Welcome to Thursday, May 15, 2025, and International Conscientious Objectors Day. I was one of these, and applied for I-O status in 1970. My draft number in 1971 was 3!. I vowed to go to jail rather than fight in Vietnam, which I saw as a useless and unjust war in which the U.S. was not defending itself. Fortunately, I got a 2-S (CO) status without evan an examination (I had a history of antiwar work). So, I did my CO work in a NYC hospital for 13 months until I found I had been “drafted” illegally (they drafted COs from the class of 1971 but no soldiers, which violated the draft law). With the help of the ACLU, I initiated a class action suit (Coyne et al. v Nixon et al,) and we won in NY federal court. We were released (the class was, as I recall, about 2500 COs all told), but of course not compensated, as we were allowed to earn no more than a GI ( about $6000 per year) but had to pay for our own food and housing. Then I was free to go to graduate school, but that is another story, and a long one. . . .
It’s also Bring Flowers to Someone Day, National Apértif Day (always a dry sherry), National Chocolate Chip Day, and Peace Officers Memorial Day.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 15 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Republicans are getting antsy about Trump accepting an expensive plane from the terrorist-supporting state of Qatar to use as Air Force One for the next four years.
Republican lawmakers on Tuesday expressed national-security concerns over the proposed $400 million plane that the Qatari royal family wants to give to the U.S. for use as Air Force One, offering rare GOP resistance to a venture backed by President Trump.
Many of the Republicans who expressed doubts serve on congressional committees that oversee the nation’s armed services and intelligence agencies. They said that the White House would be subject to a battery of questions regarding security if the transfer goes forward. They noted that scrubbing the plane for foreign surveillance technology would be a costly and laborious process and questioned whether the Qatari plane would have necessary capabilities—like being able to refuel midair—or carry the advanced technology needed for an airborne command center.
Several suggested that President Trump and the White House might rethink the offer.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) stressed Tuesday afternoon that nothing was official yet and predicted there would be “plenty of scrutiny” around the arrangement should it move forward. “There are lots of issues around that that I think will attract very serious questions if and when it happens,” Thune said.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) stressed Tuesday afternoon that nothing was official yet and predicted there would be “plenty of scrutiny” around the arrangement should it move forward. “There are lots of issues around that that I think will attract very serious questions if and when it happens,” Thune said.
Trump also has faced some criticism over the deal from conservative commentators: Ben Shapiro characterized the idea as “skeezy,” and influencer Laura Loomer took aim at Qatar via social media saying “we cannot accept a $400 million ‘gift’ from jihadists in suits.”
The objections voiced by GOP lawmakers also are noteworthy given that Trump is currently on an overseas trip to the Middle East. He is set to be in Qatar for a state visit on Wednesday, and the blowback at home about the gift threatens to overshadow the trip.
And it looks as if the plane will sort of belong to Trump after his term is over, as it reverts to the Trump Presidential Library. What will happen then? Will it no longer fly? Will it be used to ferry documents and books back and forth? No, this is very bad optics, and you know it’s bad when even Republicans criticize it. And to prevent eavesdropping, they’d have to take the whole damn plane apart to see if the Qataris have put listening devices in it. It’s not like they’re even a friendly state, though they pretend to be.
*Here’s Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Pretty clear, no?
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
That looks like Trump’s “birthright ban” for children of immigrants is palpably unconstitutional. But yet. . . . .
Shortly after the Supreme Court announced in April that it would consider the nationwide freeze on President Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship, he gleefully spoke to reporters in the Oval Office.
Mr. Trump said that he was “so happy” the justices would take up the citizenship issue because it had been “so misunderstood.” The 14th Amendment, he said — long held to grant citizenship to anyone born in the United States — is actually “about slavery.”
“That’s not about tourists coming in and touching a piece of sand and then all of the sudden there’s citizenship,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “That is all about slavery.”
