The limits of grievance

Gilead

Donald Trump

Coup attempt


Fig. 1. “Jake Angeli (Qanon Shaman), seen holding a Qanon sign at the intersection of Bell Rd and 75th Ave in Peoria, Arizona, on 2020 October 15.” Photography by TheUnseen011101 [pseud.], October 15, 2020, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

When you have a candidate and supporters who are addicted to grievance,[1] an indictment, especially from someone associated with their political opposition, could be just the ticket to rile up those supporters. This, of course, is why a number of observers have worried that Donald Trump appears to be getting a boost from the indictment.[2]

It’s important to emphasize, however, that this boost occurs strictly within a limited subset of the electorate that would likely vote for Trump, if he’s the nominee, anyway, and would just as likely vote for Ron DeSantis should he win the nomination. So we’re talking about Republican Party primary politics here, not the general election, where the worriers too quickly omit all the people for whom this will be one more reason not to vote for Trump.

David Remnick, “An American Tragedy, Act III,” New Yorker, March 30, 2023, https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/an-american-tragedy-act-iii

Stormy Daniels


Fig. 1. Stormy Daniels at Ron Jeremy’s birthday party. Photograph by Luke Ford (Lukeisback.com), March 10, 2007, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5.

Ron Kampeas, “In American first, Manhattan jury indicts Donald Trump, who promptly invokes Soros,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 30, 2023, https://www.jta.org/2023/03/30/politics/in-american-first-manhattan-jury-indicts-donald-trump-who-promptly-invokes-soros

Bess Levin, “Grand Jury Votes to Indict Trump: Ex-President’s Odds of Prison Time Just Shot Up,” Vanity Fair, March 30, 2023, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/donald-trump-grand-jury-votes-to-indict

Corinne Ramey and Joe Palazzolo, “Grand Jury Votes to Indict Donald Trump,” Wall Street Journal, March 30, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/grand-jury-votes-to-indict-donald-trump-a9512240

David Remnick, “An American Tragedy, Act III,” New Yorker, March 30, 2023, https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/an-american-tragedy-act-iii

Perry Stein, “Trump is indicted in N.Y. Here’s what it means and what happens next,” Washington Post, March 30, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/03/30/donald-trump-indictment-what-it-means/

David Gilbert and Mack Lamoureux, “The Far Right Is Calling For Bloody ‘Civil War’ After Trump’s Indictment,” Vice, March 31, 2023, https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d9p9q/trump-indictment-civil-war-the-donald

Kara Scannell et al., “Donald Trump indicted by Manhattan grand jury on more than 30 counts related to business fraud,” CNN, March 31, 2023, https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/30/politics/donald-trump-indictment/index.html

Academic repression

Accreditation

Jarrod Kelly, “The Right-Wing War on Accreditation,” Chronicle of Higher Education, March 31, 2023, https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-right-wing-war-on-accreditation


  1. [1]James Kimmel, Jr., “What the Science of Addiction Tells Us About Trump,” Politico, December 12, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/12/trump-grievance-addiction-444570
  2. [2]David Remnick, “An American Tragedy, Act III,” New Yorker, March 30, 2023, https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/an-american-tragedy-act-iii

Indicted, Donald Trump plays to anti-Semites

Gilead

Donald Trump

Stormy Daniels


Fig. 1. Stormy Daniels at Ron Jeremy’s birthday party. Photograph by Luke Ford (Lukeisback.com), March 10, 2007, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5.

Minutes after former President Donald Trump was indicted by a grand jury in New York, his supporters flooded social media and extremist message boards with violent and racist threats against the officials prosecuting Trump, as well as bloody civil war.

“This cannot go unpunished,” one member of the rabidly pro-Trump message board The Donald wrote on Thursday night. “The DA needs to pay dearly.”

“None of this will stop unless there is blood in the streets,” another poster wrote.[1]

Within minutes of the news of the indictment leaking to media including The New York Times, [Donald] Trump, who is running for a second term in 2024, repeated his claim, now made daily in his campaign fundraising emails, that Jewish billionaire George Soros was behind the charge.[2]

For those who don’t know, invoking the name of George Soros is red meat for anti-Semites. I hardly even ever hear of him myself, except in paleoconservative rants.

That Donald Trump does this is further evidence of his embrace of the extreme paleoconservative and social conservative fringe of white Christian nationalism.[3] A few years ago, a majority of Republicans would have recoiled in horror. That they don’t supports my view of conservatism as increasingly monolithic[4] and is more likely to serve Republicans right than to serve them well in 2024.

Donald Trump faces more than 30 counts related to business fraud in an indictment from a Manhattan grand jury, according to two sources familiar with the case – the first time in American history that a current or former president has faced criminal charges.

Trump is expected to appear in court on Tuesday.

The indictment has been filed under seal and will be announced in the coming days. The charges are not publicly known at this time.[5]

So it’s a lot of charges, but

The New York Times has reported that the case may include a potential charge of falsifying business records under Article 175 of the New York Penal Law. A conviction for a felony version of bookkeeping fraud carries a sentence of up to four years.

To prove that Mr. [Donald] Trump committed that offense, prosecutors would seemingly need evidence showing that he had knowingly caused subordinates to make a false entry in his company’s records “with intent to defraud.” For the action to be a felony rather than a misdemeanor, prosecutors would also need to show that Mr. Trump falsified the business records with the intention of committing, aiding or concealing a second crime.[6]

For me, the pieces aren’t quite all put together: Will these be felony charges? It sure kinda looks like it, but because we don’t know the precise charges,[7] it’s hard to be sure.

