[guest post by JVW]

If you have been following the developments as the Israeli Defense Forces are poised to enter Rafah (or, as Joe Biden likes to call it, Haifa) the Palestinians are now trying desperately to salvage a ceasefire proposal, brokered by Egypt and Qatar seemingly without involving any input from Israel or the United States. This after a Hamas rocket attack killed four IDF troops yesterday. The deal would give Hamas six weeks to produce somewhere between 20 and 33 hostages — living we presume — who would be exchanged for a disproportionate number of imprisoned Hamas militants. Naturally during this six-week period Israel would be prohibited from attacking Hamas in Rafah during that time. An earlier Egyptian proposal supported by Hamas actually required the IDF to evacuate all of Gaza during this truce, which is an idea so ridiculous that a serious mediator would never have dared to suggest it, though an IDF evacuation has been proposed down the road.

Of course the anti-Israel media here and abroad are already trying to treat the revised Egyptian/Qatari proposal, which Hamas has allegedly accepted, as legitimate. Here is a wretched ABC News piece on the matter where the field reporter in Tel Aviv and a former CIA operative presumably from Washington both insist that Israel must accept this truce to placate the families of the hostages. The former CIA analyst at least recognizes that the deal as offered likely won’t be accepted by Israel, and he acknowledges that this is more of a public relations move by Hamas rather than a legitimate move towards peace, yet in the very next breath he suggests that Israel still must accept it because to do otherwise would be “cruel” to the families of the hostages. It’s small wonder that the CIA has followed failure after failure in the Middle East over the past 30 years, given the apparent mindlessness of its analysts.

CNN isn’t any better. They bring on one of their national security analysts, Beth Sanner, a former Deputy Director for Intelligence during the Trump Administration (replacing Dan Coates) who says that Israel is likely to sign on to the plan given that Israel allegedly agreed to a similar plan earlier. The CNN reporter in Gaza then repeats Ms. Sanner’s assertion that although the Israeli government has not yet agreed to the proposal, the terms had been built around concepts that Israel has allegedly agreed to over the past couple of weeks. These include the six-week truce to facilitate the hostage release, the return of Palestinians to the northern part of the Gaza Strip, and a broader framework beyond six-weeks which would see the remaining hostages and Israel soldiers being swapped for Hamas prisoners. These remarks were given four hours ago, yet ever since then the reports from the Israeli Cabinet are that the terms are unacceptable. This no doubt really bums out the good people at CNN. The reporter acknowledges that Hamas’s last-minute decision to accept the terms proposed by Egypt and Qatari came shortly after Israel dropped flyers throughout Rafah calling upon Palestinians to evacuate the area before hostilities begin, but he apparently never stopped to wonder if this move by Hamas isn’t a giant bluff, hoping to buy more time in which to test Israeli resolve.

NBC is slightly better, pointing out that the comprehensive details of the truce are still unknown, and that current speculation is merely based upon the drafts that were being discussed last week. This lends credence to Israel’s immediate announcement that the Egypt/Qatar proposal needed a great deal more work before Israel would sign on. NBC says that the specific number of Israeli hostages to be released by Hamas is 33, which differs greatly from other reports that the proposal is a general range falling between 20 and 33. One interesting detail in the NBC report that I had not heard elsewhere is that only 93 of the 130 remaining hostages are believed to be alive at this point. NBC also informs us that Israel officials characterize this latest proposal as a ruse, designed to further turn public opinion against Israel.

Meanwhile, CBS tells us that the Israeli Cabinet — recall that this is a unity war cabinet made up of the major parties in the Knesset — has approved the IDF’s incursion into Rafah while Israeli officials attempt to learn more about the ceasefire plan. Their reporter confirms the 33 hostage release requirement and adds the detail that Israel would release 40 prisoners for every soldier released and 20 prisoners for every civilian released, meaning that some 600-1200 Palestinians (many if not most of whom are Hamas) would be headed back to Gaza. This would take place over the next six weeks. Israeli soldiers would also withdraw from “densely populated areas” and Israel would increase humanitarian aid. Upon the successful completion of that six-week plan, there would be an additional six-week ceasefire which would see the return of all remaining hostages in return for additional paroles for Hamas fighters, and also includes a complete withdrawal of IDF troops from the Gaza Strip. If that is successful then dead hostages and combatants on both sides would be exchanged, and both sides would enter into a five-year agreement for the rebuilding of Gaza. He then repeats the talking point that hostage families are excited about the deal, suggesting that there is no way that mean ol’ Netanyahu can reject it. The CBS anchor has the good sense to ask if it is really very likely that Israel could accept an agreement whereby their forces leave the Gaza Strip, and the reporter is forced to admit that may be a step too far for even the unity government.

One question is where the Biden Administration stands on all of this, and how much input they have had. This proposal was very clearly declared to be an Egyptian and Qatari proposal, with no mention of U.S. involvement in its drafting, even if it was supposedly based at least in part upon ideas that both the U.S. and Israel had supported as recently as last week. Was the U.S. sandbagged by Egypt and Qatar getting Hamas to agree to a draft that the U.S. and Israel had not approved? Did the Biden Administration clandestinely agree to this proposal behind the scenes but did not want its fingerprints all over it in case Israel or Hamas ended up rejecting it? Is there some plausible combination of the two whereby the U.S. stumbled into half-heartedly blessing this agreement without really knowing the full details of it? Because the latter option seems to be the most likely scenario where this President and administration are concerned. One could easily envision our negotiators giving so many mixed signals and vacillating so much based upon domestic considerations that negotiators from the two Arab countries simply heard what they wanted to hear and ran with it.

For the record, the Biden Administration is claiming that the proposal caught them by surprise too, saying that, like Israel, they need more time to fully study all of the fine points, which might also be an indication that they need to see how this polls among likely U.S. voters before coming to a final determination. But I’m not sure I like the idea that we have let other nations back us and our allies into an agreement that we aren’t willing to immediately stand behind. It is Israel’s decision to make and not ours whether they trust all of the participants suitably enough to sign on to this truce, and I hope that if they decide against it that we are willing to hear them out in their reasoning. But the initial media reaction to it suggests that the pressure among the progressive elite is going to overwhelmingly be for Israel to trust the good faith and peaceful aspirations of the Palestinian people without first eradicating the malevolent influence of Hamas.

– JVW

[guest post by Dana]

Let’s go!

First news item

White House on cleanup duty:

President Joe Biden on Wednesday called close US ally Japan “xenophobic” at a Washington, D.C., fundraiser, just weeks after lauding the US-Japan alliance at a state dinner.

The president made the remark at the off-camera event while arguing that Japan, along with India, Russia and China, would perform better economically if the countries embraced immigration more.

“You know, one of the reasons why our economy is growing is because of you and many others. Why? Because we welcome immigrants. We look to – the reason – look, think about it – why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants,” Biden said, according to an official White House transcript released Thursday.

The cleanup from press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre :

“He was saying that when it comes to who we are as a nation, we are a nation of immigrants, that is in our DNA,” she told reporters aboard Air Force One, adding later Biden was making a “broad comment” in his comments about Japan and India.

