k3cHpDsfyU1S7JKLfxSM28Hm2pUT90oNt6WpZz%2BFBSpVU5mA6vWAasfTDKHv33%2FlWNdJsAAAAA%3D%3D&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0NlppHbeeiMnJSd24Qu8jSnBTFKanb0slOfBnMTeQGnYT-EdmDenUFtnM_aem_JOGT0FCQ9KmgyFNgwbP2Aw&_branch_match_id=1281224086309622960Report
Yeah, it sure is amazing how all the people talking about how trans people should compromise over ‘sports’ do not seem to notice how Republicans will literally take anti-trans bills as far as they can, and in fact openly and explicitly wish to outlaw being trans.Report
Speaking of Video Games, it looks like Ubisoft’s talks with Tencent have stalled.
The CFRA has downgraded it from “hold” to “sell”. Assassin’s Creed Shadows releases in a little over a week. If the game underperforms, it will be bad. They’ve had a good month but a bad 12 months and an atrocious 60 months.Report
My daughter is a PhD student who was part of a team that won an NIH grant last year — it was cancelled yesterday. They put in a crazy amount of work to win it. But there was an element of relief to this outcome, because after they won the grant, the university rolled in and basically said “great job! Now hand it over”, grabbing a bunch of the money and insisting on major changes, including changing the NGO partner from the one that had partnered with them on the grant to one that has deep ties to the university. The PI has been wrestling with the situation for months and was considering leaving for another institution to try to reclaim control over the project — not a problem anymore.
Just a bit more anecdata that when big money is involved, the “good” institutions are often oriented around making more of it as much as whatever their ostensible purpose is.Report
Southwest Airlines is giving up its only competitive advantage. It used to be such a great airline and now it’s just another face in the crowd.
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/southwest-airlines-will-charge-check-bags-first-time-launch-basic-econ-rcna195776Report
I used to fly SW almost exclusively, but it’s been a while since they were the cheapest, even among the major (non-discount) carriers, despite being less pleasant to fly than most others (except United; fish United). The checked bag thing was seriously the only reason to pick them much of the time. I’m flying with them next week, and wonder if I’ll fly with them again for personal travel after that (the institute that flies me around for work stuff always picks them, the cheapskate).Report
Since we are on the subject of the I/P conflict, the Pro-Palestinian movement shot itself and the Palestinians that they allegedly cared about in the foot by adopting the anti-Zionist framing for their protests against Israel in the Israel-Hamas War. It basically made an alliance with Netanyahu’s critics in Israel, including the families of the hostages, impossible and kept a lot of Diaspora Jews away at the same time. If they didn’t make the entire thing about Zionism and Settler-Colonialism and basically realized that Israel’s 7 million plus Jews or Israel isn’t going anywhere, which nearly all of the surrounding countries accept at this point, than they could have actually had a more productive protest movement.Report
The Boston Globe is running a story on the whole “lockdown” thing: ‘The lockdowns were never really effective’: New research shows COVID stay-at-home orders did more harm than good
We’re getting ever closer to saying “maybe we should have done something else” without opening with “what we did was perfectly justifiable, given the information we had at the time”.Report
In that vein, Scott Alexander asks: What Happened To NAEP Scores?
He looks at the data and thinks it’s weird in general:
Report
“This revisionist history that says, `We could have done without the lockdowns,’ is dangerous,” said Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, founding director of Boston University’s Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases. “You would have faced even more deaths and even more hospitalizations in a shorter period of time, which would have debilitated our health care system.”
But while the impact of lockdown policies is still being studied, new research paints a troubling picture of the immense collateral damage inflicted by them.
The measures increased poverty and wealth disparities, spurred a dramatic rise in adolescent anxiety and depression, contributed to a surge in fatal drug overdoses, and led to devastating learning losses in schoolchildren, who have yet to recover, according to scientific studies. As of last spring, the average American student remained half a grade behind pre-pandemic levels in both math and reading, according to a recent report card on pandemic learning loss.Report
“In that vein, Scott Alexander asks: What Happened To NAEP Scores?”
I have a feeling this is like “life expectancy statistics”, which don’t calculate “how long are you statistically likely to live” but rather “how many people similar to you died before we did this calculation”, which doesn’t actually say anything about you personally.Report
This article doesn’t seem to say what you think it says: “While the scientific community is still divided over how effective lockdowns were, those who publicly criticized the measures during the pandemic have gained the political upper hand. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University, who co-authored a manifesto against lockdowns, is President Trump’s nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health, the nation’s largest funder of biomedical research with a $48 billion budget. And Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has described lockdowns as an attack on the poor and middle class.
“We are long overdue for a reckoning on the lockdowns,” said Stephen Macedo, a political scientist at Princeton University in New Jersey, who co-authored a book due out later this month that calls for a national inquiry into the lockdown measures. “What’s become increasingly clear is that a lot of what we did was irrational and based on fear, and we didn’t think through the profound costs.”
The article is basically cranks with pet theories have an advocate in the WH now.Report
The article is basically cranks with pet theories have an advocate in the WH now.
We’re getting ever closer to saying “maybe we should have done something else” without opening with “what we did was perfectly justifiable, given the information we had at the time”.Report
What do you think that switch buys us other then a history free naive response next time that skips over dozens of effective alternatives in search of something that “feels” good?Report
Well, if we could have explored one of those dozens of effective alternatives, that might have been nice.Report
More on the law in the Khalil case. This is what a colleague believes is going to be applied. The relevant seems statute in the INA is 8 USC 1227(a)(4)(C), which allows for deportability when the Secretary of State has reasonable grounds to believe that a noncitizen’s presence or activities in the United States will have serious adverse foreign policy consequences. The requirements to prove this are not high. They are very low. The relevant decision interpreting the statute is Matter of Ruiz-Massieu, 23 I&N Dec. 833 (BIA 1999). All is required is that the Secretary of State send a letter that sets forth a “facially reasonable and bona fide basis” for a determination of adverse foreign policy consequences.Report
I would argue that it is a pretty high bar to assert that Khalil being within the borders of America somehow ‘compromises’, which is the actual word used, US foreign policy at all, much less does it severely.
As far as I’m aware, he hasn’t even been protesting about US foreign policy. At all. I’m sure he doesn’t agree with it, but he hasn’t been protesting that. (Not that we should accept the premise that one person protesting a policy would compromise it, it’s just that isn’t what he’s been doing.)