Ron Kampeas, “In American first, Manhattan jury indicts Donald Trump, who promptly invokes Soros,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 30, 2023, https://www.jta.org/2023/03/30/politics/in-american-first-manhattan-jury-indicts-donald-trump-who-promptly-invokes-soros

Bess Levin, “Grand Jury Votes to Indict Trump: Ex-President’s Odds of Prison Time Just Shot Up,” Vanity Fair, March 30, 2023, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/donald-trump-grand-jury-votes-to-indict

Corinne Ramey and Joe Palazzolo, “Grand Jury Votes to Indict Donald Trump,” Wall Street Journal, March 30, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/grand-jury-votes-to-indict-donald-trump-a9512240

David Gilbert and Mack Lamoureux, “The Far Right Is Calling For Bloody ‘Civil War’ After Trump’s Indictment,” Vice, March 31, 2023, https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d9p9q/trump-indictment-civil-war-the-donald

Kara Scannell et al., “Donald Trump indicted by Manhattan grand jury on more than 30 counts related to business fraud,” CNN, March 31, 2023, https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/30/politics/donald-trump-indictment/index.html

White Christian nationalism


Fig. 1. In terms of geographic area, Pennsylvania is very much a white Christian nationalist kind of place. Photograph by author, January 5, 2023.

David Gilbert and Mack Lamoureux, “The Far Right Is Calling For Bloody ‘Civil War’ After Trump’s Indictment,” Vice, March 31, 2023, https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d9p9q/trump-indictment-civil-war-the-donald


San Francisco

Roland Li and Noah Arroyo, “Cities are struggling. San Francisco could be in for the biggest ‘doom loop’ of all,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 30, 2023, https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/city-economy-doom-loop-17846412.php


  1. [1]David Gilbert and Mack Lamoureux, “The Far Right Is Calling For Bloody ‘Civil War’ After Trump’s Indictment,” Vice, March 31, 2023, https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d9p9q/trump-indictment-civil-war-the-donald
  2. [2]Ron Kampeas, “In American first, Manhattan jury indicts Donald Trump, who promptly invokes Soros,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 30, 2023, https://www.jta.org/2023/03/30/politics/in-american-first-manhattan-jury-indicts-donald-trump-who-promptly-invokes-soros
  3. [3]David Benfell, “It should be obvious by now: Donald Trump and Doug Mastriano are not the future of the Republican Party,” Not Housebroken, March 29, 2023, https://disunitedstates.org/2023/03/26/it-should-be-obvious-by-now-donald-trump-and-doug-mastriano-are-not-the-future-of-the-republican-party/
  4. [4]David Benfell, “My 2024 forecast,” Not Housebroken, March 24, 2023, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/03/10/my-2024-forecast/
  5. [5]Kara Scannell et al., “Donald Trump indicted by Manhattan grand jury on more than 30 counts related to business fraud,” CNN, March 31, 2023, https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/30/politics/donald-trump-indictment/index.html
  6. [6]Charlie Savage, “Dissecting Charges That Could Arise From the Trump Investigations,” New York Times, March 19, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/19/us/politics/trump-investigations.html
  7. [7]Kara Scannell et al., “Donald Trump indicted by Manhattan grand jury on more than 30 counts related to business fraud,” CNN, March 31, 2023, https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/30/politics/donald-trump-indictment/index.html

Donald Trump finally indicted, but by a local grand jury

Gilead

Donald Trump

Stormy Daniels


Fig. 1. Stormy Daniels at Ron Jeremy’s birthday party. Photograph by Luke Ford (Lukeisback.com), March 10, 2007, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5.

A few of us have been longing to hear these words:

“This evening we contacted Mr. [Donald] Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender,” a[n] [Alvin] Bragg spokeswoman said.[1]

We still don’t know details of the charges; these will be revealed at Donald Trump’s arraignment[2] and I’m pretty sure it’s wisest to refrain from speculation until we see them.

Corinne Ramey and Joe Palazzolo, “Grand Jury Votes to Indict Donald Trump,” Wall Street Journal, March 30, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/grand-jury-votes-to-indict-donald-trump-a9512240

Twitter


Fig. 1. “Elon Musk shared a video of his entrance on his Twitter account.” Photograph attributed to Elon Musk, October 26, 2022, via the New York Post,[3] fair use.

Faiz Siddiqui and Jeremy B. Merrill, “Elon Musk’s Twitter pushes hate speech, extremist content into ‘For You’ pages,” Washington Post, March 30, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/30/elon-musk-twitter-hate-speech/


Work


Fig. 1. Yeah, this is me. The sign says, “If you’re whining about a labor shortage, STOP ignoring my job applications!” And the QR-code leads here. Photograph by author, January 16, 2023.

Nick Bilton, “Big Tech Companies Are Testing How Far They Can Slash Staff,” Vanity Fair, March 29, 2023, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/big-tech-layoffs-2023-twitter-meta-amazon-google

Justin Lahart, “Still Desperately Seeking Workers,” Wall Street Journal, March 30, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/still-desperately-seeking-workers-92126ddf


Imperialism

Russia

Ukraine


Fig. 1. “Destroyed Russian military vehicles located on the main street Khreshchatyk are seen as part of the celebration of the Independence Day of Ukraine in Kyiv, August 24.” Photograph by Gleb Garanich for Reuters, August 24, 2022,[4] fair use.

Lili Bayer and Leyla Aksu, “Finland cleared to join NATO following Turkish vote,” Politico, March 30, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/finland-join-nato-memeber-turkey-parliament-vote/


  1. [1]Corinne Ramey and Joe Palazzolo, “Grand Jury Votes to Indict Donald Trump,” Wall Street Journal, March 30, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/grand-jury-votes-to-indict-donald-trump-a9512240
  2. [2]Corinne Ramey and Joe Palazzolo, “Grand Jury Votes to Indict Donald Trump,” Wall Street Journal, March 30, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/grand-jury-votes-to-indict-donald-trump-a9512240
  3. [3]Thomas Barrabi, “Elon Musk barges into Twitter HQ as deal nears: ‘Let that sink in,’” New York Post, October 26, 2022, https://nypost.com/2022/10/26/elon-musk-barges-into-twitter-headquarters-as-deal-nears/
  4. [4]Reuters, “Ukraine puts destroyed Russian tanks on display in Kyiv,” August 25, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/ukraine-puts-destroyed-russian-tanks-on-idUSRTSALV9Q

What do banking problems, layoffs, and Twitter have to do with each other?