Japan’s response to Biden’s criticism:

“It is unfortunate that some of the comments were not based on an accurate understanding of Japan’s policies,” the embassy said in a statement to POLITICO. “We have raised this point to the U.S. government and explained Japan’s positions and policies once again.”

Second news item

Repeal and reasonableness in Arizona:

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs on Thursday signed a repeal of the state’s near-total abortion ban that has been on the books since the Civil War, capping a political scramble sparked by a controversial state Supreme Court ruling last month.

. . .

When the repeal does finally go into full effect, the landscape on enforcement will still remain fluid.

A fully implemented repeal of the 1864 ban will result in state policy’s reverting immediately to 15-week ban on abortions passed in 2022 that makes exceptions for medical emergencies but not for rape or incest.

Third news item

President Biden on college protests:

“Let me be clear … violent protest is not protected. Peaceful protest is. It’s against the law when violence occurs, destroying property is not a peaceful protest. It’s against the law,” Biden said.

“Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduation, none of this is a peaceful protest,” he said.

Fourth news item

Trump playbook for 2024, same as it ever was:

Poll after poll has found that a large proportion of the Republican electorate believes the only reasons Joe Biden is president are voter fraud and Democratic dirty tricks, buying into former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims about the 2020 election.

Trump continues to stoke those fires on the campaign trail.

He frequently airs false claims about his 2020 election performance and has leaned into defending his supporters who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. In an interview with Time this week, he said he would have trouble hiring anyone who believes Biden legitimately won in 2020: “I wouldn’t feel good about it.”

And on Wednesday, Trump said he may not accept the presidential election results this time, either.

“If everything’s honest, I’d gladly accept the results,” Trump told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.”

We would never expect anything different from you, Donald!

Fifth news item

Why Republican women feel the need to be toughies, according to Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University:

“The reality is that women who run for high-level positions, particularly executive positions and the Senate, do still have to prove they are tough enough and strong enough to make the hard decisions,” she told me. “But there is a difference between being tough and being cruel.” In Noem’s case, she suggested, “This is clearly a line that has been crossed. And the fact that she is doubling down on it is a problem.”

Did Noem tell this story because she is trying to impress the former president as he chooses a running mate? If so, the cultural consensus is that she blew it.

“Given the various people he has to choose from who are willing to serve as his vice president, he doesn’t need to go to somebody who creates as much as chaos as he does,” said Walsh.

Voters don’t pick a president based on the running mate, she added. “But they do want to know that the person who would be a heartbeat away is somebody with good judgment. That Kristi Noem thought this was going to be an asset shows a lack of judgment.”

Sixth news item

France weighs in on number of Russian troops killed in battle:

France has estimated that 150,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, according to Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne in an interview published on Friday.

In a conversation with the Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europe, Sejourne stated that Paris assessed the total Russian casualties, including the wounded, at 500,000 since the beginning of the war, now in its third year.

“Europe and its partners will remain united and determined, for as long as necessary. Russia’s military setback is already apparent. We estimate Russian military losses at 500,000, including 150,000 deaths,” he said.

“All of this for what?” he asked. “This can be summed up in two words: for nothing,” he added.

Russia has not disclosed information on its casualties.

Seventh news item

Too bad, Vlad:

he European Parliament has adopted a resolution calling on EU member states and the international community not to recognize the results of Russian elections as legitimate, Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Honcharenko said on Telegram…

The resolution called for sanctions against those involved in conducting “elections” in occupied Ukrainian territories, and for EU countries to limit relations with the Russian government.

The joint motion for a resolution…said that the elections were held in illegally occupied territories of Ukraine were neither free nor fair and did not meet basic international electoral standards, and thus lacked democratic legitimacy.

Eighth news item

Hope Hicks on the witness stand in New York at Trump’s hush money trial:

Hicks resumed testifying after a lunch break, with a prosecutor focusing his questions on the Trump campaign’s response to a Wall Street Journal story published days before Election Day in 2016 that exposed the National Enquirer’s $150,000 catch-and-kill deal with McDougal.

Hicks testified that Trump requested that she convey to the Journal reporter who’d contacted her for comment that he denies McDougal’s claims of an affair and porn actor Daniels’ claims of a sexual encounter with him, which were also mentioned in the article.

“The denial was from Mr. Trump for both women,” Hicks testified.

As is standard practice, the Journal contacted Hicks prior to the publication of the article and included Hicks’ statement in the story.

She read a portion of her denial, as printed in the Journal, on the witness stand: “Hope Hicks, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, said of the agreement with Ms. McDougal: ‘We have no knowledge of any of this.’”

Ninth news item

Is a ceasefire really even possible? Why would Hamas ever be trusted to uphold a ceasefire?:

Israel and Hamas appear to be seriously negotiating an end to the war in Gaza and the return of Israeli hostages. A leaked truce proposal hints at compromises by both sides after months of stalemated talks…

Israeli leaders are weighing whether to accept a deal that would delay or prevent their planned ground invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah — a scenario that falls short of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledges of “ total victory ” and the destruction of Hamas.

Hamas’ militant leaders must decide if giving up the hostages, the group’s biggest bargaining chip, is worth securing a long-term truce but not necessarily a permanent end to the war.

–Dana

[guest post by JVW]

I’m not really up for crafting a long post about what has been going on at UCLA over the past couple of weeks, so let me just provide some bullet points and links:

* UCLA erred when they allowed protesters to congregate in Dickson Plaza over the past week. They seem to have believed that by being lenient and tolerant they could contain the disruption, but all they did was encourage lots of other activists.

* Much of this falls on Chancellor Gene Block, who plans to retire at the end of this academic year. He goes out in disgrace, having bungled this situation from beginning to end.

* Somebody up high in administration ordered campus police and the hired security contractors to have a light touch, which meant that they refused to intervene when pro-Hamas activists began to harass “Zionist” students. Somebody should lose their job over this.

* Had not pro-Israel students attempted unsuccessfully to breech Fort Intifada on Monday night, I doubt very much that UCLA would have finally come to the conclusion that allowing activists to commandeer a huge chunk of campus for their own use might not be a great strategy for maintaining campus harmony. Those counter-protesters are the ones who helped bring this nonsense to a close.

* You can watch what happened last night on this five-hour video from the local ABC Affiliate. Here are the key parts:

5:00 – LAPD approaches the encampment, protesters rush to confront them in response.

10:20 – LAPD beats an ignoble retreat. Was this just a test to see how the protesters would react, or was this a complete strategic failure? Either way, it was a horribly bad look and only served to embolden the pro-Hamas crowd.

57:30 – California Highway Patrol officers approach a mostly unprotected entryway to the encampment.

1:04:49 – CHP officers begin pushing through the rabble to enter the encampment.

1:28:24 – CHP officers approach a second entry point to the encampment and mobilize around it. It is now approximately 3:15 am.

1:38:48 – CHP Officers begin tearing down the fortifications that the terrorists have built up over the past week.

1:47:04 – Camera view split-screens to ground-level where we can start watching the terrorists being arrested.

