SATIRE IS DEAD, KILLED BY REALITY:

Link to original.

THE ABSURD AMERICAN POLITICS OF RACE: I wonder if I’m the only one who noticed that the “candidate of color,” Mamdani, in the NYC mayoral Democratic primary seems to be (from pics, haven’t seen them in person) significantly fairer-skinned than the “white candidate,” Andrew Cuomo?

THE SILENCE THAT NEVER SHUTS UP: Generally speaking, antisemites aren’t the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, but I nevertheless find it remarkable how often they say that “no one is allowed to say “X” about something related to Jews,” even though there they are, saying it, and no one is arresting or murdering them. It’s particularly illogical when it comes from someone with an audience of millions, like Tucker Carlson. The notion that Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad agent is a baseless conspiracy theory, but yes, Tucker, you are allowed to promote it anyway, because there isn’t some international Jew police stopping you, and it’s not the least bit brave for you to go down this particular road to perdition.

CAMPUS ANTISEMITISM HAS THE SAME ROOTS AND SHOULD BE FOUGHT WITH THE SAME MEANS AS OTHER MANIFESTATIONS OF INTERSECTIONAL WOKENESS: Free speech, antisemitism and the fight for America’s campuses: “What we are witnessing on campus is not just a wave of anti-Israel sentiment. It is part of a larger assault on liberalism [in the broad sense] itself.”

FINAL VERSION PUBLISHED: Supporting Free Speech and Countering Antisemitism on American College Campuses.

My coauthored article makes a number of contributions to the relevant debate, but let me highlight one of them. Many “pro-Palestine” activists have been gaslighting us regarding what’s been happening on campus, portraying it as a conflict between between freedom of expression and censorship attempts by “Zionists.” In fact, as we discuss, most of the controversy over antisemitism has arisen because of violence, threats, intimidation, trespass, assault, disruptions of classrooms and other campus spaces, harassment of individual students, discrimination by university bureaucrats, and other actions that do not reasonably come within a sound definition of “freedom of expression.”

“HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS” ARE A JOKE: The latest idiocy is that it’s purportedly a human rights violation to feed hungry civilians in Gaza unless Hamas gets a large cut.

PROMISE MADE, PROMISE KEPT: I was there when Trump said this last September: “I wanted one thing from Iran, no nuclear weapons. I didn’t want much, no nuclear weapons. And now, they’re very close to getting it, and you can’t let that happen.”

Iran should have taken him seriously and literally.

SORRY AOC, HE’S MARRIED:

WARNING: MAY LEAVE A SMILE ON YOUR FACE ALL DAY: Confirmed video shows the moment Israel hits Iran’s state propaganda channel.

IRGC propaganda arm just hit

Alleged video shows the moment an IDF airstrike hit the headquarters of Iran’s state broadcaster in Tehran. https://t.co/fLLnzag538 pic.twitter.com/5i8WWH3EfR

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) June 16, 2025

I DON’T THINK THE AYATOLLAH IS TRYING TO BRING THE US INTO THE WAR: But some of his subordinates seem to have other ideas. Iran-backed militias in Iraq have tried to attack US bases with drones. And yesterday the US embassy annex in Tel Aviv, which is really our primary building in Israel, was damaged by an Iranian rocket. I am very familiar with the geography there, my wife once did a “detail” for the US government in that building. On one side, you have beach and ocean. On the other, you have mostly low-rise buildings and parking lots. To the north and south, you have a bunch of scattered hotels, with space between them. In short, if you are firing rockets accurate within X meters, but not fully accurate, this is not an area you’d be targeting because you’d be unlikely to hit anything significant, and your rocket might well just fall into the ocean. Which suggests that someone was, in fact, targeting the embassy.

HOW MANY PEOPLE SEE THIS, AND ARE TOO DUMB OR BLINDED BY THEIR PRIORS TO NOTICE THAT HIS SKIN IS ACTUALLY LIGHTER IN THE SECOND PHOTO: It’s an awfully odd form of “Islamaphobic” racism to make your opponent look fairer-skinned.

DOWNLOAD IT WHILE IT’S HOT: My friend and namesake David L. Bernstein–author of the extremely timely book Woke Antisemitism–and I have a new article forthcoming this month, Supporting Free Speech and Countering Antisemitism on American College Campuses.

In short, universities don’t have to, and should not, infringe on anyone’s freedom of speech to crack down on antisemitism. They just need to enforce university policy and the law. This means expelling students who engage in vandalism, harassment, building takeovers, illegal encampments, class disruptions, violence, and so on, firing professors who discriminate against Jewish, Israeli, or “Zionist” students, and ensuring that administrators, including faculty who have administrative roles, don’t play use those roles to engage in antisemitic discrimination.

Also, no ideologically driven double standards: “The basic test for university enforcement of conduct rules should be this: if a group of student white supremacists was engaging in this behavior, are there existing rules that could be enforced and therefore would be enforced to stop them? If the answer is yes,” then just enforce the rules, period, zero tolerance.

For the full argument, read the whole thing.

Bonus fun fact: David L.’s book came out around the same time as my book Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America. We both had the same editor: David S. Bernstein.