Work


Fig. 1. Yeah, this is me. The sign says, “If you’re whining about a labor shortage, STOP ignoring my job applications!” And the QR-code leads here. Photograph by author, January 16, 2023.

There is further evidence for describing our system as neo-feudal.[1]

The latest round of layoffs in Silicon Valley as a whole is largely tied to revenues and [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization] and keeping profit-seeking investors on Wall Street happy. Amazon’s stock is down 40% since this time last year. Alphabet’s stock is down about 28% over this time period. While Meta’s stock is now rebounding (largely because of laying off more than 25% of its workforce) the stock was decimated at the end of last year, after Meta’s value fell by hundreds of billions of dollars. Wall Street wants to know that these companies are innovating and beating one another in the never-ending tech wars. The math is simple: Work harder, work more, and innovate, or you get fired.[2]

If we had an economic system that actually worked for human beings, the question would not, as it now seems to be in high technology, be how many people we can lay off,[3] but rather, how many people we can employ and employ well.

Beyond that, in accepting an argument that high technology payrolls are bloated, Nick Bilton assumes that Twitter is surviving, simply because it hasn’t completely crashed yet.[4] That’s an astonishingly narrow view as Elon Musk has made the platform a home only for his extremist white Christian nationalist fanboys:[5]

The value that Twitter’s platform produced, by combining valuable streams of qualification and curiosity, is being beaten and wrung out. What’s left has — for months now — felt like an echo-y shell of its former self. And it’s clear that with every freshly destructive decision — whether it’s unbanning the nazis and letting the toxicity rip, turning verification into a pay-to-play megaphone or literally banning journalists — [Elon] Musk has applied his vast wealth to destroying as much of the information network’s value as possible in as short a time as possible; each decision triggering another exodus of expertise as more long-time users give up and depart. . . .

That our system allows wealth to be turned into a weapon to nuke things of broad societal value is one hard lesson we should take away from the wreckage of downed turquoise feathers.

You can say shame on the Twitter board that let it happen. And we probably should. But, technically speaking, their job was to maximize shareholder value; which means to hell with the rest of us.[6]

So whether we speak of the layoffs[7] or of Musk’s demolition of Twitter,[8] the conclusion is surprising only for how increasingly in our faces it is: a raised middle finger for humanity.

Nick Bilton, “Big Tech Companies Are Testing How Far They Can Slash Staff,” Vanity Fair, March 29, 2023, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/big-tech-layoffs-2023-twitter-meta-amazon-google


  1. [1]David Benfell, “The Silicon Valley Bank collapse exposes our system for what it is: neo-feudalism,” Not Housebroken, March 19, 2023, https://disunitedstates.org/2023/03/19/the-silicon-valley-bank-collapse-exposes-our-system-for-what-it-is-neo-feudalism/
  2. [2]Nick Bilton, “Big Tech Companies Are Testing How Far They Can Slash Staff,” Vanity Fair, March 29, 2023, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/big-tech-layoffs-2023-twitter-meta-amazon-google
  3. [3]Nick Bilton, “Big Tech Companies Are Testing How Far They Can Slash Staff,” Vanity Fair, March 29, 2023, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/big-tech-layoffs-2023-twitter-meta-amazon-google
  4. [4]Nick Bilton, “Big Tech Companies Are Testing How Far They Can Slash Staff,” Vanity Fair, March 29, 2023, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/big-tech-layoffs-2023-twitter-meta-amazon-google
  5. [5]Natasha Lomas, “Twitter is dying,” TechCrunch, March 28, 2023, https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/28/twitter-is-dying/
  6. [6]Natasha Lomas, “Twitter is dying,” TechCrunch, March 28, 2023, https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/28/twitter-is-dying/
  7. [7]Nick Bilton, “Big Tech Companies Are Testing How Far They Can Slash Staff,” Vanity Fair, March 29, 2023, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/big-tech-layoffs-2023-twitter-meta-amazon-google
  8. [8]Natasha Lomas, “Twitter is dying,” TechCrunch, March 28, 2023, https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/28/twitter-is-dying/

I don’t think you need to read this. At least not yet.

Banking

Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and Credit Suisse, 2023


Fig. 1. “The monument sign in front of the parking lot of the Silicon Valley Bank headquarters at 3003 West Tasman Drive, Santa Clara, California.” Photograph by Minh Nguyen, March 13, 2023, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

This is mostly inside baseball. It’s important to people who have money to throw around on financial markets, but not so much, at least as far as I can tell, to the rest of us. At least not yet.

I’m suspicious that might change because if we take Max Weber’s observation that any system of exchange privileges whomever is most able to say no, at the expense to those who are less able to say no, with the benefits and handicaps from each transaction accruing,[1] as a law, then a corollary, particularly visible in the “gig economy,” is surely that risks and costs will somehow be borne by those least able to bear them. And in the case of UBS buying Credit Suisse, folks who in the ordinary course of events would have been protected were in fact wiped out.[2]

If my corollary holds true, then somehow more ordinary folks will somehow be bearing a cost that Swiss regulators aimed at a particularly privileged class of bondholder.[3] I obviously have no idea how. But that will be when all this becomes important to the rest of us.