* The initial arrests go rather smoothly, as they were mostly silly children who were probably just as interested in accumulating social media likes as they were in protesting the plight of the Palestinian people. These kids generally let themselves be guided away without any resistance (#Resistance, that should read). About an hour in, however, law enforcement begins encountering the more hardcore elements of the activist groups who try to resist arrest. Law enforcement largely appears to be content to wait out this gang of miscreants, and instead focuses on removing all of the barriers erected in the encampment.

* At 4:40 am, approximately three hours into the video, law enforcement decides to clear out Royce Hall, the venerable campus landmark which houses an excellent concert hall as well as assorted classrooms and offices. I’m sure the little jerks did at least some degree of vandalism in the building, based upon all the debris that litters the area surrounding the building. This is the sort of thing which absolutely infuriates me.

* There is an interview with one of the alleged student organizers at the 3:56:30 point in the video. She may or may not be stupid, I cannot tell, but she is truly delusional. She acts surprised that the administration was no longer willing to drag negotiations on interminably and actually decided to end the little scamps’ hissy fit.

That’s about it. From what I see on the video, it appears that law enforcement continued to make progress on arrests as the morning light began to break. I would imagine that there is a giant mess on campus today which hard-working maintenance crews will be called upon to clean. Because if there is one hallmark of privileged left-wing protest, it is that it always leaves behind messes for the proletariat to deal with. UCLA will probably disappoint all of us by going as lightly as possible on these reprobates, but that’s what we would come to expect from the stultified echo chamber of wokeism. Nor do I have much faith that UCLA will put in place procedures to prevent something like this from happening again and probably soon, especially if the November election enrages them.

Two and three decades from now I am sure some middle-aged radicals, many of whom will no doubt end up in one of the various sewers of modern academia, will look back in pride on their participation in these events, but I am confident that history will eventually treat them much as it treats fellow-travelers for the Soviet Union from the 1920s-50s: somewhat well-meaning, somewhat stupid, somewhat malevolent, but completely delusional and naive. It’s just a shame that they are able to do so much collateral damage in the meantime.

UPDATE
Collin Rugg has some footage of the aftermath of the area on the UCLA campus where the budding terrorists held their slumber party. It won’t surprise you to see what a colossal mess it is. Everybody that was arrested this morning needs to be fined an amount commensurate with the costs of clean-up (and while we’re at it, the costs of the extra security and the multi-agency task force which broke up the party) and should have grades, transcripts, and degrees withheld until they do so.

NEW: UCLA campus looks like a landfill after pro-Palestine protesters, many of whom are also environmental activists, demolished the campus.

Police are dismantling the fortified camp after an intense night.

Police fired flash-bangs at the protesters last night before… pic.twitter.com/d70wBEmxD6

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) May 2, 2024

– JVW

[guest post by JVW]

Last night the Columbia University administration finally tired of the destructive theatrics of campus agitators (no doubt joined by malevolent forces from the outside) and put an end to the occupation of Hamilton Hall, a historic campus building which had been overrun by the pro-Hamas terrorist sympathizers yesterday morning. NYPD made 300 arrests, including 119 people inside of the captured building. Presumably the NYPD has also by now at long last cleared the tent encampment which had sprung up on Columbia grounds after the past week, immediately returning immediately after it was initially cleared thank to the fecklessness of university administrators.

Columbia’s last day of classes was this past Monday. The remainder of this week is study period, and final examinations will be given next week. Commencement ceremonies for the Class of 2024 are scheduled for two weeks from today, May 15. The Columbia administration has asked NYPD to maintain a campus presence through May 17, clearly hoping to get through that annual exercise with no further embarrassment to the reputation of the 270-year-old institution formerly named for King George II. Students, faculty, and staff have been asked to stay away from campus during these contretemps, with only students who live within the campus gates and those working in on-campus research labs supposedly being allowed in. Columbia has yet to announce how this imbroglio will affect graduation and class reunions, so look for that to be a major source of angina for the administration.

We have yet to see the long-term consequences of Columbia’s cowardly acquiescence to the mob, but the school ought to be worried. Today is the deadline for students who were offered admission to next year’s freshman class to declare their intention to matriculate to Morningside Heights this coming fall. Presumably, many Columbia admits have admissions offers from other prestigious institutions of higher learning, and it’s doubtful that the events of the past couple of weeks have been to Columbia’s competitive benefit. It remains to be seen what the “yield” — the percentage of admitted students who enroll at Columbia — will be and how it will compare to previous years. It wouldn’t come as much of a surprise if Columbia finds itself approaching students it previously placed on the waitlist and offering them a slot in the Class of 2028, nor would it be out of the question that Columbia simply fails to fill all of its available slots. Once thing we can expect is that Columbia won’t be particularly forthcoming with the data if it proves to be disappointing. It’s rather poetic that Hamilton Hall, which unsurprisingly was trashed by the occupiers, is where Columbia’s Office of Admissions is located.

In a sane world, Columbia would have a serious discussion about their campus climate and would ask difficult questions about what sort of school they aspire to be. As an Ivy League school located in a staunchly left-wing urban setting, it can be expected that Columbia would have a progressive orthodoxy. Still, the events of the past couple of weeks have helped to lay bare just how dedicated to fashionable leftism the university has become. Their weak and incompetent leadership, most notably represented by their overmatched president Minouche Shafik, has proven woefully unequal to the task of running a $6.2 billion operation ostensibly dedicated to creating “a distinctive and distinguished learning environment for undergraduates and graduate students,” in order “to advance knowledge and learning at the highest level and to convey the products of its efforts to the world.” Pretty much the entire university leadership ought to be immediately cashiered.

But there is a deeper rot that Columbia, and so many other American universities, will need to address. This is of course the baneful influence of a handful of faculty ideologues, who are at best second-rate intellectuals with third-rate temperaments. They poison the well with their noxious beliefs fed by various grievances, and their monomania intimidates their less-engaged colleagues who tend to react by going along to get along. As more responsible institutions of higher learning have quickly moved to prevent the crybullies from imposing their unrelenting self-importance on normal campus life, it has consistently been blighted faculty who have sought to undermine these efforts with their own egocentric interference. This is clearly a problem at Columbia, as witnessed by several faculty reaction to last night’s actions.

This history professor whined that President Shafik wasn’t supposed to involve police without having it cleared through a faculty vote. Others correctly pointed out to him that a sentence in the Columbia constitution which appears two sentences after the lines he quoted gives the president the power to immediately act in an emergency. But in the mind of a leftist, storming a campus building and holding janitorial staff hostage apparently does not constitute an emergency:

The key phrase from Columbia's bylaws: "If the President, upon consultation with a majority of a panel established by the University Senate’s Executive Committee, decides that a demonstration poses a clear and present danger…" But there was *no* such consultation. pic.twitter.com/qLEGMdmQPj

— Karl Jacoby (@karl_jacoby) May 1, 2024

A leftist economics professor can’t help himself from condescending towards people whose jobs involve far more danger than being outed for plagiarism:

As the nypd used main force to clear Broadway this evening, one thought that crossed my mind was: you look like a gang of angry body-builders in uniform! https://t.co/SCORfF3bdS

