Just to fill in the Nooz, here are a few items:
First, there’s a Google Doodle (click on screenshot below) celebrating the “Rise of the Half Moon”, in which you can play a game demonstrating your knowledge of the lunar cycle.
*Slate has an article criticizing the institutional neutrality of universities (as embodied in Chicago’s Kalven Report). Why? Because these are parlous times (e.g., Trump is running and universities ust denounce him and his policies. The author happens to be the President of Wesleyan University!
This may seem straightforward, but in the wake of Oct. 7 and controversies over statements (or the lack of statements) concerning the atrocities, many academic leaders have embraced a doctrine of “institutional neutrality.” Recalling the bruising hearings with lawmakers in December 2023 and the campus protests of last spring, it seemed to many safer to celebrate a doctrine that called for silence. Few people, of course, want corporate-sounding university statements that say next to nothing while trying to please everyone, but now presidents, deans, and others are being told not to participate in debates about the issues of the day. After years of encouraging “more speech” as a sign of a school’s commitment to freedom of expression, the fear of offending students, faculty, and, especially, lawmakers and donors has led many academic leaders to retreat from the public sphere.
This is exactly the wrong time for such a retreat. Although academic leaders usually stay neutral about a candidate’s political statements, today’s campaign rhetoric is not politics as usual. The threats to higher education made by former President Donald Trump and Sen. J.D. Vance are not subtle. Although for decades schools have interacted well with Republican and Democratic representatives, the brazen VP candidate has declared that “universities are the enemy.” The Trump agenda promises to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion departments and to punish those schools who do not live up to a right-wing version of civil rights standards. Trump has promised to close down the Department of Education and fire the accreditors who now certify which schools are eligible for governmental support. The folks who brought us the fraudulent Trump University now threaten to dismantle a higher-education ecosystem that is still (for now) the envy of the rest of the world. We must not be neutral about this.
The problem is, of course, that ideologues will always maintain that this ia a crucial election, and the university must pronounce on it. If ever there was a slippery slope, this is one. And the article makes an error:
External controlling of the curriculum, monitoring entrance exams, and policing faculty are direct threats to our educational missions, and these are not the only ones. Institutional leaders should also be speaking out against the mass deportation the Republican nominees threaten. So many of our schools have made a place for Dreamers, those students who were brought to the United States as children, and whose status in a second Trump administration is uncertain. Now Trump has promised to deport legal immigrants as well. His nasty nativism is antithetical to the recruitment of international students, a practice that has been a boon to higher education and to the world. We must not be neutral about this.
Apparently author Roth doesn’t realize that the University did issue an official pronouncement favoring protection of the Dreamers and legislation to keep them here. Other stuff that the overheated author wants us to issue statements about has nothing to do the mission of a University:
Educators should give up the popular pastime of criticizing the woke and call out instead the overt racism that has rippled through the Trump campaign over the past few months. The rhetoric about pet-eating Haitians is the most sensational example, but when a presidential candidate speculates about immigrants’ genetic disposition to commit crimes while also calling minorities “vermin,” we are fully in the zone of racist hate.
We do not call out stuff like making false assertions that Haitians eat dogs. Stupid though it is, what does that have to do with the mission of a university?
*Once again Anthony Blinken has made a futile trip to Israel to try persuading the Jewish state to lose the war. Apparently he envisions a Gaza ruled by the Palestinian Authority, a position he’s held for some time, and a position that’s beyond stupid.
The United States sees a new opportunity to revive cease-fire efforts after the killing of top Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar by Israeli forces in Gaza last week. But there’s no indication that the warring parties have modified their demands since talks stalled over the summer.
There was also no immediate sign of a breakthrough after Blinken met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials on Tuesday.
Israel blamed the failure of talks on Sinwar’s hard-line stance, but Hamas says its demands for a lasting cease-fire, full Israeli withdrawal and the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners have not changed. Hamas blamed the failure of the talks on Israel’s demand for a lasting military presence in parts of Gaza.
Apparently Blinken also touted an Egyptian plan for a limited hostage release in return for a short cease fire (not acceptable; they must let all the hostages go) and told Israel they have to keep the humanitarian aid flowing to northern Gaza, though Israel is trying to defeat Hamas there by providing humanitarian corridors for civilians to evacuate northern Gaza so Israel can impose a siege on Hamas to eliminate it there. But no dice: the aid must keep coming, and Hamas gets the lion’s share of it.