And that’s why I’m archiving this article. Not because I particularly think you should read it. At least not yet.

Bill Cohan, “A Bear Stearns Shit Sandwich in Switzerland,” Puck, March 29, 2023, https://puck.news/a-bear-stearns-shit-sandwich-in-switzerland/


Gilead

Competitive authoritarian regime project


Fig. 1. President Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Clarence Mitchell during signing ceremony of the voting rights act. Yoichi Okamoto, August 6, 1965, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Neil Vigdor, “Republicans Face Setbacks in Push to Tighten Voting Laws on College Campuses,” New York Times, March 29, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/29/us/politics/republicans-young-voters-college.html

Evangelical Protestants


Fig. 1. “You shall have no other gods before me.”[4] Photograph posted to Twitter by Antonia Lee Donnelly, February 16, 2020,[5] fair use.

So here’s an odd and somewhat dissonant thing. It turns out that many white Christian nationalists aren’t actually practicing Christians. Kelefa Sanneh compares many Christian nationalists’ identification as Christian to that of being Jewish: One can be a secular Jew, which is to say, Jewish by heritage even if not in actual practice. But the markers of white Christian nationalism are pretty much what you’d expect: fearful of societal change, ethnocentric, segregationist, and theocratic.[6]

Kelefa Sanneh, “How Christian Is Christian Nationalism?” New Yorker, March 27, 2023, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/04/03/how-christian-is-christian-nationalism

Gilead

White Christian nationalism (Trumpism)


Fig. 1. In terms of geographic area, Pennsylvania is very much a white Christian nationalist kind of place. Photograph by author, January 5, 2023.

Kelefa Sanneh, “How Christian Is Christian Nationalism?” New Yorker, March 27, 2023, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/04/03/how-christian-is-christian-nationalism


  1. [1]Max Weber, “Class, Status, Party,” in Social Theory, ed. Charles Lemert, 6th ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2017), 94-101.
  2. [2]Bill Cohan, “A Bear Stearns Shit Sandwich in Switzerland,” Puck, March 29, 2023, https://puck.news/a-bear-stearns-shit-sandwich-in-switzerland/
  3. [3]Bill Cohan, “A Bear Stearns Shit Sandwich in Switzerland,” Puck, March 29, 2023, https://puck.news/a-bear-stearns-shit-sandwich-in-switzerland/
  4. [4]Exod. 20:3.
  5. [5]Antonia Lee Donnelly, “Now I've seen everything,” Twitter, February 17, 2020, https://twitter.com/DonnellyAntonia/status/1229227422836559873
  6. [6]Kelefa Sanneh, “How Christian Is Christian Nationalism?” New Yorker, March 27, 2023, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/04/03/how-christian-is-christian-nationalism

About that long-term war

Imperialism

Russia

Ukraine


Fig. 1. “Destroyed Russian military vehicles located on the main street Khreshchatyk are seen as part of the celebration of the Independence Day of Ukraine in Kyiv, August 24.” Photograph by Gleb Garanich for Reuters, August 24, 2022,[1] fair use.

I am struggling with how to reconcile Vladimir Putin preparing Russia for a long war on Ukraine[2] with a deteriorating economic situation:[3]

There is no sign the economic difficulties are bad enough to pose a short-term threat to Russia’s ability to wage war. But state revenue shortfalls suggest an intensifying dilemma over how to reconcile ballooning military expenditures with the subsidies and social spending that have helped President Vladimir Putin shield civilians from hardship.

Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska warned this month that Russia is running out of cash. “There will be no money next year, we need foreign investors,” the raw-materials magnate said at an economic conference.[4]

Julia Ioffe, “Biden’s Private Ukraine Deadline,” Puck, March 28, 2023, https://puck.news/bidens-private-ukraine-deadline/

Georgi Kantchev and Evan Gershkovich, “Russia’s Economy Is Starting to Come Undone,” Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/russias-economy-is-starting-to-come-undone-431a2878

Pjotr Sauer and Andrew Roth, “Putin prepares Russia for ‘forever war’ with west as Ukraine invasion stalls,” Guardian, March 28, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/28/putin-prepares-russia-for-forever-war-with-west-as-ukraine-invasion-stalls

Ahmed Twaij, “Bush did what Putin’s doing — so why is he getting away?” al Jazeera, March 28, 2023, https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/3/28/putin-should-be-punished-so-must-bush


  1. [1]Reuters, “Ukraine puts destroyed Russian tanks on display in Kyiv,” August 25, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/ukraine-puts-destroyed-russian-tanks-on-idUSRTSALV9Q
  2. [2]Pjotr Sauer and Andrew Roth, “Putin prepares Russia for ‘forever war’ with west as Ukraine invasion stalls,” Guardian, March 28, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/28/putin-prepares-russia-for-forever-war-with-west-as-ukraine-invasion-stalls
  3. [3]Georgi Kantchev and Evan Gershkovich, “Russia’s Economy Is Starting to Come Undone,” Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/russias-economy-is-starting-to-come-undone-431a2878
  4. [4]Georgi Kantchev and Evan Gershkovich, “Russia’s Economy Is Starting to Come Undone,” Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/russias-economy-is-starting-to-come-undone-431a2878

The entitled

I’m off to get my car detailed. This is a rush issue.


Pennsylvania

Traffic non-enforcement


Fig. 1. Obviously, nowhere near Pittsburgh: “A Pennsylvania state trooper checks motorists’ speed using a radar gun.” Unattributed photograph credited only to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.[1]

Over the last year, 30,630 vehicles caught speeding on Roosevelt Boulevard dodged tickets because the drivers were traveling without a license plate, according to the Philadelphia Parking Authority. . . .

And 240 vehicles with no plates were clocked at 100 mph or more, the report said. . . .