— Adam Tooze (@adam_tooze) May 1, 2024

Lest you think I’m a typical crude right-winger gratuitously accusing professors of being enthralled with communism, here’s a Columbia instructor who apparently is a scholar of Marxism. Her Twitter history strongly suggests that her interest in Marx is more than academic:

unbelievable that I'm supposed to give Columbia/Barnard students an exam on political theories of freedom after this https://t.co/jjleebX8Ib

— Alyssa Battistoni (@alybatt) May 1, 2024

There are plenty more examples of the dumb groupthink which dominates the academy these days. And you can tell it is groupthink by noting the incredible degree to which these silly ideologues incessantly retweet each other. As a bonus, allow me to include the deep thoughts of a former Columbia history professor who now makes himself a bother at Yale. Note the typically feeble invocation of “fascism,” the hallmark of a shallow mind:

Okay, maybe there is U.S. fascism pic.twitter.com/EYeLAoLOvc

— Samuel Moyn 🔭 (@samuelmoyn) May 1, 2024

If you think this is the place where I provide a policy prescription for saving Columbia (or any of these other schools), you are mistaken. I guess I am being extra-grumpy today, but I am to the point where I don’t think Columbia is worth salvaging. Better to close up shop, pink-slip all the faculty (hopefully some of the more capable support staff can find jobs elsewhere), give the students their transcripts, lock the gates, and sell the property to developers. On an NRO podcast last week, Charlie Cooke jokingly suggested that allowing protesters to carry through on their threat to burn the school to the ground would be a great idea. I’m starting to think that’s actually quite true. A wealthy left-wing institution in a huge city dominated by left-wing ideology and leadership is a recipe for disaster, especially when it’s clear that the school has no interest in moderating its crazy beliefs or mending its errant ways. The failure of a school like Columbia would be a shock to the U.S. higher education system, but it might also finally be the catalyst for the kind of reform that is so sorely needed if we are going to be the pluralistic and tolerant nation this this same system claims to aspire to facilitate.

– JVW

[guest post by JVW]

The Los Angeles Times has the details:

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has ruled that a landmark law ending single-family-home-only zoning in California is unconstitutional, a decision that could lead to the law being invalidated in the state’s largest cities.

Judge Curtis Kin determined that Senate Bill 9 does not provide housing restricted for low-income residents and therefore cannot override state constitutional protections afforded to local zoning practices.

“Because the provisions of SB 9 are not reasonably related and sufficiently narrowly tailored to the explicit stated purpose of that legislation — namely, to ensure access to affordable housing — SB 9 cannot stand,” Kin wrote in a April 22 ruling.

Kin’s decision now applies to the five Southern California cities — Redondo Beach, Carson, Torrance, Whittier and Del Mar — that challenged SB 9, which passed in 2021. If his ruling is appealed and upheld, it would affect 121 communities known as “charter cities,” including Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, that have greater autonomy under state law.

California progressives envision a future where we all live in high-density housing — conjoined townhomes for the luckiest of us and high-rise apartments for the hoi polloi — which would all be within walking distance of public transportations lines. It’s part of the utopia of the no car culture that Greens would gladly impose upon us, until the entire state looked like all of Manhattan or most of San Francisco. I live in Redondo Beach, one of the cities who challenged Senate Bill 9 (despite the fact that our late mayor was a staunch Democrat who never hesitated to endorse the sorts of people who voted “yes” on this legislation), and though we still do have plenty of single-family homes in our town we do have enough compact living that wags often refer to us as “Re-Condo Beach.”

It therefore comes as no surprise that two beach cities, Redondo Beach and Del Mar, challenged this mandate. Both cities are relatively wealthy (OK, Del Mar is obscenely wealthy) and there is very much a strong anti-density sentiment in both, especially since lots at the beach tend to be much smaller than lots in a suburb like Pasadena or Glendale. They were joined by Torrance, a mid-sized city of mostly middle-class families which also extends to a small portion of the beach. Carson had traditionally been known for its large population of middle-class black families, but in the past couple of decades it has become more Hispanic and Asian. Still there remains a strong sense of homeownership in that community, with homeowners outnumbering renters by a 3:1 ratio, and with 78% of homes being single-unit dwellings. Both the homeownership rate and percentage of single-unit dwellings are higher in Carson than any of the other four cities. The final municipal litigant,Whittier, boyhood home of Richard Milhous Nixon, is an inland community which was once mostly farmland owned by white families. Today it is now heavily Hispanic, but continues to have more than two-thirds single-unit homes and three-fifths owner occupancy.

The author of the LATimes article, Liam Dillon, does a very admirable job in letting opponents of SB 9 have their say. The law would have made pretty much any local zoning ordinance subservient to the state’s demand that developers be allowed to build up to four units on a single lot in most cases. The cities who challenged the bill in court feared the effects of increasing density, from the additional automobiles on the streets to worries about overcrowding schools. They also pointed out that despite the progressive aims of the legislation, SB 9 did nothing to help the poor of the Golden State. Because the authors of the bill feared that requiring developers to build more low-income housing would get in the way of the aim to provide more “affordable” housing for middle-class families in the affected cities, they did not include any additional mandates for low-income housing in the legislation. The cities (perhaps somewhat cynically in the case of Redondo and Del Mar) cried foul on the misuse of the term “affordable housing” when it was not used in conjunction with government-subsidized low-income housing. Of this, Mr. Dillion writes:

Kin agreed. The law’s stated intent calls for increasing access to “affordable housing,” a term that Kin said elsewhere in the text refers explicitly to housing restricted for low-income residents. Because SB 9 doesn’t require those kinds of developments, it fails to meet the state Constitution’s high standards to override local control over zoning in charter cities, Kin said.

“In order to justify SB 9’s interference with the municipal concerns of land use and zoning regulations, the Legislature cannot rely on a potential, eventual decrease in prices resulting from increased housing supply to demonstrate that SB 9 would increase the supply of affordable (i.e. below market-rate) housing,” Kin wrote.

In other words, beyond creating government-mandated housing for low-income families, which is what “affordable housing” has come to mean in California, the state has no business in regulating housing supply in each and every community by requiring cities to allow more families be packed in onto the same lot. The article quotes a law professor who believes both that the pro-SB 9 crowd will win on appeal and also that the legislature could easily pass a new law which would lay to rest Judge Kin’s concerns; one of the Democrat legislators favoring SB 9 who naturally insists that the judge is a big old meanie for letting confusing and imprecise language in the legislation override Sacramento’s obvious good intentions; and finally Redondo Beach City Attorney Mike Webb, who helped guide the case through the court successfully and defends the judge for pointing out the legislature’s typically sloppy drafting folly which is the cause of all of this mess.

I’m sort of torn on this question. A part of me resents the state trying to heavy-handedly impose their vision of density upon all localities under their jurisdiction and ignoring the primacy that individual municipalities ought to have in determining their growth. At the same time, I have great distaste for cynical NIMBYs uniting with ridiculous environmentalists to oppose any efforts to build new housing in communities which they insist ought to be allowed to remain the same size forever. In my own community I have seen a number of proposals to build new apartment units and smaller townhomes blocked by specious claims of environmental damage or unmanageable traffic, so I know that cities don’t always make a good faith effort to increase their own housing supply. And of course I believe that a lot owner should generally be allowed to build more than one unit on his or her lot, whether it be for personal use or as a investment development, subject of course to some degree of protecting sight lines and maintaining architectural consistency, especially in historic neighborhoods. I guess this is why we have contentious debates about housing policy. But I will never trust Sacramento to solve these issues on our behalf and I think I’m glad that the arrogant legislature got swatted down on this question.