*Speaking of Israel, that country has had to change its plans for its reprisal on Iran for the recent missile attack; this is because Israel’s original reprisal plans were leaked from somewhere in the U.S. government (suspects have been floated).
Israel has been forced to delay a potential retaliatory attack on Iran after details of the planning were leaked from the US, Britain’s The Times newspaper reported Thursday.
According to the report, citing an unnamed intelligence source with knowledge of Israeli deliberations, Israel is worried that even though no potential targets were named in the leak, the details provided could help Iran predict certain patterns of attack.
The Times said Israel has developed an alternative plan but needs to war-game it before proceeding.
. . . “The leak of the American documents delayed the attack due to the need to change certain strategies and components,” the source said. “There will be a retaliation, but it has taken longer than it was supposed to take.”
Marked top secret, the documents first appeared online Friday on the Telegram messaging app and quickly spread among Telegram channels popular with Iranians.
I say Israel should go for Iran’s nukes, though of course the Biden administration, for reasons best know to itself, seems to have forbidden that.
*A Wall Street Journal poll reports that “Trump takes narrow lead over Harris in closing weeks of race.”
Donald Trump has opened a narrow lead in the presidential race, as voters have adopted a more positive view of his agenda and past performance and a more negative view of Kamala Harris, a new Wall Street Journal poll finds.
The national survey finds that Trump is leading Harris by 2 percentage points, 47% to 45%, compared with a Harris lead of 2 points in the Journal’s August survey on a ballot that includes third-party and independent candidates. Both leads are within the polls’ margins of error, meaning that either candidate could actually be ahead.
The survey suggests that a barrage of negative advertising in the campaign and the performance of the candidates themselves have undermined some of the positive impressions of Harris that voters developed after she replaced President Biden as the presumed and then confirmed Democratic nominee.
. . . Views of Harris have turned more negative since August, when equal shares of voters viewed her favorably and unfavorably. Now, the unfavorable views are dominant by 8 percentage points, 53% to 45%. Moreover, voters give Harris her worst job rating as vice president in the three times the Journal has asked about it since July, with 42% approving and 54% disapproving of her performance.
Here’s a plot of who people would vote for, but note that the difference is well within the margin of error
By contrast, views of Trump have turned rosier. Voters recall his time as president more positively than at any point in this election cycle, with 52% approving and 48% disapproving of his performance in office—a 4-point positive job rating that contrasts with the 12-point negative rating for Harris.
Moreover, voters give Trump a solid edge in most cases when asked about the candidates’ agendas and policies. By 10 points, more voters have a favorable than unfavorable view of Trump’s economic plan for the country, while unfavorable views of Harris’s economic plan outweigh positive views by 4 points.
Favorability ratings, showing a big boost for Harris after Biden decided not to run. So much being made from a difference of a few points!
I have no idea whether this decline means anything, and, as Election Day nears, I am trying to pay less attention to polls. I well remember when the polls predicted a Clinton victory over Trump, and then I watched the election results come in while I was in Hong Kong (I’d already voted). As the needle moved toward Trump, I got more and more depressed, and as the election was called, I went for a long, rambling Walk of Despair, not even knowing how I got back to my hotel. This is what comes from paying attention to polls, especially when the elecdtion is this close.
Israel was probably asked to wait until after the US election to retaliate against Iran. It is likely that an attack by Israel could hurt the Biden administration, and thus Kamala’s chance of winning the election.
So maybe we wake up the day after and Harris has won 75/25 and all this neck and neck, 50/50 carrying on is just chickenlittle mishigass from a bankrupt media to keep our eyes on their sponsors. I guess I would like to believe that as much as believe that upwards of 80 million Americans would really vote for tRump.
I think Marcuse is the reason politicians would issue blanket-statement discernment-free disparagement of The University.
Frankenstein runs for office : “University, BAAAAD!”
What is wrong with the USA?
Trump and Harris are level??
Some reservations about Harris are reasonable, particularly her somewhat extreme positions as a senator. Her retreat from those might well reflect pragmatism that she has learnt as VP, which would reflect well on her.
By contrast, Trump is an appalling person, never very bright, whose brain is now reverting to childhood. That explains his multiple untruths. They are not lies, because lying depends on the liar knowing that he is wrong. We do not condemn a 5yo for making up stuff. The one believable thing that he has said is that many other countries are laughing at the USA, but he does not realise that the reason that we do is his apparent acceptability to so many voters. He would have no chance in any country in NW Europe or in much of the rest of the world.
