I don't think this is accurate on how America abandoned public transportation and inter-city rail transportation. A lot of transit systems like BART, the DC metro, and MARTA were built during the height of the Cold War because it was clear everybody driving everywhere did not work. Other systems were planned but got nowhere. Plus, transit and rail transit was in decline long before the Cold War started and only the Great Depression and WWII rationing saved it a little. Transit ridership peaked around WWI and started crashing down fast after that.
By the mid-1930s, over one out of three American households had cars. In contrast, I think only around 4% of British households had cars at the time. Americans were wealthy enough to afford cars and the car also fitted our cultural self image as free wheeling and dealing people who went where we wanted when we wanted. So Americans took to the car in vast numbers and government policy followed them because of a combination that is what the people wanted, overall cultural love for the car that effected officials too, and a reluctance to give a tough no to a public that loved cars plus some other stuff like a belief dispersal is better defense policy in case of nuclear attack and a love for the single family home. A lot of the transit and rail companies were also hated during the early to mid-20th century.
Europeans also promoted the car a lot after WWII and Europeans took to the car when they could afford it. Britain, France, Italy, and other countries ripped up many of their tram networks and replaced them with buses just like the cities of the Western hemisphere. The reason why transit and rail was invested in was because fewer Europeans could afford cars until the 1960s and 1970s. Italy invested a lot more in roads than cars. Same with the United Kingdom. Only France really invested in rail like the United States did.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
On “Of Amtrak, AI, and Arguing About Trains on the Interwebs”
I don't think this is accurate on how America abandoned public transportation and inter-city rail transportation. A lot of transit systems like BART, the DC metro, and MARTA were built during the height of the Cold War because it was clear everybody driving everywhere did not work. Other systems were planned but got nowhere. Plus, transit and rail transit was in decline long before the Cold War started and only the Great Depression and WWII rationing saved it a little. Transit ridership peaked around WWI and started crashing down fast after that.
By the mid-1930s, over one out of three American households had cars. In contrast, I think only around 4% of British households had cars at the time. Americans were wealthy enough to afford cars and the car also fitted our cultural self image as free wheeling and dealing people who went where we wanted when we wanted. So Americans took to the car in vast numbers and government policy followed them because of a combination that is what the people wanted, overall cultural love for the car that effected officials too, and a reluctance to give a tough no to a public that loved cars plus some other stuff like a belief dispersal is better defense policy in case of nuclear attack and a love for the single family home. A lot of the transit and rail companies were also hated during the early to mid-20th century.
Europeans also promoted the car a lot after WWII and Europeans took to the car when they could afford it. Britain, France, Italy, and other countries ripped up many of their tram networks and replaced them with buses just like the cities of the Western hemisphere. The reason why transit and rail was invested in was because fewer Europeans could afford cars until the 1960s and 1970s. Italy invested a lot more in roads than cars. Same with the United Kingdom. Only France really invested in rail like the United States did.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/10/25”
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.
"
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.
"
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.
"
FFS.
"
Russia looks like it is following the example of Hamas.
"
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.
"
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.
"
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.
"
It's a habeus corpus petition.
"
It turns out that my suspicion is right:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/tally-3
"
My impression that enough Senate Democrats were just going to cave in return for nothing to avoid a budget fight.
"
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?
"
I mean getting concessions and then having them ignored does make you look impotent as an individual politician and as a political party.
"
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.
"
Update, Khalil apparently showed up on the ICE tracker in a Louisiana detention center.
"
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.
"
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.
"
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.
"
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.
"
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.
"
You were being a constant stream of wolf allegations because they were the correct allegations to make.
"
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.
"
This is classic dictator stuff. People need to take warning.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/3/2025”
What foot-faults have the Democrats committed over the years? What political universe are you writing from?
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.