– JVW

[guest post by Dana]

Let’s go!

First news item

Palestinian woman addresses protesters: Hey kids, you’re hurting our cause:

Protests are spreading across the United States at college campuses, where university students are gathering in the name of Palestinian rights and occupying campus spaces with tents. Sadly, not everyone who purports to support Palestinians is truly interested in safeguarding our rights.

It pains me to say this as a Palestinian from Gaza. As my home is destroyed and too many killed, I never thought I would find myself criticizing those speaking up. And yet, I cannot be silent about what I am seeing. The truth is that the manner in which many gather to voice their support for Palestinians does more to hurt our cause than help it.

You know what would help the Palestinians in Gaza? Condemning Hamas’ atrocities. Instead, the protesters routinely chant their desire to “Globalize the Intifada.” Apparently they do not realize that the Intifadas were disastrous for both Palestinians and Israelis, just as October 7 has been devastating for the people of Gaza.

They should be speaking up for the innocent victims of Hamas—both Palestinian and Israeli. Instead, they endorse Hamas’s ideology with posters announcing resistance “by any means necessary” and chants of “from the river to the sea,” effectively glorifying the Al-Qassam brigades, Hamas’ military wing, whose ideology is entirely based on the elimination of more than 6 million Israelis from the land.

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve said that it is Hamas that, first and foremost, must be condemned, and the pressure should be continually increasing with each and every passing day.

Weak sauce, but better late than ever:

The United States and 17 other countries demanded Hamas release all the hostages it holds in Gaza as Biden administration officials tried to ratchet up global pressure on the militant group, which the White House blames for blocking a cease-fire deal that would see the release of hostages.

“We call for the immediate release of all hostages held by Hamas in Gaza for over 200 days. They include our own citizens,” the joint statement said. “The fate of the hostages and the civilian population in Gaza, who are protected under international law, is of international concern.”

The letter was signed by the leaders of the U.S., Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Thailand and the United Kingdom.

“We emphasize that the deal on the table to release the hostages would bring an immediate and prolonged ceasefire in Gaza, that would facilitate a surge of additional necessary humanitarian assistance to be delivered throughout Gaza, and lead to the credible end of hostilities,” the statement said. “Gazans would be able to return to their homes and their lands with preparations beforehand to ensure shelter and humanitarian provisions.”

Second news item

Remember when President Biden announced that a humanitarian pier would be built floating off the coast of Gaza so that aid could more easily reach those in desperate need? Unfortunately, not everyone is on board with the project:

Gaza-based militants launched mortar rounds on Wednesday at Israeli forces making preparations for the U.S.-led effort to establish a new maritime aid route for Gaza, according to three U.S. officials.

No American equipment was damaged as the U.S.-led project — which will establish a pier a few miles offshore as well as a causeway anchored to the beach to expand access to humanitarian aid — is not yet complete, said one of the officials. All were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive plans.

But the attack came as U.S. military personnel were scheduled to soon begin construction of the pier, which the U.S. hopes will drastically expand the amount of aid that can reach the enclave.

Third news item

The vile Harvey Weinstein had his rape conviction overturned by a New York appeals court in a 4-3 ruling:

In the appeal, Weinstein’s legal team argued that he was judged on “irrelevant, prejudicial and untested allegations of prior bad acts,” per the court order.

“The remedy for these egregious errors is a new trial,” the court said.

Per the report, Weinstein’s 16-year sentence for a rape conviction in California will not be affected by this.

Fourth news item

Morehouse students unhappy with selection of President Biden as commencement speaker:

Morehouse College, a nearly 160-year-old historically Black college in Atlanta, announced on Tuesday that Joe Biden will be the keynote speaker for its commencement ceremony in May.

…

Anwar Karim, a sophomore and political science major, said that when he found out that the president would speak at graduation, he was “utterly disappointed, but not surprised”. He said that he had been active with other students in speaking out about injustices around the campus, including the Israel-Gaza war and local issues in Atlanta such as the development of the Cop City law enforcement training center.

“It’s absolutely unacceptable for [a historically Black college and university] that prides itself on social justice,” Karim said. “We always want to talk about [Morehouse alum] Dr Martin Luther King Jr, and we always want to talk about the history of activism and leadership that this school has. And yet this decision does not reflect that history of social justice.”

Some students condemned Biden and his administration not only for the president’s actions supporting the war in Gaza, but also for what they say looks like an attempt to turn the students’ graduation ceremony into a campaign stop. “It’s just not a smart move to make, to just allow your students and your school to be used as a political pawn to get Black votes,” said Malik, a Morehouse senior who asked that his last name be withheld.

Lonnie White, a Morehouse junior, said that students have created a petition for the school to rescind the invite. Alumni have also circulated their own petition…

“To have Biden come here, to this campus, to this area, especially during an election year – it’s definitely pandering. We can’t invite anybody else that would actually have an insightful message to the Black students graduating? We have to have Mr 1994 Crime Bill?”

Ouch!

But it’s true that the Biden camp is working overtime to gain the Black vote, which they most definitely need in the key states. And it’s an uphill climb:

It’s not just Wisconsin, though. CNN’s conversations with two dozen top Biden campaign aides, elected officials across the country and voters on the ground in several key states detail a frantic fight that is much bigger than what’s going on in north Milwaukee. Because the president’s hopes in almost every battleground state depend on cities like Detroit, Philadelphia, Charlotte and Atlanta, his chances of winning may come down to whether he can reverse the trend among Black voters — particularly Black men.

And while leading Black Democrats mock and decry Trump’s claims that he is appealing to Black voters by promoting his branded sneakers and saying they can now relate to him because he has a mug shot, they more quietly acknowledge that he seems well-positioned to capitalize on that disaffection all the way through November.

Already, there have been polls showing the presumptive GOP nominee increasing his share of the Black vote.

Fifth news item

Another issue of concern for President Biden:

Half of Americans — including 42% of Democrats — say they’d support mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, according to a new Axios Vibes survey by The Harris Poll.

And 30% of Democrats — as well as 46% of Republicans — now say they’d end birthright citizenship, something guaranteed under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

Additionally:

President Biden is keenly aware the crisis threatens his re-election. He’s sought to flip the script by accusing Trump of sabotaging Congress’ most conservative bipartisan immigration bill in decades.

But when it comes to blame, Biden so far has failed to shift the narrative: 32% of respondents say his administration is “most responsible” for the crisis, outranking any other political or structural factor.

Sixth news item

Arizona indicts 18 for election interference:

An Arizona grand jury has indicted former President Donald Trump ‘s chief of staff Mark Meadows, lawyer Rudy Giuliani and 16 others for their roles in an attempt to overturn Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

The indictment released Wednesday names 11 Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring that Trump won Arizona in 2020. They include the former state party chair, a 2022 U.S. Senate candidate and two sitting state lawmakers, who are charged with nine counts each of conspiracy, fraud and forgery…The 11 people who had been nominated to be Arizona’s Republican electors met in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and claiming that Trump carried the state. A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.

