Purposeful misunderstanding: the slogan “Free Palestine”
The Boulder firebomber apparently yelled “Free Palestine!” as he hurled flames at his victims. That’s a favorite slogan of the pro-Palestinian movement so au courant among the leftists of America today. And who wouldn’t want people to be free?
Leftists are very good at sloganeering with phrases that seem to have one meaning but actually have another. “Hope and change” – but hope for what? Change to what? “Liberte, egalite, fraternite,” – but the balance of liberty with equality is very tricky. “Diversity, equity, and inclusion” sounds fine until you realize that “equity” means reverse discrimination. And on and on and on.
I was reminded of true meaning of the phrase “Free Palestine!” on reading this essay on the Boulder firebomber by Ed Victor, a man who was standing in the Boulder crowd that day:
Upon reflection, I have come to realize that “Free Palestine” can mean something for those who want a Palestinian state, but it has also become a rallying cry for killing the Jews. It was the rallying cry for the two people gunned down in Washington, D.C., just two weeks ago. It was the rallying cry in Boulder.
But it was apparent long ago what “free Palestine” means:
(1) The use of the word “Palestine” for the Arab peoples of the region is an appropriation of a term that always included Israel since its coinage by the Romans, who gave the name to the Jewish homeland. It was also the name the colonial British used for the region.
(2) Gaza had basically been “free” of Israelis for close to twenty years, right up to the point when the Gazans initiated the 10/7 attack.
(3) “Free Palestine” also means that Gaza, Judea, and Samaria be completely free of Jews.
(4) The phrase also refers to this little ditty chanted by the pro-Palestinian demonstrators: From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free. The river is the Jordan River and the sea is the Mediterranean. It doesn’t take a professional geographer to see that this area includes Israel.
All of this seems rather obvious to me. The phrase leads the unaware to think it means something benign. It doesn’t. But the Orwellian aspect of it is purposeful
Limiting nationwide injunctions
You have almost certainly noticed that the federal courts are busy issuing injunctions on many of Trump’s directives, even ones that seem to have solid legal underpinnings. What is to be done?
The federal courts are under the aegis of Congress:
Article III of the Constitution grants Congress the power to establish lower courts. Congress has used this power in the past to create and abolish entire judicial branches and has passed legislation limiting a federal court’s ability to issue various injunctions.
Congress would be within its constitutional authority to prohibit federal district courts from issuing national injunctions. Alternatively, Congress could establish a three-judge panel or other lower court responsible for issuing national injunctions so that this power could no longer be wielded by a single, rogue judge.
The problem:
There are currently more than 1,000 active and senior district court judges, sitting across 94 judicial districts, and subject to review in 12 regional courts of appeal. Because plaintiffs generally are not bound by adverse decisions in cases to which they were not a party, there is a nearly boundless opportunity to shop for a friendly forum to secure a win nationwide…If a single successful challenge is enough to stay the challenged rule across the country, the government’s hope of implementing any new policy could face the long odds of a straight sweep, parlaying a 94-to-0 win in the district courts into a 12-to-0 victory in the courts of appeal. …
Once they have identified a federal action to challenge, it is not difficult for public interest groups to recruit a plaintiff in friendly jurisdictions. Beyond the fundamental unfairness of this sort of forum shopping, these groups seek national injunctions by presenting a single, carefully selected circumstance to be ruled on, then demand universal relief applicable to every person in the country.
What has Congress done? The House has passed H.R.1526 (No Rogue Rulings Act of 2025):
(a) … no United States district court shall issue any order providing for injunctive relief, except in the case of such an order that is applicable only to limit the actions of a party to the case before such district court with respect to the party seeking injunctive relief from such district court and non-parties represented by such a party acting in a representative capacity pursuant to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
“(b) If a case is brought by two or more States located in different circuits challenging an action by the executive branch, that case shall be referred to a three-judge panel selected pursuant to section 2284, except that the selection of judges shall be random, and not by the chief judge of the circuit. The three-judge panel may issue an injunction that would otherwise be prohibited under subsection (a), and shall consider the interest of justice, the risk of irreparable harm to non-parties, and the preservation of the constitutional separation of powers in determining whether to issue such an order.