For more than a century, most scholars and the courts have agreed that though the 14th Amendment was added to the Constitution after the Civil War, it was not, in fact, all about slavery. Instead, courts have held that the amendment extended citizenship not just to the children of former slaves but also to babies born within the borders of the United States.
. . . The story of how the theory [that it was about slavery] moved from the far edges of academia to the Oval Office and, on Thursday, to the Supreme Court, offers insight into how Mr. Trump has popularized legal theories once considered unthinkable to justify his immigration policies.
“They have been pushing it for decades,” said John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and a top lawyer in the George W. Bush administration. “It was thought to be a wacky idea that only political philosophers would buy. They’ve finally got a president who agrees.”
The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
So far, courts have agreed. Judges in Washington State, Massachusetts and Maryland quickly instituted nationwide pauses on Mr. Trump’s policy.
In oral arguments this week, the justices will primarily consider whether federal judges have the power to order these temporary pauses, known as nationwide injunctions. But the question of birthright citizenship will form the backdrop.
*The IDF has been trying to get Muhammad Sinwar, the younger brother of now-extinct Yahya Sinwar, who was the military head of Hamas. Muhammad is a top Hamas official, if not the top Hamas official, and has eluded numerous attempts to kill him:
Like his elder brother, Muhammad Sinwar has long been wanted by the Israeli authorities. He is said to have been targeted in six assassination attempts by 2021.
In 2014, the Israeli military believed that it had killed the younger Mr. Sinwar, only to discover that he had survived. In late 2023, the Israeli military said on social media that it had searched his office in a raid on a Hamas military post and training compound in Gaza, “where military doctrine documents were located.”
But both Sinwar brothers continued to elude Israel, until Yahya, then the political leader of Hamas, was killed by the Israeli military in October.
In a 2022 interview with Al Jazeera, it was reported that Muhammad was so elusive that he would not be recognized by most people in Gaza, and had even missed his father’s funeral to maintain secrecy about his whereabouts.
He is believed to have spent much of the war underground in an effort to escape Israeli airstrikes. But in recent months, he had been seen aboveground in Khan Younis, including at Nasser Hospital, according to a Middle Eastern intelligence official.
The Jerusalem Post and BBC both report that the IDF struck a meeting in a hospital in Khan Younis, a meeting reportedly involving top Hamas officials.
The IDF on Tuesday attempted to assassinate Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar in a strike on the European Hospital in Khan Yunis in Gaza, sources told The Jerusalem Post.
The military may have used a bunker buster bomb in their attempted attack against Sinwar, defense sources told the Post.
Following the initial attack, the IDF reportedly struck the area where Sinwar was allegedly located a second time, with the objective of preventing the evacuation of casualties, Israeli public broadcaster KAN reported.
Israel reportedly did not update the US prior to the assassination attempt, a source familiar with the details told Ynet. According to the report, the strike was the result of a “sudden opportunity,” leading to no time to inform the Americans or consider the timing of US President Donald Trump’s speech in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
“We will not allow the Hamas terrorist organization to use hospitals and humanitarian facilities in Gaza as shelters and terrorist headquarters,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said. “We will pursue them and their leaders and strike them everywhere.”
It’s not yet clear if they got Sinwar, and it’s won’t be believable until the IDF reports it (they haven’t). And even if they did, it’s not at all sure that Hamas will be appreciably weakened with his death, for if he does go to the Virgins in the Sky, another leader may step forward to replace him. But it’s now seems clear that Hamas is losing, and will be clearer when the IDF conducts its promised intensified warfare after Trump leaves the Middle East.
*It’s hard to find any news that’s not about Trump, but here’s some, and good news. Deaths due to overdoses fell very sharply last year, the sharpest decline ever.
There were 30,000 fewer U.S. drug overdose deaths in 2024 than the year before — the largest one-year decline ever recorded.
An estimated 80,000 people died from overdoses last year, according to provisional Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released Wednesday. That’s down 27% from the 110,000 in 2023.