An unknown number of speeding violations on Roosevelt Boulevard could not be processed because vehicles used false temporary license tags, officials said. PPA staff have also noticed more plates with covered numbers.[2]

Thomas Fitzgerald, “Cars with missing or covered plates are foiling speed cameras on Roosevelt Blvd.,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 28, 2023, https://www.inquirer.com/transportation/roosevelt-boulevard-speed-camera-ticket-evasion-fake-license-plates-20230328.html


Imperialism


Fig. 1. “Map of the Roman Empire during 69AD, the Year of the Four Emperors. Coloured areas indicate provinces loyal to one of four warring generals.” Original: User:Steerpike and en:User:Andrei nacu, August 11, 2009, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

About that hypocrisy I was mentioning . . . Ahmed Twaij calls for charges against George W. Bush[3] like those against Vladimir Putin.[4] It’s a completely fair point.[5]

And, of course, the discrepancy between the two cases supports—even when (not always) they are too dim-witted to quite articulate it—“tankies’” point that U.S. and European support for Ukraine is U.S. imperialism. The charge can omit that Putin is the aggressor by the very failure to treat Bush as we would Putin.

But the question is whether you consistently and reliably oppose imperialist aggression regardless of consequences for the perpetrators. If your priority is retribution, then of course you adopt the “tankies’” view. If your priority is peace, then of course you oppose the aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine in equal measure and must understand that rewarding aggressors with territory—the “tankies’” demand—simply encourages more aggression.[6]

Ahmed Twaij, “Bush did what Putin’s doing — so why is he getting away?” al Jazeera, March 28, 2023, https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/3/28/putin-should-be-punished-so-must-bush

Russia

Ukraine


Fig. 1. “Destroyed Russian military vehicles located on the main street Khreshchatyk are seen as part of the celebration of the Independence Day of Ukraine in Kyiv, August 24.” Photograph by Gleb Garanich for Reuters, August 24, 2022,[7] fair use.

Julia Ioffe, “Biden’s Private Ukraine Deadline,” Puck, March 28, 2023, https://puck.news/bidens-private-ukraine-deadline/

Ahmed Twaij, “Bush did what Putin’s doing — so why is he getting away?” al Jazeera, March 28, 2023, https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/3/28/putin-should-be-punished-so-must-bush

Pjotr Sauer and Andrew Roth, “Putin prepares Russia for ‘forever war’ with west as Ukraine invasion stalls,” Guardian, March 28, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/28/putin-prepares-russia-for-forever-war-with-west-as-ukraine-invasion-stalls

United States

Iraq

Ahmed Twaij, “Bush did what Putin’s doing — so why is he getting away?” al Jazeera, March 28, 2023, https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/3/28/putin-should-be-punished-so-must-bush


  1. [1]Associated Press, “Senate OKs local police using radar for speed enforcement,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, June 23, 2021, https://triblive.com/news/pennsylvania/senate-oks-local-police-using-radar-for-speed-enforcement/
  2. [2]Thomas Fitzgerald, “Cars with missing or covered plates are foiling speed cameras on Roosevelt Blvd.,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 28, 2023, https://www.inquirer.com/transportation/roosevelt-boulevard-speed-camera-ticket-evasion-fake-license-plates-20230328.html
  3. [3]Ahmed Twaij, “Bush did what Putin’s doing — so why is he getting away?” al Jazeera, March 28, 2023, https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/3/28/putin-should-be-punished-so-must-bush
  4. [4]Mike Corder and Raf Casert, “International court issues war crimes warrant for Putin,” Associated Press, March 17, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/icc-putin-war-crimes-ukraine-9857eb68d827340394960eccf0589253; Emma Graham-Harrison and Pjotr Sauer, “Joe Biden hails decision to issue ICC arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin,” Guardian, March 18, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/18/biden-hails-decision-icc-arrest-warrant-against-putin
  5. [5]Ishaan Tharoor, “20 years later, U.S. invasion of Iraq hangs over war in Ukraine,” Washington Post, March 17, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2023/03/17/iraq-invasion-ukraine-history-shadow/; Ishaan Tharoor, “Biden’s Summit for Democracy is a tough hill to climb,” Washington Post, March 29, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2023/03/29/summit-for-democracy-biden-critics/
  6. [6]David Benfell, “Because, somehow, Russian imperialism is okay,” Not Housebroken, October 19, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/10/19/because-somehow-russian-imperialism-is-okay/; David Benfell, “Where does Vladimir Putin stop?” Not Housebroken, November 16, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/03/04/where-does-vladimir-putin-stop/
  7. [7]Reuters, “Ukraine puts destroyed Russian tanks on display in Kyiv,” August 25, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/ukraine-puts-destroyed-russian-tanks-on-idUSRTSALV9Q

When hypocrites seek to persuade the delusional

Imperialism

Russia

Ukraine


Fig. 1. “Destroyed Russian military vehicles located on the main street Khreshchatyk are seen as part of the celebration of the Independence Day of Ukraine in Kyiv, August 24.” Photograph by Gleb Garanich for Reuters, August 24, 2022,[1] fair use.

For all the on-the-record praise of the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy, a different story emerges off the record:[2]

It turns out that Washington’s foreign policy set has grown increasingly frustrated with the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy. What is it, exactly? On one hand, the administration has been consistent in its line on Ukraine: Ukraine must win, nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine, this must not turn into World War III, and we must defend and strengthen the rules-based (and American-designed) international order.