All the names were not revealed as they had not yet been served papers. Donald Trump was not indicted, but was named as a co-conspirator. And John Eastman was also on the list.

Seventh news item

Unintended consequences:

Safety concerns stemming from anti-Israel campus protests at Columbia University have caused fear among prospective students who no longer want to attend the school, a college consultant tells Fox News Digital.

Anti-Israeli demonstrations have escalated at elite U.S. universities in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and Israel’s retaliatory attacks on Gaza, with many colleges, including Columbia University, seeing protests paired with antisemitic incidents that have left many Jewish students feeling unsafe.

he campus hostility and antisemitic accusations have even led some aspiring students to look elsewhere, according to a New York-based college consultant, who said only one of around a dozen accepted Columbia students he’s working with is still considering attending.

Surely more will follow this lead. Parents sending their kids off to college, want and expect – at the very least – to know that their kids will be safe on campus. It will be interesting to see the full impact on enrollment at the ivies, when all is said and done.

Eighth news item

After the Biden administration made changes to Title IX that “add protections for transgender students to the federal civil rights law on sex-based discrimination,” Gov. DeSantis of Florida said “no thanks”:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Thursday his state “will not comply” with recently unveiled changes to Title IX by the Biden administration.

“Florida rejects [President Biden’s] attempt to rewrite Title IX,” DeSantis said in a video posted to the social platform X. “We will not comply, and we will fight back.”

“We are not gonna let Joe Biden try to inject men into women’s activities,” DeSantis continued. “We are not gonna let Joe Biden undermine the rights of parents, and we are not gonna let Joe Biden abuse his constitutional authority to try to impose these policies on us here in Florida.”

Ninth news item

Over at The Bulwark, Presidential official acts and private acts:

Judging by their questions, what the conservative [justices] are evidently willing to do is manufacture some form of criminal immunity that will be governed by a private-versus-official conduct standard (with only official conduct protected), and then send the case back to District Judge Tany Chutkan to parse Special Counsel Jack Smith’s January 6th indictment of Trump and excise the parts for which Trump would be protected under the Court’s newly minted criminal immunity test. How the court will draw the line between official and private conduct is anyone’s guess, particularly if presidents abuse official powers for purely personal gain. That would be a win for the insurrectionist-in-chief. . .

Anything but the narrowest immunity doctrine would mean far broader protections for future presidents seeking to dodge accountability for bad deeds. Depending on how the Court writes its opinion—and how far future presidents, White House counsels, attorneys general, and Department of Justice lawyers are willing to stretch their words—large swaths of presidential action that were unimaginable before Trump could become not just real but protected.

Have a good weekend.

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

Protests on university campuses are continuing across the country. And while police have dismantled encampments and arrested some protesters at various campuses, there is little doubt that the students (and faculty) will be distracted from their mission.

I read with interest John McWhorter’s op-ed, I’m a Columbia Professor. The Protests on My Campus Are Not Justice. and wanted to present some points he made.

McWhorter makes a distinction between protesters. There are those who see Israel as the enemy and chant “from the river to the sea…” because they actually want to see Israel’s destruction. There are protesters who don’t really know why they are protesting but join in anyway (see video at end of post). And finally, there are those who don’t necessarily hate the Jews and want to see the destruction of Israel, but instead their focus is the war in Gaza and their school’s monetary investment in Israel:

…I don’t think that Jew hatred is as much the reason for this sentiment as opposition to Zionism and the war on Gaza. I know some of the protesters, including a couple who were taken to jail last week, and I find it very hard to imagine that they are antisemitic. Yes, there can be a fine line between questioning Israel’s right to exist and questioning Jewish people’s right to exist. And yes, some of the rhetoric amid the protests crosses it.

Conversations I have had with people heatedly opposed to the war in Gaza, signage and writings on social media and elsewhere and anti-Israel and generally hard-leftist comments that I have heard for decades on campuses place these confrontations within a larger battle against power structures — here in the form of what they call colonialism and genocide — and against whiteness. The idea is that Jewish students and faculty should be able to tolerate all of this because they are *white.

I understand this to a point. Pro-Palestinian rallies and events, of which there have been many here over the years, are not in and of themselves hostile to Jewish students, faculty and staff members.

[*Ed. about Jews being white…]

Additionally, McWhorter contrasts the focus of allegedly peaceful protests and a certain double-standard that would cause differing responses based on interpretation of them:

Social media discussion has been claiming that the protests are peaceful. They are, some of the time…But relatively constant are the drumbeats. People will differ on how peaceful that sound can ever be, just as they will differ on the nature of antisemitism. What I do know is that even the most peaceful of protests would be treated as outrages if they were interpreted as, say, anti-Black, even if the message were coded, as in a bunch of people quietly holding up MAGA signs or wearing T-shirts saying “All lives matter.”

…calling all this peaceful stretches the use of the word rather implausibly. It’s an odd kind of peace when a local rabbi urges Jewish students to go home as soon as possible, when an Israeli Arab activist is roughed up on Broadway, when the angry chanting becomes so constant that you almost start not to hear it and it starts to feel normal to see posters and clothing portraying members of Hamas as heroes.

And about previous campus protests, specifically against apartheid regime in South Africa, he says:

…but the bigger difference was that though the protesters sought to make their point at high volume, over a long period and sometimes even rudely, they did not seek to all but shut down campus life.

On Monday night, Columbia announced that classes would be hybrid until the end of the semester, in the interest of student safety. I presume that the protesters will continue throughout the two main days of graduation, besmirching one of the most special days of thousands of graduates’ lives in the name of calling down the “imperialist” war abroad.

McWhorter concludes by contrasting pre- and post-social media protests…and the “tenor” behind them:

But they have pursued their goals with a markedly different tenor — in part because of the single-mindedness of antiracist academic culture and in part because of the influence of iPhones and social media, which inherently encourage a more heightened degree of performance. It is part of the warp and woof of today’s protests that they are being recorded from many angles for the world to see. One speaks up. Butthese changes in moral history and technology can hardly be expected to comfort Jewish students in the here and now. What began as intelligent protest has become, in its uncompromising fury and its ceaselessness, a form of abuse.

Young anti-Israel students tell a journalist exactly why they are protesting

It’s all clear now… pic.twitter.com/vAO7BgizjT

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 24, 2024

P.S. USC announced today that it is canceling its main May commencement ceremony.

This x 100:

“Hello class of 2024. Your family will be deprived of the chance to honor your achievements because a small minority of your classmates feel entitled to break the law in order to express their support for a foreign terrorist organization.”

—Dana

[guest post by Dana]

This is helpful:

As with the three-hour argument in Trump v. Anderson, a disconcertingly precious little of the two-hour argument today was even devoted to the specific and only question presented for decision.
The Court and the parties discussed everything but the specific question presented.

That question is simply whether a former President of the United States may be prosecuted for attempting to remain in power notwithstanding the election of his successor by the American People.
thereby also depriving his lawfully elected successor of the powers of the presidency to which that successor became entitled upon his rightful election by the American People — and preventing the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in American history.