He’s been protesting about the investment policy of the _private_ University he attends. People may not like that, hell he might have even broken some laws, perhaps even laws he could be charged with, but in no possible manner does that compromise US foreign policy.
And he does actually have the right to challenge this in court.Report
“serious adverse foreign policy consequences” could be defined as “pissing off an ally we want to maintain good relations with” in my opinion. I think this is more of a “what the gov’t thinks” not what he may have done or not done.Report
Where’s Israel going to go if not to the U.S.?Report
So here’s the actual rule:
But there’s an exception that applies
So, to explain that: There’s two different thresholds there that are similar. The first is much easier to reach, and can be done automatically across an entire group of people, and is probably meant to apply when ‘People from X being in the country’ or whatever could hypothetically present some foreign policy consequence. This is a very low bar that just requires a vague ‘belief’.
This also can apply to specific people and things they do specifically, but _only_ when there are no 1st amendment issues. It doesn’t say the words 1st amendment explicitly, but that’s what ‘beliefs, statements, or associations’ would be. It’s actually hard to think of a good example of this. Like…you could deport Superman under it, I guess, assuming he was otherwise legal. It’s pretty easy to believe that his existence would have foreign policy implications.
But, there’s an exception when there are 1st amendment issues, which would be here, because the issue is his speech and association. That requires the Secretary of State to determine that it would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.
The phrase ‘would compromise’ (not ‘believe’, but ‘would’ actually compromise) is important. What he does has to actually do it, or be demonstrated that it will, not that someone vaguely believes it can.
The phrase ‘compelling…government interest’ is equally important, and a lot of people just realized that phrasing (Which I bet people recognize) was secretly in there…and not only does it have to be a compelling government interest, which narrows things down, it has to be one about _foreign policy_, which narrows it down even more. It cannot, for example, be a ‘compelling government interest’ to allow students to attend and freely move about Colombia University, or to allow Colombia to invest money where it wants.
The exception then goes on to state that that ‘the Secretary of State must notify on a timely basis the chairmen of the Committees on the Judiciary and Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives and of the Committees on the Judiciary and Foreign Relations of the Senate of the identity of the alien and the reasons for the determination.’
Moreover, this determination can be challenged in immigration court. (Actually, all this can, but if the determination didn’t trigger the exception, all that would accomplish is requiring the State Department to prove it ‘believes’ something.)
—
…also, kind of important: This rational for deporting Khalil means he not alleged to have commented a crime. And did not violate his immigration status. There’s literally no wrongdoing asserted here, just that his (apparently entirely legal) actions have impacted US foreign policy to the extent the US government wishes him removed. Which they can do possibly do, we’ll see what the immigration court says, but it’s insane they think they can _arrest_ him for ‘We have decided that we don’t like you and don’t want you here anymore’. Tell him, schedule him in front of a court, and then if he refuses to attend the court or then refuses to leave if he court says he has to go, at _that_ point you can arrest him.
But immigration law has always been extremely fascist, and I’m not sure they can’t do what they did. I’m just saying it’s absurd if they can.Report
Actually, let me clarify: When I say ‘Can be challenged in court’, what I mean is ‘This has to be proven in court’.
Khalil doesn’t have to affirmatively challenge it and force them to go to court, there already will be a hearing, in court, to verify this determination made by the Secretary of State.
Often those hearings are so pro-forma that they barely happen, because (idiotically) people in them have no right to a court-appointed lawyer(1), so often barely understand what is going on. But they do exist, and Khalil does have a lawyer.
1) Please note there are organizations who will represent these people for free, at least enough to present some options to them, but the fascists that are ICE (and the police used to be this way before Miranda), will not bother to _inform_ anyone of their rights.Report
https://www.westernstandard.news/watch/watch-trump-refers-to-canada-us-border-as-artificial-line-in-latest-call-for-annexation/62988
We might try very stupid things with Canada is an increasing possibility.Report
Variety reports: Disney Scales Back ‘Snow White’ Hollywood Premiere Amid Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot Controversies
It ain’t just London getting short shrift.Report
The new “welcome” banners at the Kennedy Center: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5edd3bce3018801024d27100ccaa594662e094734c9eb5b1633ecfd5430b93cb.jpgReport
FFS.Report
Heh. No way those won’t be vandalized soon.Report
DOE guts itself with illegal terminations of 1300 employees: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/11/us/politics/trump-education-department-firings.htmlReport
Zelenskyy agreed to a 30-day ceasefire deal brokered by Saudi Arabia (!!!!). Russia responds by firing rockets into Ukraine
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/mar/11/ukraine-russia-us-peace-talks-moscow-war-latest-live-news-europeReport
Russia looks like it is following the example of Hamas.Report
Gavin Newsom hosted Charlie Kirk on the first episode of his podcast. We’re coming up on episode number four and his special guest is… STEVE BANNON!Report
Politico floats Rahm Emanuel as a presidential candidate. I don’t know how he’d fare nationally, but he carpetbagged his way into the Chicago mayoralty and was pretty effective. Laquan McDonald doomed him, but I think he was on his way out anyway. He’s certainly got the political chops and he ain’t afraid to play hardball.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/03/12/rahm-emmanuel-president-2028-column-00224241Report
Please god no.Report
Speaking of Covid, German Intelligence has concluded that it’s most likely from a lab leak rather than from a wet market.
Report
And it took them how long to arrive at that analysis? Which tells us we should do what differently next time? And gets China to tell us the truth how exactly.?Report
This is where the “for five years” is the important part of the sentence.
They concluded this back in 2020.
Which tells us we should do what differently next time?
Apparently crack down on racist conspiracy theories twice as hard.
And gets China to tell us the truth how exactly.?
Maybe we should offer more funding?Report
Have you considered the probability that what we knew in 2020 – in the midst of the pandemic – may not have been informed by testable scientific fact so much as fear?Report
Oh, you may have misread what the story said. It didn’t say “the German scientists concluded that it had an origin in a lab”. Here, let me copy and paste what the German news said again:
Report
When an intelligence service five years ago assumed something which may or may not be backed by evidence I’d say perhaps we need to move away from that assessment.Report
I go back to what I’ve said before. Intelligence services may, or may not, have resources that would give them insight into the sloppiness of Chinese lab practices, and they might have some insight into whether some mishap occurred in this case. And they may not be able to tell us just what they know or how they know it, for tradecraft reasons. But if they are relying on scientific evidence, like the scientific agencies, I don’t see why they are more credible than actual scientific agencies.Report
Do intelligence agencies even work with evidence? What do they do other than get fashion models to sleep with scientists and get them to admit stuff on camera?