It was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where they’ve been holding hearings. My guess is that the problem is the need to get sixty votes for cloture, or to end the filibuster in general. The latter would set a bad precedent, but it’s pretty clear that the Democrats will be ending the filibuster if they ever obtain a Senate majority.
Then there’s SCOTUS, another route to the same end – depending on what it decides. Here’s the case in question:
The case, Trump v. CASA, Inc., reached the Justices after a lower court barred the Trump administration from enforcing an executive order related to birthright citizenship. The Court is now set to decide for the first time whether this sweeping form of relief passes constitutional muster.
The oral argument on this case already occurred about three weeks ago.
And that’s where we stand at present.
D-Day, 81 years later
[NOTE: The following is a slightly-edited version of a previous D-Day post.]
Today is the eighty-first anniversary of D-Day, the Normandy landings in WWII that led to Western Europe’s liberation.
I wonder how many people under forty, either here or in Europe, now know or care what happened there. The dog barks and the caravan moves on.
The world we now live in seems so vastly different, including the relationship between the US and western Europe. But make no mistake about it; if threatened in a way that finally gets their attention, Europeans would be counting on us again. And although until few years ago I still thought that our armed forces probably would be up to the task, I now have my doubts. Some of our administrations and especially our press would fail us.
About forty-five years ago I visited Omaha Beach, site of the worst of the carnage. A quieter place than that beach and those huge cemeteries, with their lines of crosses set down as though with a ruler, you never did see.
But the scene was quite different back in 1944. The D-day invasion marked the beginning of the end for the Germans.
The weather was a huge factor, and the Allied commanders had to make the decision knowing that the forecast for the day was iffy and the window of opportunity small. For reasons of visibility and navigation (maximum amount of moonlight and deepest water), the invasion needed to occur during a time of full moon and spring tides, and all the invasion forces had already been assembled and were at the ready. To postpone would have been hugely expensive and frustrating, but to go ahead in bad weather would have been suicidal.
This is how bad the weather looked, how difficult the decision was, and how much we owe to the meteorologists, who:
…were challenged to accurately predict a highly unstable and severe weather pattern. As [Eisenhower] indicated in the message to Marshall, “The weather yesterday which was [the] original date selected was impossible all along the target coast.” Eisenhower therefore was forced to make his decision to proceed with a June 6 invasion in the predawn blackness of June 5, while horizontal sheets of rain and gale force winds shuddered through the tent camp.
The initially bad weather ended up being an advantage in other ways, because the Germans were not expecting the invasion to occur yet for that reason:
Some [German] troops stood down, and many senior officers were away for the weekend. General Erwin Rommel, for example, took a few days’ leave to celebrate his wife’s birthday, while dozens of division, regimental, and battalion commanders were away from their posts at war games.
In addition, there was Hitler’s personality and his reluctance to give autonomy to his military commanders:
Hitler reserved to himself the authority to move the divisions in OKW Reserve, or commit them to action. On 6 June, many Panzer division commanders were unable to move because Hitler had not given the necessary authorization, and his staff refused to wake him upon news of the invasion.
.
This didn’t mean that the beaches were not heavily fortified and manned, especially Omaha:
[The Germans] had large bunkers, sometimes intricate concrete ones containing machine guns and high caliber weapons. Their defense also integrated the cliffs and hills overlooking the beach. The defenses were all built and honed over a four year period.
The number of Allied casualties was enormous. Reading about it today makes one appreciate anew what these men faced, and how courageously they pressed on despite enormous difficulties. This is just a small sampler of what occurred on Omaha Beach at the outset; there was much more to come:
Despite these preparations, very little went according to plan. Ten landing craft were lost before they even reached the beach, swamped by the rough seas. Several other craft stayed afloat only because their passengers quickly bailed water with their helmets. Seasickness was also prevalent among the troops waiting offshore. On the 16th RCT front, the landing boats found themselves passing struggling men in life preservers, and on rafts, survivors of the DD tanks which had sunk. Navigation of the assault craft was made more difficult by the smoke and mist obscuring the landmarks they were to use in guiding themselves in, while a heavy current pushed them continually eastward.