It is not even arguably a core power or function of the President of the United States to ensure the fairness, accuracy, and integrity of a presidential election. Let alone is it a core power or function of the President of the United States to ensure the proper certification of the next president by the Congress of the United States. Neither of these is a power or function of the president at all.

In fact, the Framers of the Constitution well understood the enormous potential for self-interested conflict were the President to have a role in these fundamental constitutional functions.

Consequently, they purposely and pointedly withheld from the President any role in these fundamental constitutional functions.

To whatever extent the Framers implicitly provided in the Executive any role whatsoever in these fundamental constitutional functions, it was a limited role for the Executive Branch,
through the Department of Justice, to inquire into allegations of fraud in presidential elections and ensure that the election was free, fair, and accurate.

The former president’s Department of Justice did just that and found that there was no fraud sufficient to draw into question the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The former president of course has refused to this day to accept that finding by not only his own Department of Justice, but also countless others of his closest advisors.

Whether undertaken in his or her “official,” “candidate,” or “personal” capacity, a President of the United States has never been and can never be immune from prosecution (after leaving office),
for having attempted to remain in power notwithstanding the election of that President’s successor by the American People.

Consequently, there is no reason whatsoever for the Supreme Court to remand to the lower courts for a determination of which of the alleged criminal acts might have been personal and which might have been official.

Neither is a clear statement from Congress that a president is subject to prosecution under the statutes with which the former president has been charged necessary in this particular case.

As applied to the former president for the criminal conduct with which he has been charged, there can be no question but that Congress intended a President of the United States to come within the ambit of the statutory offenses with which he has been charged.

For the same reason, it would be ludicrous to contend that the former president was not on sufficient notice that if he committed the criminal acts charged, he would be subject to criminal prosecution by the United States of America.

To hold otherwise would make a mockery out of the “plain statement” rule.

SMDH:

Justice Alito suggests that, if former presidents are subject to prosecution after leaving office, they'll be more likely to seek to unlawfully remain in office after they were defeated for re-election/their term has ended.

JFC.

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) April 25, 2024

Remember this about blanket immunity for a president:

Nearly four years ago, all nine justices rejected Trump’s claim of absolute immunity from a district attorney’s subpoena for his financial records. That case played out during Trump’s presidency and involved a criminal investigation, but no charges.

Justice Clarence Thomas, who would have prevented the enforcement of the subpoena because of Trump’s responsibilities as president, still rejected Trump’s claim of absolute immunity and pointed to the text of the Constitution and how it was understood by the people who ratified it.

“The text of the Constitution … does not afford the President absolute immunity,” Thomas wrote in 2020.

—Dana

[guest post by JVW]

It just gets sillier and sillier in the mind of progressive Democrats here in the Golden State. CalMatters has a recent piece which acknowledges that legislative Democrats are becoming increasingly skittish on their party’s lurch towards soft-on-criminal policies over the past decade and wondering if it’s perhaps time for a return to harsher penalties for repeat offenders. So naturally, the hard left of the caucus is taking a far different tack:

“Some lawmakers have responded (to retail theft) by pushing policies that solely focus on punitive measures that deepen our crisis of mass incarceration at a time when California has pledged to walk away from it and dismantle it,” said state Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, a Los Angeles Democrat.

Smallwood-Cuevas is sponsoring two bills that would require counties to set up diversion programs for theft-related offenses and increase staffing at grocery store checkout counters.

The community newspaper in Sen. Smallwood-Cuevas’s district, Westside Voice LA, describes the bills as follows (as usual, bolded emphasis added by me):

SB 1282 would amend penal codes 1001.81 and 1001.95 and would authorize a city or county prosecuting attorney or county probation department to create a diversion or deferred entry of judgment program for persons who commit a theft offense or repeat theft offenses.

The bill would require each county to, on or before January 1, 2026, create that diversion or deferred entry of the judgment program. By increasing duties on local entities, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

Existing law authorizes a judge in the superior court in which a misdemeanor is being prosecuted to offer diversion to a defendant for a period not to exceed 24 months. The amendment would expand that authorization to include any cases being prosecuted, as specified.

[. . .]

SB 1446 would create regulations on self-checkout stations in large grocery and drug retail stores.

The bill would prohibit a grocery establishment or a retail drug establishment from providing a self-service checkout option for customers unless specified conditions are satisfied, including having no more than two self-service checkout stations monitored by any one employee and requiring the employee to be relieved of all other duties.

The bill would require a grocery establishment or retail drug establishment that develops or implements technology that significantly affects the essential job functions or eliminates jobs or essential job functions of its employees, or that enables self-service, to complete a specified assessment before implementing the technology.

Additionally, it would require the study to include, among other things, the salaries, benefits, jobs, and work hours that would be eliminated by workplace technology. The establishments would have to provide the study to employees at least 60 days before implementation, and to post a copy of the study in a location accessible to its employees and customers before, and for at least 90 days following implementation of the workplace technology.

So there you have it. Once again we have clueless Democrats who have zero understanding of how free markets work. Would it surprise anyone to learn that Lola Smallwood-Cuevas spent her pre-legislative career as a union organizer and “civil rights activist”? The bill attacking self-checkout stations has nothing to do with discouraging theft: it’s hard to imagine shoplifters, especially those who operate in organized rings, worrying too much about being accosted or detained by check-out clerks. No, this bill is all about creating more union jobs in California stores, which will clearly have the effect of driving up costs to the consumer. At my local grocery store we have six self-checkout stations for customers, and there is one store employee who stands by to help with any issues that arise. Under this bill there would now have to be three paid employees manning those stations. What utter waste.

Sen. Smallwood-Cuevas has filed an additional bill which appears to be modeled upon a proposed local San Francisco ordinance which tries to bully grocery stores into remaining in unprofitable or even money-losing locations. The bill before the California legislature requires that a grocery store give 90 days notice before closing, or presumably be subject to class-action lawsuits from local residents. The San Francisco bill is worse, requiring a full 180 days notice and also insisting that the owners of the store have to work to find a new grocery tenant for the location or else help local residents set up a food co-op. But the cumulative effect of all of these measures is that the state will drive up the cost of operating a grocery store, then make it very difficult for that store to close before accumulating months of significant losses.

Even if California decides to wreck the grocery industry in the name of social justice, fortunately it would seem that in this election year the tide is turning against the soft on crime approach to organized theft rings. Despite Sen. Smallwood-Cuevas’s laughable “provide job skills to miscreants” ideology, her fellow Democrats are going in the opposite direction. The new President Pro Tem of the California Senate has helped shepherd two bills through the Public Safety Committee, one of which stiffens penalties on smash-and-grab rings and the other which provides for harsher penalties when arson is used during shoplifting, usually to distract store employees while the perpetrator engages in theft. Even the notoriously left-wing San Francisco Senator Scott Wiener has introduced a bill to make it easier to prosecute those who break into cars or homes to steal items (a crime rampant in San Francisco) by no longer requiring prosecutors to prove that the car or home was properly locked. This suggests that even an outright leftist lunatic like Scott Wiener can be swayed when his constituents finally holler “Enough!”