That’s not even science.Report
The agencies know where I am and can send the fashion models any time. I’ll gladly spill my guts.Report
Get in line, buddy.Report
When you remember that businesses are dictatorships, the right’s affinity for authoritarian leaders makes a whole lot more sense:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/03/musk-trump-doge-bosses-democracy-dictatorship-capitalism/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3lV3t1CRycXR2zNhBGkWgbze48YG97DqkTzJrAxuPnI0dYfVoj1QS8_8A_aem_mnNjcK0egkZRF6WHbYp5YAReport
Oof. That just moved farther and farther down the left tail as it went on, and I’m not talking about the political spectrum.Report
Heritage Foundation drafts report calling for end of U.S. aid to Israel. So much that the Right is better for Jews:
https://jewishinsider.com/2025/03/heritage-foundation-prepared-report-calling-for-ending-u-s-aid-to-israel/Report
How do you say “I never thought the leopards would eat my face?!?” in Hebrew? Probably there’s like, one, pithy efficient word in Yiddish that covers it.Report
Yossele was the name given to the Golem of Prague.Report
American Jews voted overwhelmingly for Harris.Report
According to the Jewish Virtual Library, Harris got 66% of the Jewish vote.
Biden got 68% in 2020.
Clinton got 71% in 2016.
Obama got 69% in 2012 and 78% in 2008.
Kerry got 76% in 2004.
Gore got 79% in 2000.
You have to go back to Dukakis in 1988 to get a number lower than Harris got: 64%.Report
The Jerusalem Post puts the vote for Harris between 63% or 71%. 66% is still an overwhelming majority if that is the correct figure.
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-832086Report
Sure. I don’t see any reason for the Democrats to change anything.
I mean… are you gonna vote for Vance? You a big Vance fan? You gonna turn your back on BIPOC, AAPI, and LatinX solidarity in order to vote for Tax Cuts?
Here’s a page where you can donate to Columbia University.Report
Has it ever occurred to you that maybe people can try to bel less evil overall rather than having the forces of liberalism continually have to compromise to get the votes of the less evil of the evil people?Report
Eh, my definitions of “good” and “evil” are less common than I’d like (though there is a lot of overlap on pragmatic issues when it comes to my local community).
I’m not sure that discussions of morality will get you to the destination you want to go… not with the Omnicause the way it is.Report
Being a citizen comes with responsibility. I don’t like how the trend is to permit the abrogation of citizenship responsibilities.Report
So let’s talk about that. Here’s what google AI says are “American citizen responsibilities”:
As a US citizen, responsibilities include respecting laws, paying taxes, participating in the democratic process (voting, staying informed), and contributing to the community.
Here’s a more detailed look at the responsibilities of an American citizen:
Legal Duties:
• Obey laws: Citizens must respect and obey federal, state, and local laws.
• Serve on a jury: Being a juror is a crucial aspect of the legal system and a civic duty.
• Pay taxes: Citizens must pay federal, state, and local taxes honestly and on time.
• Register for the Selective Service: Male citizens are required to register with the Selective Service (Selective Service System) within one month of turning 18
You can do the first statement pretty much by existing and voting periodically, so let’s talk about legal duties. I have NO legal duty to “respect” any law. In fact, I’m openly contemptuous of many laws because they are stupid or I disagree with them, and based upon observed behavior, many others do to, i.e. speeding laws.
If you’re an employee and not a business owner, which is the vast majority of people, filing taxes is all you have to do. You’ve already PAID your taxes. Selective service? That’s straight up sex discrimination. Women are exempt? Nope, equal responsibilities = rights. Unequal responsibilities for the same rights? Hell no.Report
Dave Mustaine narrowed the responsibilities down to talking to God, going to court when you have to, showing up to work on time, and paying your bills.Report
Does “obey laws” cover civil statutes?Report
Google AI would appear to say yes.Report
Suggesting we cut off aid 22 years from now is a way to not talk about it for 20 years.Report
It was my understanding that waste, fraud, and abuse were going to be eliminated.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/11/politics/opm-spokesperson-fashion-influencer-videos-invs/index.html
“As the Office of Personnel Management oversaw the layoffs of thousands of federal workers and pressed others to justify their positions, the agency’s chief spokesperson repeatedly used her office for a side hustle: aspiring Instagram fashion influencer.”Report
That chick should be fired *SO* fast.Report
How far into your cheek was your tongue when you wrote that?Report
Oh, all the way. Couldn’t get any further.
And, McLaurine? Paging r/tragedeigh!Report
She would be pretty if she wasn’t buggin insane with bad politicsReport
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/jewish-protesters-flood-trump-tower-to-demand-activist-mahmoud-khalils-release
URL says it all!!Report
It appears that senate democrats have become as cowed and cowardly as republicans and will not filibuster the CR. They are now complicit in the end of democracy.Report
That’s kind of the downside of fighting DOGE with weeks of “GOVERNMENT SERVICES ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD AND EACH DOLLAR SAVES A MILLION LIVES”.Report
These damn nitwits are getting outwitted by some of the dumbest people to ever occupy the seats of power of this nation. I contacted my 2 senators and urged them to vote no. FFS.Report
They’re being led by Schumer, though. The Republicans have been playing clips of Schumer talking about the shutdown threat all throughout Biden’s term.
Additionally, one of the main things that Elon is doing is pointing out that Government is a scam and we don’t need 80% of it. A shutdown actively *HELPS* him.Report
He has tweeted in his own defense:
Report
The continuing resolutions of the past were, by and large, simply a continuation of the status quos. Inviting the GOP to vote for them was an invitation to the GOP to lose nothing. This CR is full of items the GOP loves and the Dems hate. Voting for it is naked surrender to extortion. If Schumer had the spine that God(ess?) gave a jellyfish he’d have whipped a no vote and told the GOP to do what they would in the shutdown, own the results and come back to him when they were ready to offer a typical CR. This is pretty naked surrender to extortion on Schumers part and I haven’t read anything from him that suggests he’s avoiding anything Trump and the Muskrats wouldn’t do anyhow. Looks like near total surrender to me and I have tried earnestly to give Schumer the benefit of the doubt in the past. What’s he going to surrender on next?Report
Oh yeah? Well, here’s Matty!