As the boats approached within a few hundred yards of the shore, they came under increasingly heavy fire from automatic weapons and artillery. The force discovered only then the ineffectiveness of the pre-landing bombardment. Delayed by the weather, and attempting to avoid the landing craft as they ran in, the bombers had laid their ordnance too far inland, having no real effect on the coastal defenses.
These obstacles and unforeseen circumstances were extraordinarily costly in terms of the human sacrifice that occurred that day. Note that I use the word “obstacles and unforeseen circumstances” rather than “mistakes.” Today, if the same things had occurred (at least, while under the aegis of a Republican administration), they would be labeled unforgivable errors rather than the inevitable difficulties inherent in waging war, in which no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.
Another historical footnote is the following passage from Eisenhower’s message to the Allied Expeditionary Forces: You are about to embark upon the great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. It’s another sign of how times have changed; the word “crusade” has become verboten.
In his pocket, Eisenhower also kept another statement, one to activate in case the invasion failed. It read:
Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.
The note was written in pencil on a simple piece of paper, and is housed in a special vault at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library & Museum in Abilene, Kansas, a bit of thought-provoking fodder for an alternate history that never occurred.
Open thread 6/6/2025
Seems like the love affair between Trump and Musk is over
Really really over.
It seems to feature a huge (yuge?) disagreement about the budget bill, including but hardly limited to a detail about subsidies for EVs:
[Trump] repeatedly emphasized that Musk only began voicing concerns after the bill’s EV cuts, insinuating that Musk’s discontent was less about principle and more about profit. “He never had a problem until right after he left,” Trump said. “He knew everything about it… better than almost anybody.” …
Trump reminded the press that he had stood by Musk for years—politically and personally. “I’m very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot,” Trump said. “He hasn’t said bad about me personally… but I’m sure that’ll be next.” …
“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” Trump wrote. “I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
I consider that last statement to be an inflammatory escalation, which is Trump’s habit.
And then – as Trump predicted – came a personal attack on Trump from Musk:
Time to drop the really big bomb:@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.
Have a nice day, DJT!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2025
Childish of Musk. Of course Trump is in the “Epstein files.” We’ve known for ages that Trump had some dealings with Epstein years ago, as have so many people in public life. The so-called “Epstein files” are – as I wrote in this February post – merely a list of contacts. People have blown them up in their minds to be some sort of smoking gun, which they are not.
This whole thing is remarkably stupid and juvenile, perhaps even destructive. But we have two very powerful men at loggerheads, who don’t like to lose and are accustomed to winning, both of whom have quick tempers.
SCOTUS gets it right in reverse-discrimination case
Not only that, but the decision was unanimous and Ketanji Brown Jackson authored the opinion.
Then again, this was a slam-dunk case in terms of the law, so it should have been unanimous. However, as we know, there is no limit to how much judges (particularly leftist judges) can turn the law inside out to reach the decision that aligns with their pre-existing political opinions. So the unanimity of this decision is something to praise.
Petitioner Marlean Ames was hired by the Ohio Department of Youth Services in 2004 and worked in various roles in the agency. In 2018, her boss, who is gay, conducted a performance evaluation and found that her work met or exceeded expectations in all categories. In 2019, she applied for a new position within the agency, but was passed over for another candidate—a lesbian. Then it got worse. The agency not only demoted Ames from her administrative position and reduced her pay, but also replaced her with a gay man.
She sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, claiming she was discriminated against due to her sexual orientation.
The 6th Circuit Court denied her relief in Ames v. Ohio Dept. of Youth Services. Amy Howe at SCOTUSblog explained:
“The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit threw out Ames’s sexual orientation claim. It explained that because she is straight, she was required to show “background circumstances” to support her allegations of reverse discrimination. And although plaintiffs usually make this kind of showing, the court of appeals suggested, with evidence that a member of a minority group made the allegedly discriminatory decision, or with evidence demonstrating a pattern of discrimination against members of the majority group, Ames cannot do either. The decision-makers in her case – the people who hired someone else for the bureau chief job and who demoted her – were also straight, and there is no “pattern” of reverse discrimination beyond her own case, the court of appeals reasoned.”