But what does any of that really mean? What does winning in Ukraine even look like? Do we agree with Ukraine that it means restoring its 1991 borders? If we advocate for “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,” then what did it mean when Antony Blinken—just “Tony” to the community—told a group of experts that Crimea was Putin’s red line, and therefore America’s as well? Does our concept of victory actually diverge from the Ukrainians’ vision? And what does “as long as it takes” mean in the context of providing Ukraine with more sensitive weapons systems, like ATACMS, or dwindling weapons stocks in the U.S. and Europe? How “all in” are we? “If they have a strategy, it hasn’t been shared,” one expert on these regular briefing calls with administration officials complained.[3]

The fear is that U.S. support will expire this autumn as both Republican and Democratic Party Congress members’ constituents’ questions intensify about the level of U.S. financial support for Ukraine.[4]

“We rhetorically say something and then we revert to incrementalism,” one participant in the calls told me after dutifully praising the president. “That’s a bipartisan comment, by the way. We engage in this really high rhetoric and we just hope no one’s going to call us on it. But we’re going to get called on this one. We’re not playing for success, we’re playing for stalemate—and stalemate is not going to be successful for us.”[5]

Meanwhile,

More than a year into an invasion that, according to Russian planning, was supposed to take weeks, Vladimir Putin’s government is putting society on a war footing with the west and digging in for a multi-year conflict.[6]

Really, this question has been with us from the beginning: How long will the west support Ukraine? And from long before Vladimir Putin’s latest invasion of Ukraine, is it merely that a determined dictator can outlast so-called “democracies?”

We see that Russia’s military is preparing for a long war. [Vladimir] Putin is banking that his country’s resources will trump Ukraine’s as the west gets tired of helping Kyiv.[7]

Wars of attrition shed lot of blood for not very much. Ukraine therefore has a tall, existential order: It must, as Julia Ioffe reports, achieve significant successes on the battlefield to forestall western malaise.[8] But really, it must also persuade a delusional Putin—and the Russian population he has deluded[9]—that he cannot prevail in this way.

[Vladimir] Putin has practically stopped talking about any concrete aims of the war. He proposes no vision of what a future victory might look like either. The war has no clearcut beginning nor a foreseeable end.[10]

The latter part of that order seems unlikely.

Julia Ioffe, “Biden’s Private Ukraine Deadline,” Puck, March 28, 2023, https://puck.news/bidens-private-ukraine-deadline/

Pjotr Sauer and Andrew Roth, “Putin prepares Russia for ‘forever war’ with west as Ukraine invasion stalls,” Guardian, March 28, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/28/putin-prepares-russia-for-forever-war-with-west-as-ukraine-invasion-stalls


Illiberalism


Fig. 1. Photograph by Joachim F. Thurn, August 1991, Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F089030-0003, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE.

Critics of Joe Biden’s Summit For Democracy rightly point to hypocrisy. Defenders say it’s better than nothing.[11]

Steve Hendrix, “Netanyahu’s political touch eludes him as Israel spirals into chaos,” Washington Post, March 26, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/03/26/israel-judicial-reform-netanyahu-protests/

Steve Hendrix and Shira Rubin, “Netanyahu fires defense minister who called for halt to judicial overhaul,” Washington Post, March 26, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/03/26/israel-netanyahu-gallant-defense-minister/

Patrick Kingsley, “Israel Boils as Netanyahu Ousts Minister Who Bucked Court Overhaul,” New York Times, March 26, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/26/world/middleeast/judiciary-overhaul-benjamin-netanyahu-israel-parliament.html

Bernard Avishai, “Has Benjamin Netanyahu’s Assault on Israeli Democracy Been Stopped?” New Yorker, March 27, 2023, https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/has-benjamin-netanyahus-assault-on-israeli-democracy-been-stopped

Dov Lieber, Aaron Boxerman, and Shayndi Raice, “Israel’s Netanyahu Suspends Judicial Overhaul After Mass Protests,” Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/strike-called-flights-grounded-in-israel-over-netanyahus-judicial-overhaul-plan-e8c95930

Maayan Lubell, “Netanyahu agrees to delay Israel’s judicial overhaul until next parliament session,” Reuters, March 27, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-president-urges-halt-judicial-overhaul-after-protests-2023-03-27/

Ben Sales, “Protests and strike rock Israel as future of Netanyahu’s judicial reforms falls into doubt,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 27, 2023, https://www.jta.org/2023/03/27/israel/protests-and-strike-rock-israel-as-future-of-netanyahus-judicial-reforms-falls-into-doubt

Ishaan Tharoor, “Israel’s democratic crisis is about more than just Netanyahu,” Washington Post, March 27, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2023/03/27/israel-democratic-crisis-ideological-divide-netanyahu/

Tracy Wilkinson and Laura King, “Israel’s protests, Netanyahu and the crisis his government unleashed,” Los Angeles Times, March 27, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-03-27/can-israels-netanyahu-escape-crisis-his-government-unleashed

Ishaan Tharoor, “Netanyahu’s Israel finds kindred spirits in Hungary and Poland,” Washington Post, March 28, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2023/03/28/netanyahu-israel-hungary-poland-orban-illiberal-nationalist/

Jacob Magid, “Biden: Israel ‘cannot continue down this road’; no Netanyahu invite in ‘near term,’” Times of Israel, March 29, 2023, https://www.timesofisrael.com/biden-israel-cannot-continue-down-this-road-no-netanyahu-invite-in-near-term/

Ishaan Tharoor, “Biden’s Summit for Democracy is a tough hill to climb,” Washington Post, March 29, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2023/03/29/summit-for-democracy-biden-critics/