Sixteen thoughts on an averted shutdown. The subhed? “A bitter pill that Schumer is correct to swallow”
Point the twelveth:
Report
You mean the Weekend at Bernie’s people were actually just now saying something important?
No?
Oh, I didn’t think so.Report
I can think of few better indications that someone is wrong than Yggles thinking they’re right.Report
By my lights, we’re about 10-15 years away from fully socially acceptable anti-Semitism and it’s right around there that we’ll see MattY explain that the Orange Hitler wasn’t that bad, all things considered, and he’s not supporting Barron because he thinks that Barron is *GOOD*, just that he’s *BETTER* than David Hogg.Report
I got MattY’s analysis too and it did give me pause. Seeing one of my favorite socialists and one of my favorite fanatic Republicans both saying he’s wrong suggests his analysis has some merit to it so I do feel marginally better.Report
Similar reaction. My gut has been to say the Republicans have a majority, let them figure it out. At the same time the last thing you want to do is end up empowering Trump. The courts are slow but they aren’t giving him carte blanche.Report
There still seems to be some robust debate over whether a shut down helps Trusk because it slows down the Courts.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t
Schumer/Gillibrand seem convinced that allowing cloture is the lesser of two eviksReport
My understanding is the courts keep right on going since most of their staff are exempt to critical. DoJ attorneys will be on the job as well.Report
The Courts don’t shut down immediately but they do eventually shut down.Report
The whole Epstein thing continues. Kash Patel had a couple of celebratory tweets talking about how the FBI is arresting members of the Tren de Aragua social club and a Director at Customs and Border Protection being arrested for FEMA fraud and the lion’s share of the responses were not “good one, nice collar!” but “WHERE IN THE HELL IS THE LIST”.
Pam Bondi had a couple of tweets about swearing in a new Assistant Attorney General and praising the K-9 working dogs of law enforcement. The lion’s share of the responses were not “good one, nice collar!” but “WHERE IN THE HELL IS THE LIST”.
They can’t talk about the list. They can’t talk about why they can’t talk about the list. They can’t talk about why they can’t talk about why they can’t talk about the list.Report
I like how you, and presumably everyone you read, phrased ‘Director at Customs and Border Protection being arrested for FEMA fraud’. This has absolutely nothing to do with fraud _in_ the government, and is just someone _defrauding_ the government who happens to also work for the government. But people are happy yo imply otherwise.
And before you say ‘They’re not implying that’, I will point out a trivial search on my part found there were three others literally charged with the same thing this week, announced at the same time, including one that did literally the same thing of defrauding FEMA for temporary living expenses for a house that was not destroyed:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/three-defendants-face-federal-charges-bilking-and-attempting-defraud-fema-fraudulent
Yet for some mysterious reason, it’s this one person that is getting all the press. It’s the only one _you_ even know about, because you are hooked directly into right-wing pipelines. And that’s because she works for the government, and people can imply this is something to do with finding fraud in the government, despite the fact it is not.Report
And yes, it’s nice that people are not falling for it and still pointing out the Epstein stuff, but I felt I had to point out this incredibly obvious manipulation being done by the press, where ‘US government employee arrested for completely unrelated fraud done to the government’ is being used to help Trump’s dismantling of government and vague allegations of fraud within the government.
Honestly, look the wording that Jaybird just used: FEMA fraud.
Why would anyone talk about ‘defrauding FEMA’ in that incredibly ambiguous way? Imagine if I said we need to defund the police and said there had been an example of ‘cop murder’, by which I actually meant killing a cop.Report
I was talking about Kash’s tweet, Dave. And then talking about how everybody responded to it with “WHERE IN THE HELL IS THE LIST”.
If you wanted to talk about how Kash’s accomplishments ain’t all that and are overshadowed by his failures, might I suggest you read my comment again? Maybe?Report
Yes, I get what you were talking about, how Kash’s tweet was received. I was pointing out how manipulative it was to start with.
It failed at accomplishing anything, but only because the the Republican base is sorta on a hilarious tangent that I hope they continue to be on. Please, Republicans on Twitter, keep insisting that the Trump administration do something it cannot possible do, because there is no real ‘list’ that hasn’t been released. (I have no idea why anyone thinks there is going to be some actual itemized documentation of ‘People who have taken advantage of Epstein’s underaged girls’.)
But I’m allowed to point out propaganda, even if it completely fails due to unrelated things. Especially since it actually did make it outside of Twitter, it’s all over the far-right news.Report
Yeah. But they can’t talk about the list. They can’t talk about why they can’t talk about the list. They can’t talk about why they can’t talk about why they can’t talk about the list.Report
But this is nothing compared to when, in 2019, some cadets were investigated and ultimately suffered no consequences. And besides, someone on another campus at another university in another time zone did something, so they were really asking for this.
https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/1900365049597722800?t=LEX8wlmLd4uyqjhFa_pjtg&s=19Report
Didja see how Columbia has announced disciplinary measures for the occupation of Hamilton Hall last year, ranging from multi-year suspensions, temporary degree revocations, and expulsions?Report
The beatings will continue until morale improves. Going to war with their students is possibly the stupidest thing Columbia could possibly do.
Incidentally, weird how no one seems to be talking about the implications of the Federal Government forcing a private university to punish students, because the Federal Government objected to the speech of those students.
I remind people, the government has no ability to demand a private organization punish people for violating the law. That would be utterly insane, on top of violating freedom of association.
We can sidestep the question here of to what extent Columbia _could_ punish speech, a thing that gets blurry at private universities, because we all agree they can punish actual crimes like vandalism and trespass. Hell, I think it’s reasonable to punish those things even if there is no criminal convictions.
But I also I think we can all agree that they can _choose not to_ punish those things, and the government has no right to interfere, including no right to extort them with government money until they do. If the government wishes to punish students for that, they can (and did) charge them with crimes.