The people of Los Angeles’s Westside choose to elect rabid ideologues like Lola Smallwood-Cuevas. That is, unfortunately enough, their prerogative. If the damage that she and her ilk wreak were limited to her district then I would say that her constituents deserve the fruits of their voting habits. However, people like the good senator implement policy which affects the entire state. Perhaps this being an election year, most Sacramento Democrats will for once tune out the nonsense that is churned out by Marxist college professors who have nothing to offer the world but their awful ideas. But next year will be a new story and don’t act surprised if these bad ideas re-emerge once the smoke of November clears. I don’t look forward to it.

– JVW

[guest post by JVW]

In last Friday’s Weekend Open Thread, Dana reported on the GOP House leadership taking up the Ukraine/Israel/Taiwan military aid bill. The Ukraine issue has thus far divided conservatives, and today National Review published two diverse opinions on the matter. First off was the magazine’s house editorial congratulating Speaker Mike Johnson and expressing approval that the U.S. would continue to fund those who were bravely doing battle with rogue states and miserable tyrants:

Johnson deserves credit for changing his mind on Ukraine funding once he acquired real responsibility as speaker and also for trying every alternative to keep his conference together before moving to pass the aid with Democratic votes as a last resort.

Had the Ukraine measure stayed bottled up in the House, Johnson would have borne an outsized measure of blame if an artillery-starved Ukrainian military collapsed.

[. . .]

The best argument against Ukraine aid is that it is costly and depleting U.S. stocks of weapons. But it would be just as costly to bolster front-line states — as we almost certainly would feel compelled to do — if Russia were to sweep to victory in Ukraine. The legislation makes the aid, in theory, a loan, and it attempts to offset the costs with seized Russian assets.

As for U.S. weapons stocks, about $23 billion of the roughly $60 billion in the Ukraine portion of the bill is devoted to replenishing them, although much more needs to be done to revitalize the U.S. military–industrial base.

The overall package includes more than $26 billion in aid for Israel, with crucial funding to replenish its missile defenses, and more than $8 billion for Taiwan and Indo-Pacific security. In a nice additional win, the TikTok divestiture bill was added to the package. It now will be passed along with the rest of the overall bill by a Senate that had seemed reluctant to take it up.

The rest of the editorial lays out the peril that this compromise poses to Mr. Johnson’s Speakership, and chides the bloc of Republican members who seem willing to abandon Ukraine to the devices of Russia.

In today’s pages (er, on today’s screen) Michael Brendan Dougherty dissents from his colleagues. Believing that this is the classic trap of good intentions but zero accountability or strategic thinking, Mr. Dougherty questions whether this is a war that ought to continue, especially since its proponents now openly admit that the support of the United States is vital to Ukraine’s aims:

These bills are a monument to our decadence and political cynicism. Nobody has put forward a cogent argument for how Ukraine will do better with less aid than we gave it last year in preparation for its major counteroffensive. Look to the press, and it’s a repeat of Mitch McConnell’s disgraceful performance in the Senate a few weeks ago. There is hardly even a pretense that Putin will be defeated, but there’s lots of backslapping that the native populists and other skeptics have been defeated.

He rejects the notion that forcing Ukraine into a peace deal as a disarmed, non-aligned “buffer” state between Russia and NATO is a huge capitulation for the West, and points to the history of such states as important neutral zones between competing European nations:

We would never take that deal, indeed, because we have two giant oceans and two friendly countries around us. But it’s traditional in European politics for smaller nations next to major military powers to have “neutrality” as the outer limit of their foreign-policy independence. Switzerland’s neutrality was never intended as a statement of confidence in the promises of Hitler. It worked because Switzerland was reliable and the two major military powers next to it could depend on the fact that Switzerland would not be used by a hostile foreign power as a launch pad. Maybe you prefer a world in which Switzerland perpetually risks its existence to be a more morally compelling figure in the geopolitical drama. But the Swiss, looking at the Germans, the French, the Italians, and before them the Austro-Hungarian Empire, thought differently.

Mr. Dougherty goes on to rhetorically ask why the U.S. and NATO are not more involved in the crisis in Armenia, where last September Azerbaijan forces raided Armenian villages and forced the evacuation of around 100,000 ethnic Armenians, in what Mr. Dougherty believes qualifies as “ethnic cleansing” every bit as much as what Russia is doing in the Donbas. And ultimately he concludes that Ukraine, like Armenia, is just not that much of a strategic interest to the United States:

[NRO writer Jim] Geraghty says that if we want peace, we should prepare for war. But that’s the whole problem for his position. The American people do not want to sign up to fight for Ukraine’s sovereignty themselves. They do not see it as in their national interest because our security and prosperity has never depended on Ukraine. We cannot be crippled by someone else controlling some of its resources. We hardly do any trade with Ukraine. And so there are hard democratic limits on America’s power to affect the outcome that Geraghty and National Review at large would like to see. [. . .] Polls at the very start of this war showed that a supermajority of Americans did not want the U.S. to play a major role in it. Now, Geraghty admits in his dispatch today that without our lethal military aid, Ukraine would choose a different course. In other words, we do have that major role. Choosing your own course in the face of the constraints real life places on you is the only definition of freedom that we have for most peoples. The job of the American military is to defend and advance American interests, not to make the world fair for Russia’s neighbors or teach Putin a lesson.

Finally, according to Mr. Dougherty, not only does the compromise bill not do anything to solve our border crisis, it actively makes things worse and undermine GOP candidates this fall:

Now, we get a good look at the Ukraine-aid bill and the bill to aid Israel. Combine them both, and you will find $4 billion dispersed between the State Department and the Office of Refugee Settlement to be given to left-wing NGOs who help border crossers evade our immigration laws.

Congratulations Mike Johnson and Mitch McConnell! You managed to throw away all leverage Republicans had, pass something that Republican voters don’t want, and that every single Democratic lawmaker did want, and to make the border situation much worse in the meantime, while filling up the treasuries of your ideological enemies. The gift to the NGOs will be used by whatever populist challengers are left in GOP congressional primaries to challenge incumbents, putting more wild-eyed and untested people in winnable races. Biden may be senile, but his administration just played McConnell and Johnson like a Stradivarius.

Mr. Dougherty’s broadside seems to elide the fact that the compromise also enrages left-wing activists due to the support that will go to Israel’s efforts to eradicate Hamas, right at the moment when so much of the American left has decided to go all-in on supporting the rancid Palestinian cause. I would imagine that there is a left-wing version of Michael Brendan Dougherty out there who is eviscerating the Biden Administration and Congressional Democrats for enabling this betrayal of their sacred cause. But I don’t really want to waste any time searching for it.

If nothing else, this should serve as a stark reminder to all of us at how difficult the choices are for our elected officials, especially when we are dealing with irrational actors who are untethered to reality and instead spend 100% of their time living within their own imaginary worlds. But enough about the two major party Presidential candidates. Instead, the contrasting viewpoints between the NRO editors and Michael Brendan Dougherty present a pretty vivid contrast to the legitimate strains of conservative thought here in 2024. All of us had better understand the arguments on both sides of the conservative divide and be ready to deal with them, at least as much as we should understand the spectrum of foreign policy thought on the left.

– JVW