  1. [1]Reuters, “Ukraine puts destroyed Russian tanks on display in Kyiv,” August 25, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/ukraine-puts-destroyed-russian-tanks-on-idUSRTSALV9Q
  2. [2]Julia Ioffe, “Biden’s Private Ukraine Deadline,” Puck, March 28, 2023, https://puck.news/bidens-private-ukraine-deadline/
  3. [3]Julia Ioffe, “Biden’s Private Ukraine Deadline,” Puck, March 28, 2023, https://puck.news/bidens-private-ukraine-deadline/
  4. [4]Julia Ioffe, “Biden’s Private Ukraine Deadline,” Puck, March 28, 2023, https://puck.news/bidens-private-ukraine-deadline/
  5. [5]Julia Ioffe, “Biden’s Private Ukraine Deadline,” Puck, March 28, 2023, https://puck.news/bidens-private-ukraine-deadline/
  6. [6]Pjotr Sauer and Andrew Roth, “Putin prepares Russia for ‘forever war’ with west as Ukraine invasion stalls,” Guardian, March 28, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/28/putin-prepares-russia-for-forever-war-with-west-as-ukraine-invasion-stalls
  7. [7]Rob Lee, quoted in Pjotr Sauer and Andrew Roth, “Putin prepares Russia for ‘forever war’ with west as Ukraine invasion stalls,” Guardian, March 28, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/28/putin-prepares-russia-for-forever-war-with-west-as-ukraine-invasion-stalls
  8. [8]Julia Ioffe, “Biden’s Private Ukraine Deadline,” Puck, March 28, 2023, https://puck.news/bidens-private-ukraine-deadline/
  9. [9]Pjotr Sauer and Andrew Roth, “Putin prepares Russia for ‘forever war’ with west as Ukraine invasion stalls,” Guardian, March 28, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/28/putin-prepares-russia-for-forever-war-with-west-as-ukraine-invasion-stalls
  10. [10]Maxim Trudolyubov, quoted in Pjotr Sauer and Andrew Roth, “Putin prepares Russia for ‘forever war’ with west as Ukraine invasion stalls,” Guardian, March 28, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/28/putin-prepares-russia-for-forever-war-with-west-as-ukraine-invasion-stalls
  11. [11]Ishaan Tharoor, “Biden’s Summit for Democracy is a tough hill to climb,” Washington Post, March 29, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2023/03/29/summit-for-democracy-biden-critics/

The limits to the crazy

Illiberalism


Fig. 1. Photograph by Joachim F. Thurn, August 1991, Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F089030-0003, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE.

If you really want to capture your democracy, you always start with the most important guardrail, and this is judicial review. The ruling majority understood that if you have an independent court in place, the constitutional capture will never work because the constitutional court would always stand in the way.[1]

Even before [Binyamin] Netanyahu acted [to suspend the push for judicial reform subordination], the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, and the opposition leaders Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid had welcomed an opportunity for a real dialogue; in fact, Herzog had presented his own formula for judicial reform earlier in the month. Yet both Herzog and Lapid committed to enshrine protections for equality and individual liberty in law—which, arguably, some of Netanyahu’s theocratic allies could never accept. Dialogue, in that case, only delays the inevitable collision. Indeed, it is no longer clear that reappointing [Yoav] Gallant, or even merely suspending the judicial assault, will calm down the streets. (Dialogue with a threat of the package’s reintroduction hanging over the talks would be, [Ehud] Barak had said, “between the wolf and the lamb, about what to eat for dinner.”)[2]

The more I learn about this judicial subordination package, the more it appears to me to mirror the polarization in the U.S. And as in the U.S., the course of the country depends upon limits to the crazy, limits we saw in the U.S. midterm elections last year, limits we really have yet to see in Israel.

Steve Hendrix, “Netanyahu’s political touch eludes him as Israel spirals into chaos,” Washington Post, March 26, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/03/26/israel-judicial-reform-netanyahu-protests/

Steve Hendrix and Shira Rubin, “Netanyahu fires defense minister who called for halt to judicial overhaul,” Washington Post, March 26, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/03/26/israel-netanyahu-gallant-defense-minister/

Patrick Kingsley, “Israel Boils as Netanyahu Ousts Minister Who Bucked Court Overhaul,” New York Times, March 26, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/26/world/middleeast/judiciary-overhaul-benjamin-netanyahu-israel-parliament.html

Bernard Avishai, “Has Benjamin Netanyahu’s Assault on Israeli Democracy Been Stopped?” New Yorker, March 27, 2023, https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/has-benjamin-netanyahus-assault-on-israeli-democracy-been-stopped

Dov Lieber, Aaron Boxerman, and Shayndi Raice, “Israel’s Netanyahu Suspends Judicial Overhaul After Mass Protests,” Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/strike-called-flights-grounded-in-israel-over-netanyahus-judicial-overhaul-plan-e8c95930

Maayan Lubell, “Netanyahu agrees to delay Israel’s judicial overhaul until next parliament session,” Reuters, March 27, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-president-urges-halt-judicial-overhaul-after-protests-2023-03-27/

Ben Sales, “Protests and strike rock Israel as future of Netanyahu’s judicial reforms falls into doubt,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 27, 2023, https://www.jta.org/2023/03/27/israel/protests-and-strike-rock-israel-as-future-of-netanyahus-judicial-reforms-falls-into-doubt

Ishaan Tharoor, “Israel’s democratic crisis is about more than just Netanyahu,” Washington Post, March 27, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2023/03/27/israel-democratic-crisis-ideological-divide-netanyahu/

Tracy Wilkinson and Laura King, “Israel’s protests, Netanyahu and the crisis his government unleashed,” Los Angeles Times, March 27, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-03-27/can-israels-netanyahu-escape-crisis-his-government-unleashed

Ishaan Tharoor, “Netanyahu’s Israel finds kindred spirits in Hungary and Poland,” Washington Post, March 28, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2023/03/28/netanyahu-israel-hungary-poland-orban-illiberal-nationalist/

Jacob Magid, “Biden: Israel ‘cannot continue down this road’; no Netanyahu invite in ‘near term,’” Times of Israel, March 29, 2023, https://www.timesofisrael.com/biden-israel-cannot-continue-down-this-road-no-netanyahu-invite-in-near-term/


Gilead

Donald Trump

Stormy Daniels


Fig. 1. Stormy Daniels at Ron Jeremy’s birthday party. Photograph by Luke Ford (Lukeisback.com), March 10, 2007, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5.