This is on top of the fact that the government is clearly doing this because of the content of the _speech_ and openly admits as much, claiming the problem is antisemitism. And I’m just going sidestep the whole discussion as to if it actually was antisemitism was by pointing out that the Federal government has _absolutely no power_ to punish antisemitic speech, and in fact is constitutionally barred from doing so, just like it is barred from punishing all speech. And it certainly doesn’t have the power to extort private entities into punishing it!
This used to be something that a lot of people here worried about, how public universities would have codes of conduct that stopped this sort of thing, and it was pointed out that public universities are not really ‘the government’, they are organizations that happen to owned by the government but have to have the same sort of rules as any sort of housing and workplaces and education, general rules about harassment and safety and things.
And a lot of people here objected to that logic.Report
Going to war with their students is possibly the stupidest thing Columbia could possibly do.
There are a bunch of students on campus including students who are thin-skinned enough to think that Columbia is at war with them by taking the side of the building occupiers.
“The kids who just want to be 3 minutes tardy to class and then go back to the dorm to have AI write their assignments.” Those kids.
Oh, is that the case? Man, I sure hope that a precedent wasn’t set earlier! It might result in absolutely *ZERO* sympathy!
“Guys, why are you insisting on using the same rules we insisted on when we won the argument last time?”Report
Jaybird, you say sh*t like this assuming people know what the f*ck you’re talking about, but no one ever does, because the thing you have linked it to when you evidentially end up having to explain is _extremely obviously_ not the same thing at all.
I am getting extremely tired of these conversations with you where you have to be repeatedly prompted to say what you mean. Something like half your posts here are implications that NO ONE FOLLOWS.
Pointing out that public universities are not the exact same thing as ‘the government’ and thus can restrict certain things for proper functioning and safety with rules is not the same thing as _the actual government_ demanding they restrict things like that under the threat of legal punishment.
And none of that is the same thing as the Federal government making demands of private university.
Also, and I know everyone here is used to the quiet parts being said quietly, but that’s not happening anymore, because we’ve move from crypto-fascism to open fascism. So they’re just straight up it’s about speech. Literally just saying that.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/14/nyregion/columbia-letter.html
Read the bulleted item there about anti-“Zionist” discrimination, and tell me if you agree that is something that the government can demand a _private organization_ take the position of and enforce upon students.Report
Eh, a million years ago, we had (reportedly, anyway) two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
A democrat was in office, however, and so we were treated to a bunch of essays about how we shouldn’t use “two consecutive quarters of negative growth” as an indicator of a recession. We got new definitions of “recession” and a bunch of people acting like they’d never heard that definition ever before. Like it was brand spankin’ new.
Anyway, you say “Jaybird, you say sh*t like this assuming people know what the f*ck you’re talking about, but no one ever does, because the thing you have linked it to when you evidentially end up having to explain is _extremely obviously_ not the same thing at all.” and, from where I sit, I think “I was just talking about how two consecutive quarters of negative growth meant that we were in a recession”.
And, suddenly, I’m being asked to defend my definition of “recession” and when I say something like “two consecutive quarters of negative growth”, they look at me like I’m growing a second head.
Anyway. I digress.
“Deja vu”, I’m trying to say. No, not the gentlemans’ club.Report
Ya know, if the Trump administration wants to get into the university administration business, I daresay they could get Congress to pass an appropriation for setting a college up.Report
There’s a long history of the federal government using tax money to bribe people, organizations, and states to do things it lacks the constitutional authority to force them to do, or to do itself.
I’m all for the Courts cracking down on this, but the people who were cheerleading while Democrats did it, are only now crying foul, and will go back to cheerleading when Democrats are back in power, can die in a fire.Report
DavidTC: This is on top of the fact that the government is clearly doing this because of the content of the _speech_
I think the disruption of the educational institution and threatening some of it’s students takes us well beyond “content of speech”.Report
That argument might be more persuasive if the government hadn’t explicitly named anti-Zionism in the letter of demands it just sent to them.
Not antisemitism, mind you. Anti-Zionism.Report
DavidTC: Not antisemitism, mind you. Anti-Zionism.
Zionism is the idea that the Jews should have a country. Ergo anti-Zionism is the idea that they shouldn’t, i.e. Israel should be destroyed as a Jewish state.
That seems seriously antisemitic on the face of it, and that’s without the real world likelihood that it would require a second holocaust.
I’ve pointed this out on this thread before that many of the “arguments” used against Israel are never used against non-Jews.Report
“Zionism is the idea that the Jews should have a country.”
There exists Jewish state and it ain’t going anywhere.Report
Slade: There exists Jewish state…
10-7 was an effort to end it. That was what anti-zionism looks like in the real world, and the protesters are proclaiming themselves to be allies to that.
Some of them understand that, some of them don’t. However it’s very fair that they be treated as what they’re claiming they are.Report
I’m sorry but the anti-Zionists always claim to not be anti-Semitic but then they do things like go to random Jewish neighborhoods and yell and hit at residents like a crowd of protestors did at Boro Park, Brooklyn in late February this year. They don’t say what Jews should have done in light of the exclusion and persecution we faced. Many of them even pretend it never existed.
Anti-Zionists at best demonstrate serious antipathy towards the Jewish people and basically find us an ideological nuisance. They have this neat cosmology in their heads and Jews don’t fit into it.
What I think they want is for the Jews to be seen and not heard. They want us to exist in obscure little islands that keep to ourselves while the big block groups that they love get to make a noise.Report
Zionism is still an active political idea, not something that happened decades ago and finished. It is a political philosophy that is constantly taking land in the West Bank. It is what drives the illegal settlements. Do you think people have a right to oppose that political philosophy?
Also, ‘destroyed’ is doing an insane amount of work there. It’s very interesting how you had to qualify the destruction ‘as a Jewish state’.
Governments govern by consent of the governed. The concern should be protecting right of minorities, not demanding the ability to exclude entire sections of the population because they will vote wrong, but having control over them anyway via occupation and imprisonment.
Israel can either choose to be a democracy over the entire area (Which will probably peacefully vote to change it in a lot of ways), or they can withdraw to areas that only has the people they want in them.
The idea that opposing the nation of Israel is antisemitic assigns the goals and behavior of Israel to the Jewish people as a whole.
I find it interesting how we can’t call an actual thing that is happening to people a genocide, but somehow it’s fine to call a totally imaginary thing that isn’t even close to happening a holocaust.