The CDC has been collecting comparable data for 45 years. The previous largest one-year drop was 4% in 2018, according to the agency’s National Center for Health Statistics.
All but two states saw declines last year, with Nevada and South Dakota experiencing small increases. Some of the biggest drops were in Ohio, West Virginia and other states that have been hard-hit in the nation’s decades-long overdose epidemic.
Experts say more research needs to be done to understand what drove the reduction, but they mention several possible factors. Among the most cited:
— Increased availability of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone.
— Expanded addiction treatment.
— Shifts in how people use drugs.
— The growing impact of billions of dollars in opioid lawsuit settlement money.
— The number of at-risk Americans is shrinking, after waves of deaths in older adults and a shift in teens and younger adults away from the drugs that cause most deaths.
Still, overdose deaths are still higher than they were during the pandemic, and death rates have fluctuated before. Still, we now have Naloxone, which every first responder should be carrying:
Experts note that there have been past moments when U.S. overdose deaths seemed to have plateaued or even started to go down, only to rise again. That happened in 2018.
But there are reasons to be optimistic.
Naloxone has become more widely available, in part because of the introduction of over-the-counter versions that don’t require prescriptions.
Meanwhile, drug manufacturers, distributors, pharmacy chains and other businesses have settled lawsuits with state and local governments over the painkillers that were a main driver of overdose deaths in the past. The deals over the last decade or so have promised about $50 billion over time, with most of it required to be used to fight addiction.
*Finally, Matthew brought my attention to a Guardian article about a duck being caught by a Swiss speed camera, and it was likely a repeat offender. Yes, ducks can fly quickly, and this was a mallard drake.
A radar image of a speed offender caught in central Switzerland last month has revealed that the culprit was not only a duck but probably a repeat offender, local authorities have said.
Police in the town of Köniz, near Bern, were astounded when they went through radar images snapped on 13 April to discover that a mallard was among those caught in the speed trap, the municipality said on its Facebook page at the weekend.
The duck was caught going 52km/h (32mph) in a 30-km/h zone, the post said.
That’s reckless flying!
The story, first reported by the Berner Zeitung newspaper on Monday, got even stranger.
It turned out that a similar-looking duck was captured flying in the same spot at exactly the same speed, on exactly the same date seven years earlier, the Facebook post said.
The municipality said it had considered whether the whole thing might not be a belated April Fool’s joke or a “fake” picture.
But the police inspectorate said it was impossible to doctor images or manipulate the radar system.
The computers are calibrated and tested each year by Switzerland’s federal institute of metrology, and the photos taken are sealed, the municipality said.
Lock him up! Here’s the photo, credited to: Gemeinde Köniz/Facebook:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the boys have a botanical exchange:
Hili: The grass grows quickly after rain.A: I don’t blame it.
Hili: Trawa po deszczu szybko rośnie.Ja: Ja jej się nie dziwię.
*******************
From Now That’s Wild:
From Meow:
From Jesus of the Day:
Masih is still recovering from her operation, but here’s a tweet retweeted by JKR. I can’t embed it but you can go to it by clicking on the screenshot, and you can read the letter here. The BBC is accused of being homophobic!
Simon says this is “hilarious if true”, but I simply can’t believe it. Readers–help!
You can’t make this up
— Adam Parkhomenko (@adamparkhomenko.bsky.social) 2025-05-13T16:18:26.272Z
From Malcolm: I can’t embed this but you can see the original by clicking on the screenshot. (Note that “only” should be before “once”.)
Shermer gives all the excuses why this is okay:
Not happening
One-off event
Not that common
Biased reporting
Moral panic
It’s okay because he identifies as a she https://t.co/q9ET5OgYRu— Michael Shermer (@michaelshermer) May 14, 2025
From my feed. Turkey loves its cats, and this vending machine apparently dispenses cat food when it hears a meow. Now seagulls are trying to game the system.