Eriq Gardner writes principally about a civil matter, “the case of writer E. Jean Carroll, who is suing Trump for defamation over an alleged rape in the mid-1990s,” being heard, apparently, in the same courthouse as the Stormy Daniels matter. Gardner is intrigued that the judge has ordered that the jury be kept anonymous, to protect them from threats and violence that Donald Trump might instigate. Gardner thinks Trump and his team might be unable or unwilling to contain themselves, which could land Trump in jail.[3]

It’s not nearly as exciting a story as the headline makes it sound[4]—perhaps that would be prison odds rather than jail odds. Still, it illustrates the complications of Trump’s legal situation:

The conditions for Trump’s continued freedom would presumably include following all court orders—even in cases happening “next door.” And this ruling in favor of an anonymous jury might not be Kaplan’s last decision aimed at protecting the sanctity of the coming trial. How might all this play out? Your imagination is as good as mine.[5]

I’m calling bullshit here. Because you know and I know that Gardner is dead on about Trump and his lawyers likely failing to “follow[] all court orders.” Gardner never, not even once, whispers the word “contempt,”[6] but you know and I know that’s gotta be on our bingo cards.

Eriq Gardner, “Trump’s Jail Odds & Biden’s Diary Fallout,” Puck, March 27, 2023, https://puck.news/trumps-jail-odds-bidens-diary-fallout/

Bess Levin, “Report: Melania Trump Is Still Pissed About Stormy Daniels, Has No Sympathy About Trump Facing Prison Time,” Vanity Fair, March 27, 2023, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/melania-trump-donald-trump-stormy-daniels-indictment

Right-wing militias

Police White supremacist gangs


Fig. 1. Photograph by Lorie Shaull, April 1, 2021, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Brian Howey, “After police killings, families are kept in the dark and grilled for information,” Los Angeles Times, March 28, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-28/police-shootings-california-families-grilled-information


  1. [1]Tomasz Tadeusz Koncewicz, quoted in Ishaan Tharoor, “Netanyahu’s Israel finds kindred spirits in Hungary and Poland,” Washington Post, March 28, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2023/03/28/netanyahu-israel-hungary-poland-orban-illiberal-nationalist/
  2. [2]Bernard Avishai, “Has Benjamin Netanyahu’s Assault on Israeli Democracy Been Stopped?” New Yorker, March 27, 2023, https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/has-benjamin-netanyahus-assault-on-israeli-democracy-been-stopped
  3. [3]Eriq Gardner, “Trump’s Jail Odds & Biden’s Diary Fallout,” Puck, March 27, 2023, https://puck.news/trumps-jail-odds-bidens-diary-fallout/
  4. [4]Eriq Gardner, “Trump’s Jail Odds & Biden’s Diary Fallout,” Puck, March 27, 2023, https://puck.news/trumps-jail-odds-bidens-diary-fallout/
  5. [5]Eriq Gardner, “Trump’s Jail Odds & Biden’s Diary Fallout,” Puck, March 27, 2023, https://puck.news/trumps-jail-odds-bidens-diary-fallout/
  6. [6]Eriq Gardner, “Trump’s Jail Odds & Biden’s Diary Fallout,” Puck, March 27, 2023, https://puck.news/trumps-jail-odds-bidens-diary-fallout/

Israel’s court subordination project will resume in a month

Illiberalism


Fig. 1. Photograph by Joachim F. Thurn, August 1991, Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F089030-0003, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE.

Mr. [Binyamin] Netanyahu vowed to continue to advance the judicial overhaul once Israel’s parliament reconvenes at the end of April after a spring recess that begins at the end of the week.[1]

Steve Hendrix, “Netanyahu’s political touch eludes him as Israel spirals into chaos,” Washington Post, March 26, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/03/26/israel-judicial-reform-netanyahu-protests/

Steve Hendrix and Shira Rubin, “Netanyahu fires defense minister who called for halt to judicial overhaul,” Washington Post, March 26, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/03/26/israel-netanyahu-gallant-defense-minister/

Patrick Kingsley, “Israel Boils as Netanyahu Ousts Minister Who Bucked Court Overhaul,” New York Times, March 26, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/26/world/middleeast/judiciary-overhaul-benjamin-netanyahu-israel-parliament.html

Dov Lieber, Aaron Boxerman, and Shayndi Raice, “Israel’s Netanyahu Suspends Judicial Overhaul After Mass Protests,” Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/strike-called-flights-grounded-in-israel-over-netanyahus-judicial-overhaul-plan-e8c95930

Maayan Lubell, “Netanyahu agrees to delay Israel’s judicial overhaul until next parliament session,” Reuters, March 27, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-president-urges-halt-judicial-overhaul-after-protests-2023-03-27/

Ben Sales, “Protests and strike rock Israel as future of Netanyahu’s judicial reforms falls into doubt,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 27, 2023, https://www.jta.org/2023/03/27/israel/protests-and-strike-rock-israel-as-future-of-netanyahus-judicial-reforms-falls-into-doubt

Ishaan Tharoor, “Israel’s democratic crisis is about more than just Netanyahu,” Washington Post, March 27, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2023/03/27/israel-democratic-crisis-ideological-divide-netanyahu/


  1. [1]Dov Lieber, Aaron Boxerman, and Shayndi Raice, “Israel’s Netanyahu Suspends Judicial Overhaul After Mass Protests,” Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/strike-called-flights-grounded-in-israel-over-netanyahus-judicial-overhaul-plan-e8c95930