Let me guess. You’re going to bring up examples of small population replacements that happened and _ended_. Aka, you’re going to try to justify the Nakba. Which was a bunch of violence and isn’t really the same thing as a war settlement, but, sure, let’s pretend it was the same. Let’s pretend that should been the end of it. Indeed, that’s the difference. Those _ended_.
You know, a thing that _could_ have happened at any point after 1967 after Israel found itself occupying Palestine? Israel could have said ‘Okay, line drawn here, and we’re gone’…and no, before you start talking terrorism, it took a good two decades for Palestinians to ramped up to even throwing-rocks-at-soldiers levels of violence, the first Intifada, in 1987. And that started because Israel refused to leave and was settling the place and talking, very openly, about how the entire area was theirs.
Or, alternately, Israel could have simply declared that entire area was Israel, in 1967. I honestly doubt anyone would have done anything about it. Jordan did the same thing a decade earlier with the West Bank and no one did. No country really owned that land, there was no one to say no. People would have grumbled, but it would have quickly disappeared.
But…that would have let all those Palestinians vote. Which Zionism does not allow.
That’s what Zionism is. It requires a _Jewish_ state, which requires a Jewish majority so that the Jewishness of the state cannot change by democracy, but it also claims, via mythos, ownership of an territorial area that _is not majority Jewish_. There’s no way to square that circle. Except by removing some of the non-Jews.
That’s that side that requires a holocaust, or at least ethnic cleansing. The other side is just a democracy.Report
DavidTC: Zionism is still an active political idea… constantly taking land in the West Bank.
The protesters weren’t disrupting the University over settlements, they were upset the Jews won’t tolerate terrorism and were fighting a war.
That makes sense if all of Israel is considered a settlement which seems to be where their heads were at.
DavidTC: It’s very interesting how you had to qualify the destruction ‘as a Jewish state’.
We have lots of examples in the surrounding states on what happens to Jews if they’re ruled by Arabs. I don’t see why the openly genocidal Palestinians should be assumed to have good intentions.
Full democracy combining the entire area isn’t going to work because one side or the other will take control over the state and use it to repress the other.
The two state solution has thus far failed because the Palestinians refuse to give up the RoR, i.e. the right to destroy Israel.
DavidTC: Let me guess. You’re going to bring up examples…
I’ll quote myself: Urban warfare is “genocide” if Jews do it, but not if anyone else does. Israel shouldn’t be an ethnostate because ethnostates are bad, however all non-Jewish ethnostates get a pass. Israel should put up with terrorism that non-Jews would never tolerate. Israel is expected to deal with a generational Right to Return.
DavidTC: justify the Nakba.
Normal countries are forgiven the crime(s) of their own creation, the Jewish one is not.
DavidTC: it took a good two decades for Palestinians to ramped up to even throwing-rocks-at-soldiers levels of violence, the first Intifada, in 1987.
The PLO was created in 1964 to destroy Israel. The stated goal of all of Israel’s neighbors up until 1979 (when Egypt broke ranks) was to destroy Israel because it was Jewish.Report
The protest was literally over the fact that the university was investing in companies that profited off the conflict.
You can’t just invent what the protests were over. And, also, protests of a university are about the behavior _of the university_. People do understand that, right? When someone protests an entity, it’s because they want _that specific entity_ to do something different. Otherwise, it’s just a rally.
We have an actual list of demands…which no one seems to have bothered to reprint and the websites removed, so let me instead like to the _response_ to these demands, where it’s made extremely clear everyone understands what the protestors are asking for:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/college-pro-palestine-protest-demands_n_662c2672e4b0c2fde1a5b467
But you’re fine with the openly genocidal Israeli government, which is literally, at this very moment, talking to other countries about removing Palestinians from Gaza?
Urban warfare is extremely prone to causing violence against civilians, a fact which is very well know. Which is why almost no country actually does it, and the ones that do generally don’t use any of the sort of tactics Israel does, like long-range bombing, and instead focus more on close-quarter battles.
The ones that do bombing like that are places like _Syria_. Which, last I checked, was also roundly condemned for it.
Get a pass from _who_? Who do you think are defending ethnostates? Which ones?
Saudi Arabia? Do you think it’s the _left_ saying that we should work with Saudi Arabia?
And you do understand there is a difference between an ethnostate as a general concept, and one that is _actively holds territory containing people it does not extend rights to_, right?
Do you know what the last ethnostate like that was? Apartheid South Africa. And if you look into for ten second, you might realize it’s the same people defending Israel, and that Israel itself was a huge defender of that place. In fact, Israel is the reason it took so long to do anything about that place!
Dude, Islamic terrorists have killed, over the specific issue of Israel, more _Americans_ than Israelis in the past 25 years. They killed more on a single day! Granted, the US is larger so that’s proportionally less.
But you know, here’s the list of a general estimate of how much terrorism effects a country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Terrorism_Index
You’ll notice Israel is second (Now, after Oct 7th), but you’ll also notice how many other countries are within spitting distance. Plenty of people who have much more restrained behavior, along with some psychopaths we don’t have anything to do with or don’t even have functional countries. (Does anyone even know what’s going on in Burkina Faso?)
Do you know where Israel was _before_ Oct 7th? It was below the US. For 2022, we were 28th, they were 30th.
It almost feels like the level of terrorism couldn’t actually justify any of their behavior at that point.
It really is amazing how people do not understand ‘Abstract demands that exist as a resistance rally point and are used as opening for negotiation’ are not the same as ‘things people would actually need done to accept something’.
I have pointed out before how general cries of protest are interpreted as explicit demands by Palestine in a way that _literally no others are_. The same way that general talk of having a struggle against people is a holy war, because we’ve decided not to translate the word jihad so that being in a fight is called being in a jihad and literally all fighters are ‘jihadists’ And we’ve apparently completely decided to just invent a new meaning of martyr, despite that being an English word.
Waving keys around and talking about reclaim houses is a _rallying cry_, in the same way that ‘pry my gun from my cold death hands’ or ‘give me liberty or give me death’ is. ‘Remember the Alamo’ on Texas license plates is not a battlecry to go kill Mexicans, one hopes. And talking about ‘continuing the fight’ is not demanding violence.