I would not trust the Tangerine Toddler to manage a midden heap, yet he appears to have a real chance of re-election.
What is wrong with the USA?
“It’s coming to America first, the cradle of the best and of the worst.
It’s here they’ve got the range, and the machinery for change,
It’s here they’ve got the spiritual thirst.
. . .
I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean.
I love the country but I can’t stand the scene.
. . .
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags that time cannot decay.
I’m junk but I’m holding up this little wild bouquet.
Democracy is coming,
To the U S A!”
— Leonard Cohen. “Democracy”
Mr. Bond, I think most of Harris’ loss of support comes from Democrats like myself – and a lot of people I’ve encountered where I live in ultra-lib Manhattan, including two friends who I worked with on the Hillary campaign: like an IQ test, smart centrists and lefties REALLY resent woke. We resent it like smart Republicans (Romney, David Frum, Andrew Sullivan etc) despise the MAGA cult.
Trump’s manifold and numerous faults are easy to see and I note foreign anglosphere media love hyping them. Because he’s horrible. From afar I think it is harder to see how post-modern ID politics have deranged our society even more.
I’m not (didn’t, I voted by mail last week) voting for Trump. I’m not going full-Elon if you will, but damn I held my nose by the USPO box.
The author of that Slate piece, Michael Roth, is the President at Wesleyan U. It’s hard to fathom his misunderstanding of the university’s role as a safeguarded place that ensures the uncensored debate of the issues that he’s worked up about. There’s nothing stopping him, as a private citizen, from opining on these and other subjects. Institutional neutrality simply means the university isn’t to take an official stance on subjects. He undoubtedly knows this, so one wonders what is his real beef?
In my view, he understands that his views, expressed as a private citizen, carry no more weight than that of the average schmo. He wants to hijack the credibility and authority carried by the institution so as to achieve his preferred outcomes, instead of, you know, doing his actual job.
Roth exemplifies a good reason to oppose institutional statements—those making them are really promoting their “brand.” Behold, I am a public intellectual, and I condemn X.
I prefer that our institutional leaders lead the institution rather than play pope.
Wow, that graph is frightening. Harris has lost all of her initial goodwill. Looking at the clear trend, with high slope, this means she will lose.
She is shown on msnbc pretty much 24/7 it seems trying to gather up all the tiny bits of minority identity voters with promises of great things for them, leaving black middle class educated and white voters to not see themselves in anything she promises. It is pitiful pandering I tell you. Again Dems grab defeat from the jaws of victory?
We’ll see what happens with the Blinken meetings. I’ve used choice (i.e., not very flattering) words about him at home, so I’m not all that optimistic. At the same time, however, the Israeli leadership will eventually want to pivot from the conflict in Gaza. Maybe now is that time. Once the hostages are released, Hamas will have little remaining leverage (except for public opinion), and Israel would be free to go back into Gaza if Hamas starts to cause further trouble. How this might turn out would depend on the governance put into place in Gaza, which is still very unclear. (Even with governance in place, the outcome will still be unclear.)
In an interview reported in the Jerusalem Post, former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, a centrist and Netanyahu opponent, expressed some optimism for a deal now that Sinwar has been eliminated. His is an interesting perspective: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-825659.
Interesting article. Thanks, Norman.
I agree again, Norman. They have to keep the “lawn cutting” in Gaza going and never leave probably (PCCE and Elder of Zion’s fantasy about UAE troops saving the day aside).
The whole deal is up north, for two reasons. Israelis have to be able to return to the ten percent of their own country they’ve fled from. And also it is a chance to free Lebanon of the Hezb snake that has been strangling it for decades. A Hezzy-less Lebanon is an entity Israel will be able to do business with. Like Lebanon before the Pals and before Hezb.
Of course, they’ll never completely delete Hezb, but they can hugely reduce it and that’s a big win.
best,
D.A.
NYC
column:
https://democracychronicles.org/author/david-anderson/
Harris is simply not a good candidate, and Walz is weird. A Shapiro / Whitmer ticket would have been much stronger.
Harris’s team is where they are now because of the catch-22 position of her not being good in interviews, so they kept her away from them as much as possible, and as a result she never had the chance to become better at them or to learn what works, so now with more exposure, she’s not coming across very well.
Voters who are not hypnotized by media into having a negative visceral reaction and believing that Trump is Hitler view him as someone who has relatively clear positions on many policy issues. Harris? Who knows. Abortion seems to be the only thing she can state her position on and her recent statement about not allowing religious exemption is hitting negatively.