There is a food vending machine for cats in Turkey, the seagulls meow pretending to be cats
pic.twitter.com/F0mhnqY2Pg— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) May 14, 2025
From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:
A Polish dressmaker died in the camps barely a month after arriving. She was 22.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-05-15T09:56:14.034Z
Two posts from Dr. Cobb, who is recovering from both a chest infection and respiratory virus. But he’s getting better! First, a little crab stole some food from the big one. Sound up to hear the Spanish:
Libidoclaea granaria 🦀 from @schmidtocean.bsky.social dive 741 #ChileMargin2024 #MarineLife
Matthew says this about the tweet, which starts a thread: “I briefly felt well enough last night to pen this Wodehousian thread (inspired by listening to a lot of BBC Jeeves dramatisations, which is only vaguely droll if you know the Jeeves books and also UK WW2 literature
What did Bertie Wooster get up to in WW2? He was 24 when he employed Jeeves (20 years older?) who later said he had “dabbled to a certain extent” in WW1. That must have been in 1920ish. In 1939 he would have been in his early 40s, slightly liverish, but still a game old bird. 1/n
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-05-13T20:46:14.308Z
Those preparing for a Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship would do well consult the Court’s ruling in United States v. Wong Kim Ark. In it the Court draws a distinction between those who have submitted themselves to the authority of the United States and those who haven’t. It would certainly seem like illegal aliens have not, and, therefore, their children haven’t.
I didn’t find your interpretation of one needing to have “submitted themselves to the authority of the United States” in that opinion. One need only be “subject to the jurisdiction,” and there was extensive discussion of the meaning of that phrase which was captured IMO with:
Probably intended is a long way from palpably unconstitutional.
Probably intended is also not shutting down any alternative interpretation.
As I said, there was an extensive discussion, of which this phrase summarized the gist.
It’s interesting that the NYT piece did not mention such possibilities, even if only to rubbish them.
Glad to hear that Matthew is on the mend. RE: 14th Amendment – john woo is certainly qualified to speak on wacky theories which before social media times were more simply known as 1%er or 2%er ideas.
From memory Mr. Woo provided the legal architecture for Bush’s “enhanced interrogation” all those years ago when we were young.
Not judging (though I think they were a terrible idea).. just remembering.
D.A.
NYC
Yep. That’s the Yoo, David. Do not know if my writing of “woo” rather than “yoo” was my typo, ai miscorrection, or my sloppiness, this morning, but is john yoo.
You’re so right. It is hard to find any news other than Trump. It was that way the first term, too! His secret to getting constant attention stems from his sleepless mind and its outrageous products. The latest example: a Boeing 747 is suddenly available to become the new Air Force One, complete with built-in surveillance facilities (to spy on us, of course). How can one resist covering it? Impossible.
Here’s how it works. When getting the offer from Qatar, Trump’s synapses fire off the message that “This is a free, beautiful plane! Our own planes are old, and Boeing can’t get its act together to build a new one quickly enough. Here’s a new plane I can get today and, best of all, it’s FREE!”
That’s all there is to it. It’s up to everyone else—his advisors, the Republican leadership, the media, pundits, attorneys, Professor Jerry Coyne, correspondents here on Jerry’s site, and sentient beings around the world—to keep Trump’s synapses in check. He (quite literally) can’t help himself.
Beepers. Has Trump never heard of beepers?
Maybe he can’t hear them over the voices in his head.
I’m genuinely disturbed to find that I agree with that wacko Laura Loomer…
I didn’t know that there was such a thing as International Conscientious Objectors Day – so thanks for bringing it to our attention. Similar to you, I got drafted immediately after graduation, in 1968. When registrating at 18, I requested CO status and was granted it after being drafted. I did my two years of I-W at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and VA Hospital in Denver, that ultimately sent me down the pathobiology pathway.
When I was a visiting professor in the US in 1969-70, all my male students had some way of avoiding going off to fight in Vietnam. One student went to a place in Ohio where they gave you a course of treatment making you react to the presence of a blood pressure cuff on your arm by having your blood pressure go up to an apparently dangerous level. This did work for him.