In an opinion authored by none other than the uber-liberal Ketanji Brown Jackson, a unanimous Court ruled that the lower court must reconsider the case and exclude the “background circumstances” standard …
In other words, the lower court simply made up a new rule and applied it to Ames, holding her to a higher standard because she’s a straight person, which is (still) considered being in the majority. Many leftist judges seem to like to legislate in accordance with their own beliefs, but at least this time SCOTUS slapped them down:
The Sixth Circuit has implemented a rule that requires certain Title VII plaintiffs—those who are members of majority groups—to satisfy a heightened evidentiary standard in order to carry their burden under the first step of the McDonnell Douglas framework. We conclude that Title VII does not impose such a heightened standard on majority group plaintiffs. Therefore, the judgment below is vacated, and the case is remanded for application of the proper prima facie standard.
Good.
Did you know that dog ticks can live for up to two years without a host?
You can consider this fact depressing or inspiring. Or perhaps both. Depressing, because those little buggers can live a long long time without a good feed. Inspiring, in terms of the myriad methods earth’s creatures can develop in order to survive.
How do I know this factoid about dog ticks? Well, I looked it up:
Some sources say ticks can live for 24 hours or one full day without a host, while others say they can live for up to two years without food. The truth is, both could be right, but it depends on the conditions, species of tick and the stage of their lifecycle. …
The American dog tick can survive for even longer than deer ticks! Unfed larvae are able to survive for up to 540 days, while unfed nymphs have been recorded to survive for up to 584 days! Even more impressive, unfed adult American dog ticks can go 2-3 years (up to 1,053 days) without food!
Impressive indeed.
Why was I researching this? A friend of mine hosted a dog tick, and although I didn’t know it was a dog tick I took a photo and looked it up. The strange thing is that this friend hadn’t been outside (or around any dogs) for days.
The good news is that, at least in this part of the world, dog ticks don’t transmit disease compared to deer ticks, which can.
Trump institutes a travel ban
And, as one might easily predict, the left is unhappy about it:
Nationals of 12 countries will be barred from entering the United States: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
Several of the countries on the list, according to Trump’s proclamation, regularly declined to accept the return of their nationals or had visa overstay rates the administration deemed “unacceptable” and indicative of “a blatant disregard for United States immigration laws.”
Others on the list, like Sudan, Yemen and Somalia, were included for inadequate screening and vetting measures, the proclamation noted.
An additional seven countries came under partial travel restrictions, in which entrance into the country under several visa programs was suspended but an outright ban was not implemented. Those countries are Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
There are certain exceptions, including lawful permanent US residents and several other categories.
Trump’s previous travel ban had a great many legal challenges, but in its final form it was upheld (barely) by SCOTUS. I assume he’s thinking that SCOTUS will likewise uphold this one – which was sparked by the firebombing in Boulder from a man who had overstayed his visa and made an asylum claim that is almost certainly fake.
Democrats are taking their usual position on this – for example:
From his first Muslim Ban, Trump’s travel bans have always betrayed of the ideals and values that inspired America’s Founders.
Trump’s use of prejudice and bigotry to bar people from entering the U.S. does not make us safer, it just divides us and weakens our global leadership.
— Rep. Don Beyer (@RepDonBeyer) June 4, 2025
From his first Muslim Ban, Trump’s travel bans have always betrayed of the ideals and values that inspired America’s Founders.
Trump’s use of prejudice and bigotry to bar people from entering the U.S. does not make us safer, it just divides us and weakens our global leadership.
From the comments: “Our FF wanted foreigners to come here and set Americans on fire?”
I don’t think this is a winning stance for Democrats.
Open thread 6/5/2025
How did Jimmy Stewart get in there?
In the case of the pending deportation of the Colorado flamethrower’s family, the plot thickens
And thickens and thickens … and at this point is clear as mud:
In an emergency ruling, a Biden administration-appointed federal judge in Colorado halted the deportation of the wife and five children of Mohamed Soliman, the Egyptian national under federal investigation for the Boulder firebombing attack on Sunday.
The temporary restraining order (TRO), issued by U.S. District Judge Gordon P. Gallagher, prevents federal immigration authorities from removing Soliman’s wife, Hayem El Gamal, and the couple’s five children from the country — at least for now. …
The order came after El Gamal’s friend, Susanna Dvortsin, sought emergency legal protection for the family. She argued that the family faced imminent deportation by the Trump administration without the opportunity to present their case in court.