They also know that every Republican candidate has been called Hitler or fascist at one time, so that kind of hyperbole pushes them away from media-endorsed candidates rather than opening their eyes. Wait until next election – it will be nonstop “Nikki Haley is worse than Trump and another Hitler”. They also see media distortions of Trump’s words (Fine People) and then assume that everything else that is said is more lies about Trump. They also hear the media and Democrats say that Trump might steal your democracy, but then see with their own eyes that the Democrats completely bypassed the voice of the people to nominate Harris. Sure, we know there were extenuating circumstances, but it looks hypocritical.
They also see Trump as not directly responsible for J6. He told the crowd to be peaceful. He requested military or national guard support and was rejected by Milley among others. He said he would march with the crowd and then cowardly did not, but that was not code for “go break into the Capitol”. He didn’t accept the election results, but the transfer of office still occurred. Remember, after Hillary lost in ’16, there were similar complaints about a stolen election, just from the opposite side.
It won’t be the end of democracy if Trump is elected. His positions on things like trans intrusion into female spaces, Israel’s right to defend itself, government censorship of speech, and DEI all seem to align with what I read and agree with on this site. Harris’s positions on those items seem to be opposite of what I’d prefer, so if Trump does win, let’s consider the possibility of some positives coming from it.
It won’t be the end of democracy if Trump is elected but it could be the end of Ukraine.
That is my biggest fear in all this.
Like Israel, Ukraine is the sharp edge of civilization and citizens of both countries are sacrificing their best to defend the boundaries. We owe them our loyalty and money.
D.A.
NYC
If the Democrats ran a Whitmer / Shapiro (note the reversal) ticket, it would not be close. If the Republicans ran somebody other than Trump against Harris, it would not be close. Of the two parties, I think the Democrats are in worse shape. If Trump wins in 2024, of course Harris loses. If Harris wins, she is not likely to be a good president. However, she is very likely to be the Democratic nominee in 2028 (assuming she wins in 2024). The Democrats are stuck for 8 years. Conversely, Trump is not likely to run for reelection in 2028 (too old) even if he wins in 2024. So the Republicans are only stuck for 4 years. Just my two cents.
My favorite Democrat is actually Cory Booker. I don’t agree with him on much. However, he is relative unknown in 2024. That is a big plus. Trump and Harris are too well known. Would he crush Trump? Probably?
The Trump Hitler comments aren’t very effective at a conservative site I checked earlier. The post title referred to Godwin’s Law.
Commenters suggested it is more meant to energize the Dem base: a get out the vote tactic.
What would be a religious exemption in regards to abortion?
Would it be a doctor not being required to provide medical services because of his/her belief?
“. . . punish those schools who do not live up to a right-wing version of civil rights standards.”
Given that a fair number on the left now consider a 1970s ACLU perspective on free speech to be a “right wing version” of civil rights standards, I’m not yet convinced that punishing schools would be a bad move.
It’s not encouraging to consider how many policies that were perfectly respectable a few decades ago are now considered “right wing.”
That is true. I’m much better aligned now with the center-right policies of Trump than the far-left policies of the Democratic party.
Mr. Blinken’s attempts to talk the Israelis into agreeing to undermine their own interests reminds me of a parable I heard from a now sadly dead colleague.
Somehow it came to be discovered that the land on which a synagogue in Rome sat was actually owned by the Catholic Church. Since this wouldn’t do, the Vatican sent the Pope over to evict the congregation. But the law was complicated. They agreed to settle the matter with a theological debate. Since the Pope didn’t speak Hebrew and the rabbi didn’t speak Latin, they had to use gestures.
The Pope opened with an expansive gesture with both arms. The rabbi pointed down with one finger.
Next the Pope pointed up with one finger. The rabbi pointed down again, twice, with vigour.
The Pope pulled out a communion wafer from somewhere within his robes and broke it. The rabbi pulled an apple from his coat pocket and bit into it. At which point the Pope shrugged and offered his hand, which the rabbi shook.
The Pope’s advisors asked him what happened. “I said God is everywhere. He said God is right here. I said God is in Heaven. He said God is here on earth. I invoked the body of Christ dying for our sins. He invoked Original Sin. I couldn’t answer that. The Jews can keep their synagogue.”
The rabbi’s people asked him what happened. “He said he owns the who-o-le property. I said we’re staying right here. He said you’ve got one month to clear out. I said we’re staying right here, you can go to Hell. He brought out his lunch, I brought out mine. We ate, then we shook on it. Done.”