Well, some of us were real pacifists and didn’t resort to tricks to avoid killing people with whom we had no beef.
Exactly Jerry – my thoughts as well. There were no tricks being brought up in a Mennonite family and a historical peace church.
And the POTUS got his dad to find a doctor to declare him to have bone spurs.
I’m curious what kinds of jobs you and Jerry and other COs did at the medical centers where you were assigned.
This talk of COs reminded me of a fascinating book – The Great Starvation Experiment by Todd Tucker. The experiment was conducted in WWII and the subjects were all conscientious objectors. Since the experimental purpose was to determine the best way to treat all the victims of starvation that the allies would need to care for after the war, all the COs had to first voluntarily starve themselves. The account of their experiences is engrossing.
In 1968, we all passed our draft exams 🙂 Signing your name to the test meant that you passed! Since I had a BA in biology, I was assigned to work in the Pathology department at the CU medical center complex where several other CO’s had been assigned. The work was basically lab tech; tending to mice and rats, doing standard lab work from washing glassware to stocking supplies, and occasionally helping carry out research activities. Nothing like CO’s were treated in WWII. Indeed many of the faculty and staff were supportive of the anti-American-War-In-Vietnam perspective.
The mobile McDonald’s exists but wasn’t created for Trump.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-saudi-mobile-mcdonalds/
Thanks Norman, but we are subject to the same synaptic impulses to dread this man’s need to be obnoxiously in the news every day since 2016, and we can’t help ourselves either. John F Kennedy, Trump’s polar opposite, also dominated the news in the early 1960s, but nothing even remotely comparable to this puerile imposter. At some point, the backlash will catch up to him and our synaptic connections can focus on empathy and critical thinking skills.
It’s not a big stretch to conclude that JFK had some sociopathic symptoms of his own, but he at least had class (and that accent).
Nobody is perfect, of course, but Kennedy was an exceptional orator and his poise, intelligence and sophisticated wit, cannot in any way be compared to the often incoherent babble or dribble from the real sociopath in office now. Also let’s remember he picked a shrewd and competent vice president. Vance is, without question, in league with Spiro Agnew and Dan Quale. And we all miss that erudite Boston accent. I grew up in Brookline, Mass, about three miles from Kennedy’s birthplace.
The long needed whacking of Little Sinwar is very welcome news but by no means the end. The “grass has to be cut” right down to the seed level.
After nearly two decades of Jew-less independence Gaza will never be unwatched or undisciplined for the rest of all our lives. If we have grandkids, their lives also.
Until either Islam or the cancer that is Palestinian Nationalism ends, both are responsible.
This is the fate the Palestinian people have inflicted upon themselves. It is amazing – like they have never made a good decision for anybody.
Onwards Israeli heroes.
D.A.
NYC
I greatly appreciated Matthew’s flight of fancy about Bertie Wooster’s War. Maybe he could develop some of those ideas a little further now he has a little more time on his hands. Some of the Jeeves and Wooster stories are set in the US, so Bertie would have been quite at home there.
Meanwhile, some readers may not be familiar with Richard Dawkins’s affectionate parody of PG Wodehouse here: https://richarddawkins.com/articles/article/jeeves-and-the-greatest-show-on-earth The story includes a link to another tale in the same vein.
I agree – Matthew Cobb’s thread about Bertie Wooster’s imagined doings in WWII is terribly clever and entertaining. I’d pay to read “Jeeves and the Enriched Uranium”!
I’m rather amused by the mostly performative outrage over a Qatari-donated 747. How many of the critics also fret over Al Udeid Air Base?
“Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin visited Al Udeid last month where he thanked Qatar for their increased spending on the base. But he made no mention of the renewal [a ten-year extension of US presence] and the Biden administration has not publicized it – at a time when Qatar has come under growing scrutiny for hosting senior Hamas leaders. Qatari officials have countered that it was only after a US request during the Obama administration that Hamas was allowed to open a political office in Doha.”