Gallagher agreed, writing that the family’s deportation would cause “irreparable harm.”
So let’s see if I have this right – and I may not, because the reporting on this so far has been abysmal. The flamethrower Solamin and his wife and children came here on a tourist visa (or visas), good for six months, and that expired in August of 2023. Somewhere along the line someone – Solamin, the wife, the kids? – supposedly applied for asylum and that hearing has never happened (and I have no idea whether one is scheduled and if so how many years from now it’s supposed to happen). Meanwhile, Dad of the Year Solamin decided that, while he waited, it would be a great idea to fire away (literally) at some people who were part of a group calling attention to the plight of the Israeli hostages.
It seems to me that this particular family circle has forfeited any right to be in this country, if they even still had such a right after August of 2023. Judge Gallagher may find that their deportation would cause “irreparable harm,” but I think a more solid argument can be made that their remaining here would cause irreparable harm in the sense of giving out the message to the world that a person can come on a tourist visa, let that visa expire, and stay here no matter what as long as there’s been a request for asylum (bogus or not – and I’m going to assume theirs is likely bogus).
On the other hand, their deportation is only stayed until June 13, when a fuller hearing on the matter is scheduled.
And there’s also the statement that it was the wife’s friend who petitioned the court. Dvortsin is an immigrant lawyer. Is El Gamal her client or her friend, or both? The article adds that it was Dvortsin who had submitted the family’s asylum application. Did she do this in her capacity as their lawyer or as their friend? And when was the application made?
Looking at the court document about the stay of deportation, I see this:
The court finds it appropriate for these preliminary proceedings for Petitioner to proceed as next-friend because the filings indicate that there is no means to contact Hayem El Gamal and petitioner has a significant relationship to her.
Is that relationship “lawyer”? If so, why not say so? And why oh why is there no means to contact El Gamal? Surely she has had a phone or an address; the family has been living here for years. Is she in hiding? What on earth is going on here?
What’s more, “next friend” status, in the legal sense, ordinarily means that the person who would otherwise be the petitioner lacks legal capacity, either due to being a minor or being handicapped or being temporarily incapacitated by illness.
Just to cap it all off, Dvortsin was suspended from practicing law in South Dakota for 115 days back in 2019, due to “misconduct concerning an immigration matter.”
Hey, what’s this – Karine Jean-Pierre, political changer?
Not sure what it means, and I very much doubt that Jean-Pierre has undergone any sort of significant political change to the right, or is eager to do some actual truth-telling, but she’s publishing a book – of course! – and the scoop is that she’s now an Independent. That covers a wide range of possibilities, including moving so far to the left that the Democrats are no longer radical enough.
But I’m interested, since political change is my specialty.
Jean-Pierre was given an impossible task, and she was extremely bad at it. Now she’s being blamed by the left for not succeeding at her impossible task, after they excoriated the right for criticizing her.
Typical stuff.
Three years ago, I wrote a post entitled “Am I the only person on the right who has some sympathy for Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre?” The answer to that question may just have been “yes,” according to most of the comments. But here’s a portion of what I wrote at the time:
Thing is, there are no good talking points for Jean-Pierre to fall back on. What can she say? Granted, I certainly don’t admire her for signing on to be an apologist for and booster of a corrupt president and a party dragging the country precipitously down. But whatever her reasons – personal belief system, personal ambition, all of the above or none of the above – her job is impossible. All she can do is preach to the choir, and weakly at that.
Plus – and this is actually the reason for my relative sympathy for her – she doesn’t have the snotty snark that Psaki had, the sheer duping delight I often saw in Psaki’s affect as she lied through her teeth without hesitation or shame. I think that what is perceived as Jean-Pierre’s failings may actually represent a problem she has with being required to constantly lie with no shame whatsoever (a problem that didn’t seem to perturb Psaki at all).
Maybe I’m giving Jean-Pierre too much benefit of the doubt; probably most of you think I am. But that’s what I see in her – or at least a glimmer of it.
That’s why I’m curious about her book and her supposed change to Independent. I may still be giving her much too much credit, even though I’m giving her very little.