—
Anyway, Israel is not ‘expected’ to actually let people return. What is expected is that the right of return will be used as _concessions_ in negotiation. That Israel will go ‘We won’t give you back your houses, instead we will pay for new houses’ or something like that. And maybe, allow some small symbolic return of very historic communities it uprooted, or even trade some land and call that ‘returning’.
But that would only work if Israel was, at any point, trying to fix this situation. They are perfectly happen with this situation, because allows them to continue their plans to end up with all of what they consider as their birthright.Report
DavidTC: The protest was literally over the fact that the university was investing in companies that profited off the conflict.
First sentence, in bold, from your link: College students across the country are protesting Israel’s attacks on Gaza.
It is not useful to pretend that the students were protesting something other than they were.
DavidTC: We have an actual list of demands
Which includes insisting that trying to prevent terrorism/mass-murder is “genocide” when Jews do it.
DavidTC: …the openly genocidal Israeli government…
The day after the Israeli gov decides to go full genocide all the Palestinians in Gaza will die. Hamas on the other hand has the habit of killing every Jew they can.
Ergo one side is “openly genocidal” and the other is not. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that the birth rate in gaza was still above the death rate even over the course of the war.
DavidTC: Urban warfare is extremely prone to causing violence against civilians
And there you go. Israel has no acceptable way to fight Hamas, it’s supposed to just tolerate terrorism.
DavidTC: You’ll notice Israel is second (Now, after Oct 7th), but you’ll also notice how many other countries are within spitting distance.
You’re comparing Israel to a bunch of failed states. What you mean is, yes, Israel is expected to ignore terrorism like no country in the West would.
DavidTC: Who do you think are defending ethnostates?
The better question is what ethnostates are attacked for being ethnostates. As far as I can tell it’s just the Jewish one.
DavidTC: Anyway, Israel is not ‘expected’ to actually let people return. What is expected is that the right of return will be used as _concessions_ in negotiation.
Your statements sharply disagree with the official Palestinian demands in peace negotiations. The closest we’ve gotten to peace had them drop their requirement down to “only” 150,000 refugees per year.
So yes, the Palestinians are insisting on undoing the various wars, getting their specific land back, and ending the Jewish state. However at Camp David they offered to do it slowly over a period of decades.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Camp_David_Summit#Refugees_and_the_right_of_returnReport
Yup, they capitulated (those measures had all been previously recommended), punished their students for free speech, and this is still what they get.Report
My theory is that they wanted to do this last year but didn’t have organizational cover.
Now they have it.Report
They were in the process of doing this last year. They’d already done some of it. It just took this long, procedurally.Report
Slow-rolling punishment for seniors is, effectively, no punishment at all.
Though, I agree, it makes for something that you can argue. “Hey, we’re doing something! It just takes a while because we believe in Freedom of Goodness and Light. You believe in Freedom of Goodness and Light, don’tcha?”Report
I think the unfortunate reality is that they brought this on themselves. Contra what David said above no university, public or private, is entitled to public money. Public universities are creations of the state, private universities are eligible for what they get, including via federally backed loans, by virtue of following (lots and lots of) rules set by the government.
Historically they’ve gotten that money because of the belief that they are providing a valuable service to the broader citizenry, and the country as a hole. The youthful antics are tolerated to the extent they have to be for institutions to complete their larger mission. But the funding is allocated for the students doing what Jaybird mentioned, i.e. completing their coursework and getting a degree. It isn’t to create a forum for the endless accommodation of the most self indulgent types of activism. If that’s how it ends up being used, or even just perceived as being used, it’s no mystery that eventually someone is going to start yanking it back, including by enforcement of all the rules the schools certify they’re following to the letter.
Make no mistake, I think we are all going to lose if that happens in a comprehensive way, but it’s a completely predictable consequence.Report
The vast majority of the funding that Columbia gets is allocated for research, much of it vital, and much of it now cancelled. I’m all for destroying the Ivy League, but it is important that funding still go to do this vital research. And it’s not going to do that.
And it’s not like Columbia students are suffering after graduation, so the university must be doing something right with the money it spends on educating students.Report
I agree with you that the results will be bad. What’s happening is probably best understood as Extremely Online lashing out.
What I would nevertheless like to see, assuming anyone and anything survives, is a restoration of the idea that these institutions are to be sober and humble stewards of the money and privileges bestowed on them.Report
Having spent still more than half of my adult life around universities, I just don’t think things are bad there. Granted, I’m not in any way culturally conservative (except that I think 80s post-punk is better than 2000s post-punk, and you can’t convince me otherwise), so it may just be a general philosophical difference.Report
I’m visiting my alma mater for the first time in years next month for an event for my older son’s baseball team. I am curious to see what it’s like. The last time I can clearly recall being on campus was to attend a basketball game around 10 years ago.
I went to the big state flagship which seems like it might be less of a flash point. There was a lot of visible activism when I was there but the place is too big to disrupt like you read about at small schools, the exception being post game rioting.Report
Can you disrupt the educational institution to that degree and have it still be “speech”?Report
Yes.Report
Columbia is not punishing the students for what they’ve said, just for the things that are normally illegal. Almost like the things which are normally illegal are still illegal, even if you call it “speech”.
BREAKING: Columbia University Starts Expelling Anti-Israel Agitators
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8aMWhQDTZ8Report
Sure, that has no chilling effect on free speech at universities.
What’s funny is part of Columbia’s pitch to perspective students is their pride in their 1960s protest movement, which was much more disruptive than the 2024 version ever was. I’m sure in 20 years they’ll be selling their history of student activism with the 2024 protests as well.Report
No, it has a chilling effect on students closing down the campus because they think they can.Report
Porque no los dos? Also, why does the U.S. government care if Columbia students shut down Columbia’s campus?Report
I think the US government has to care because of funding.
I think that if we were able to just divorce the funding from the university, everybody would be happier. They’d have as much Free Speech as they could handle and we could ask anybody and everybody “why do you care?” about anything that happens on campus.Report
I could see that if the students getting the funding were also the ones causing the trouble, but I doubt that’s the case.
Let’s just call a spade a spade. The offending students were speechifying about something the Trump administration doesn’t like, so the funding was yanked. There have been plenty of other threats to do the same where the only “crime” was occupying the quad.Report
They’re all beneficiaries of the funding. The kids setting up barricades *AND* the ones going to class. Or not going to class. The ones chasing tail. The ones listening to Aqualung on vinyl on Friday night because they don’t have dates.