Al Udeid is owned by Qatar, which has poured billions of dollars into it for US benefit. It hosts up to 11,000 US and allied troops and is the forward operating headquarters for the United States Central Command, which has responsibility for all US warfighting throughout the Middle East. Military personnel there [presumably] discuss, plan, and conduct sensitive and highly-classified military operations. That’s an awful lot of opportunities and reasons for Qatari eavesdropping and other surveillance. It’s also a lot of reasons for the United States to alter policies (or ignore Qatari actions), and Qatari investments to those ends both dwarf in dollars and potential influence any that could arise from donation of a single airplane. I’ll wait for the outrage.
To be fair, there are a precious few who criticize all US entanglements with Qatar—as opposed to those in our political and media establishment who do so only selectively.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/02/politics/us-qatar-agreement-largest-base-middle-east/index.html
In the end it all comes down to money. It doesn’t matter Qatar’s location; that’s an argument meant to mislead. If there was nothing but sand in Qatar (and besides a whole lot of oil underneath it, that’s pretty much all Qatar has going for it) it would be another impoverished home for Islamist terror and we would have nothing to do with it. Probably be bombing it as we speak, if they didn’t have such deep pockets. They’ve got humongous amounts of money and they know how to spread it around. So of course our politicians are ignoring the slavery, the misogyny, the homophobia, the terrorism….. Money talks. Some day we’ll be paying for this relationship with American soldier’s lives. Same as it ever was.
The US airbase, and a smaller Turkish one like it, were a strategic master stroke for Qatar.
Consider when Bahrain got tetchy a few years ago the Saudis either invaded or “assisted the king”, sending in troops. With the long isolation/embargo of Qatar a joint Gulf Co-operation Council invasion of Qatar was very possible.
But one doesn’t invade even small, digestible miscreant neighbors that house American and Turkish military bases. Saved their bacon (hehee) so to speak.
The 5 year or so embargo of Qatar was very serious and big news for a long time and it happened in part b’c of Qatar’s footsie with the Muslim Brotherhood and nasty things Al Jazeera were saying.
That Muslim Brotherhood thing is something not to overlook – nearly every dastardly and insane Islamist movement over the past century has their hands all over it. The M.B. (“Ikhwan”) is huge and the most evil, mendacious (yet little known) influence in world affairs.
D.A.
NYC
RE: It’s also Bring Flowers to Someone Day.
Had to think of and then listen to: You don’t bring me flowers anymore (1978), by Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond
It’s a beautiful song and a beautiful rendition.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The past is never where you think you left it. Katherine Anne Porter, activist, and writer (15 May 1890-1980)
Also —
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
William Faulkner
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” LP Hartley
In U.S. v Wong, the SCOTUS relied on English common law to determine what Congress intended in the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause. A critical qualifier for England’s assertion of birthright citizenship was that the subjects must be children of “aliens in amity.” At his birth, Wong’s parents were domiciled in California and had conducted a business for many years. They were “aliens in amity.” That’s not the case for illegal immigrants. They are not here “in amity,” but rather the opposite, they are aliens in enmity as exampled by their fears of deportation and actions to hide their existence. Moreover, the SCOTUS has extended some Constitution rights to illegal aliens, but those are a different matter from birthright citizenship.
Nobody is perfect, of course, but Kennedy was an exceptional orator and his poise, intelligence and sophisticated wit, cannot in any way be compared to the often incoherent babble or dribble from the real sociopath in office now. Also let’s remember he picked a shrewd and competent vice president. Vance is, without question, in league with Spiro Agnew and Dan Quale. And we all miss that erudite Boston accent. I grew up in Brookline, Mass, about three miles from Kennedy’s birthplace.
This Qatar’s plane could be a Trojan Horse!
My local LLM says that an Arabic term for a deception like a Trojan horse is “Fakh” (trap). So The Don may be being set up to get fakhed.