Each and every student is a beneficiary of the funding.
Which means that some of the beneficiaries of the funding are preventing other beneficiaries of the funding from going to class and, theoretically, *NOT* benefitting from the funding.
Now, you may say “well, they’re just *SAYING* that they care, they really only care about crushing dissent!”
That may be true, but the whole thing about some students complaining about other students building a barricade opens the door a crack because now the Poindexters can claim that their rights are being violated.
“Rights”. Try to get a date instead of using your right so much, amirite?Report
What Columbia is doing is completely legal and entirely within their rights as a private university. What they are doing probably would be legal even if they were a public university, but as a private university, it certainly is legal. I don’t particularly think it’s a _good_ idea, but it is certainly something they are allowed to do. (Although I do think it might actually be good idea to have laws that stop universities from refusing to confirm already-issued degrees, because that seems ripe for abuse and extortion. But there are no such laws, I just think they’d be good to have.)
The problem is what the Trump administration is demanding they do under the threat of the Federal government.
Including, perhaps, some of what Columbia just did because of those demands.
It’s one thing for Columbia to do things because of their own free will, it’s another to do things because they were extorted into it by the unconstitutional actions of the Trump administration. It’s fair to not only complain about the Federal government doing that, but Columbia, a respected university with a long history of protests that they pretend they are proud of, caving to that without a whimper.
That said, we do not know if what they just did _was_ due to the Trump administration. We’re just sorta guessing on that. It very much looks like it due to the timing, but extremely bad timing does sometimes happen.Report
Yoy
u can’t negotiate with Trump times 1 trillion. Columbia University tried to negotiate with Trump regarding the 400 million in cancelled grants. Trump is demanding complete capitulationReport
Seems like they *CAN* negotiate with Trump and quite effectively. “Yeah, sure. We wanted to do that last year, actually. And you’ll turn the spigot back on? Sweet!”Report
Well the results of this investigation are horrifying, but expected :
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/report-of-the-commission-of-inquiry-israel-gender-based-violence-13march2025/Report
Page/Report has been removed. I read it before it vanished and it was interesting.
Hamas was totally air-brushed out of the picture. Not sure I’d even know their name if all I had was that report. That also gets rid of the hostages. It also means Hamas (because they don’t exist) did no disruptions of aid and so on and had zero involvement in any of Gaza’s civilians suffering.
If Israel blew up something or killed someone the only conceivable motivation was to attack civilians and make them suffer. Israel alone was responsible for the entire war.
It was kind of impressive. Maybe they took it down because someone pointed that out?Report
I wonder if Schumer really has the votes for cloture: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/senate-cloture-vote-tally
Rand Paul is a no. Klobuchar and Warock came out as nos. There are possibly the votes from the no position list but also the chance that last nights firestorm changed opinions.Report
Well Schumer said he’s support cloture but that he wouldn’t whip in favor of it. If he himself and a couple other Senators vote yes on Cloture but it doesn’t hit 60 then that could, potentially, be the best position to be going into a shut down. But if Matty and a couple other folks are correct that the shut down, in of itself, plays into Trump and the Muskrats hands it could by a pyric victory.Report
He got his votes with the help of: Democrats joining Mr. Schumer in voting to move it forward were Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Gary Peters of Michigan, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, both of New Hampshire. Senator Angus King, the Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats, also voted yes.
Peters is retiring and should not have voted this way. No idea about why Schatz voted this way. CCM, Hassan, and Shaheen are from purplish statesReport
F*ck Dick Durbin. That relic needs to fade into well-deserved obscurity.Report
He is likely retiringReport
There’s no other way to explain that vote.Report
My theory is Thune told him, “I have the votes to exempt continuing resolutions from the filibuster. But I’m going to let the government shut down because the Dems wouldn’t allow an up-or-down vote, then come back next week and the Republicans will fix it by themselves.”Report
Rand Paul was a principled Republican vote making the opposition to the cloture bipartisan.Report
From The Daily Mail: Labour minister ‘rubbished’ spy chief’s secret dossier on Wuhan lab leak theory during pandemic despite Boris demanding probe… to ‘avoid offending China’
We will soon be at “why are you still talking about this?”Report
Oh, jeez. And now Zeynep Tufekci has an article: We Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives
If you like the passive voice, you will thrill as you read this one.
Oh, and the answer to the question “why are you still talking about this?” is in the conclusion of the piece:
“We may not know exactly how the Covid pandemic started, but if research activities were involved, that would mean two out of the last four or five pandemics were caused by our own scientific mishaps. Let’s not make a third.”Report
So, the DoD has delete their page about Medal of Honor winner Charles Calvin Rodgers. If you search for ‘Charles Calvin Rodgers site:defense.gov’ on duckduckgo, you’ll see where it’s supposed to be as the first result, which is this:
https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/Story/Article/2824721/medal-of-honor-monday-army-maj-gen-charles-calvin-rogers/
This now (Very slowly in my browser?) redirects to almost the same US, but the last part is now: /deimedal-of-honor-monday-army-maj-gen-charles-calvin-rogers/ Which doesn’t actually seem to exist, so weird redirect.
But he’s apparently a DEI Medal of Honor! Let’s check the Wayback for what the page used to say about his DEI Medal of Honor:
I’m not entirely sure what people are calling DEI these days, but…I don’t think that’s it. Is there something else…got a bridge named after him…given a Medal of Honor by President Nixon, Nixon doesn’t sound very DEI…man, I am completely baffled. I wonder if it’s this first sentence:
You know what? This is probably more malicious compliance.Report
You know, it’s really funny when an exact hypothetical comes true. Like, a week ago, I asked the question, which no one answered: Would it be DEI for a webpage about a medal winner to mention the fact he was gay and was only able to join the military after Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was repealed?
You know, a webpage that had a person mention the basic factual information that the military had policies against homosexuality for a while. Not promoting any sort of ‘diversity’, but ‘This used to be true, and no longer is’. Should that webpage be removed?
Turn out, my hypothetical was even softer than what actually happened (Softer in the sense that homophobia still is more accepted than racism.): The military is removing pages that mention that _Black people_ didn’t have equality in the service.
I guess the only question is: Is this just general bigotry, or is it a deliberate attempt to rewrite history? Or is that a false distinction?Report