THE NY TIMES WILL PROBABLY NEVER FIGURE OUT THE MOTIVE: Also, they were not murdered because they were “embassy aides,” the perp just shot a random couple attending a Jewish event.

GLOBALIZING THE INTIFADA IN DC: Last night’s murder of two Israeli embassy employees outside an event held at a Jewish museum was an attack on Jews, period. A political assassination of Israeli diplomates would be bad enough, but this was simply an antisemitic attack by someone chanting “Free Palestine.”

(1) The event was not an Israeli event or even a pro-Israel event, it was an event for young Jews interested in foreign affairs sponsored by the American Jewish Congress (AJC). A close relative of mine, who is not Israeli and has nothing to do with Israeli politics was there.
(2) The couple murdered were not Israelis, one was American, the other German. The Israeli embassy employed them as foreigners, embassies typically have local staff. [Correction based on ne reporting: One victim grew up in Germany, but later became an Israeli citizen.]
(3) They were randomly targeted after attending the Jewish event.

This is what Globalize the Intifada and similar rhetoric means, those who have apologizing for it, or worse justifying it, are morally culpable.

UPDATE: Thank you for the New York Times today, for informing us about the debate over whether extremist rhetoric at Hamasnik rallies is inciting violence against Jews.

NOTHING SAYS IMPARTIALITY AND NEUTRALITY LIKE UNRWA’S LONG COLLABORATION WITH HAMAS: What a clown show the whole UN/NGO complex is.

EVEN YALE (MY LAW SCHOOL ALMA MATER) IS LOOKING RELATIVELY GOOD (BUT ONLY RELATIVELY): I Don’t Mean to Brag, but I Didn’t Go to Harvard. Money quote: “It’s almost like certain Harvard affiliates want to give the Trump administration ammunition in its war against the university.”

NEWS YOU WON’T FIND IN THE NEW YORK TIMES: Potential deportee and Columbia grad student Mohsen Mahdawi won a habeas hearing yesterday. That perhaps temporary victory should not obscure the truly blockbuster revelation in the judge’s opinion, that Mahdawi was reported to the authorities and investigated by the FBI in 2015 after he told a gun store owner that he was involved in murdering Jews in Israel, and telling another individual that he liked to kill Jews, all why eyeing various firearms. The judge, seemingly intent on teaching the Trump administration a lesson did not take these statements very seriously, but (a) Mahdawi should have been referred to ICE for deportation in 2015; and (b) if he can’t be deported now, something is very wrong with our immigration system. Meanwhile, I won’t bother linking to the Times’ story on the habeas ruling but, no surprise, no mention of Mahdawi’s love of Jew-killing.

HAMASNIK MOB CHOOSES THE WRONG TARGET: How it started:

How it ended:

THIS IS WHAT “GLOBALIZE THE INTIFADA,” A FAVORITE SLOGAN OF HAMASNIKS, LOOKS LIKE: Suspect in Shapiro arson attack cited plight of Palestinians.

Nothing to see here, just a leftist loon taking campus Hamasnik rhetoric seriously and trying to murder a Jewish governor and his family on the first night of Passover.

THE TRUTH HURTS: A friend writes: “The Left tries to portray their support for college Hamasniks as being the 1970s ACLU defending the Nazis, except they actually like the Hamasniks. So, it’s more like the 1970s Nazis defending the Nazis.”

AL JAZEERA ON THE POTOMAC: That’s what I’ve been calling the Washington Post on social media, but I may have been understating things.

MODERN DAY NAZIS HOLDING AN ANTI-NAZI RALLY: Because to left, “Nazi” means “people I disagree with” and has little if anything to do with actual Nazis. By the way, but “support of Israel” they mean only that the rabbi thinks Israel should continue to exist. The only way Israel will cease to exist is through mass murder and expulsion. Hence, modern Nazis.

THIS IS WHAT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA SURGERY DEPT IS UP TO INSTEAD OF, YOU KNOW, TEACHING SURGERY: These tweets are all in the last two weeks… And, not joking, I initially thought the first tweet on the surgery Grand Rounds on voting rights was satire from the Babylon Bee or something.

UPDATE: It turns out that the UVA Board of Visitors just announced the dismantlement of the DEI infrastructure at the university. Maybe in time to save a few lives.

AND IT’S JUST THE OPENING SALVO: Trump Administration Cancels $400 Million in Grants to Columbia University.

Literally all Columbia had to do to avoid all this was to enforce its preexisting rules about campus behavior, and the law, and not give special treatment to Hamasnik students, faculty, and outside agitators. And also cooperate with Congressional investigators looking into Title VI violations, rather than stonewalling hoping that things would blow over after the 2024 elections. That’s really it.

As a former research fellow at Columbia Law School (1994-95) I hate to say it, but not only am I not going to go the ramparts to defend Columbia, I’d be happy to dance on its grave. Let it go bankrupt, and have Yeshiva University buy up its assets.

WELL, THAT’S DISAPPOINTING: “[NIH chair nominee Jay] Bhattacharya was also asked about how the Trump administration’s anti-DEI crusade might affect scientific research. For example, would efforts to include minorities in clinical trials be undermined? Bhattacharya said no.”

Comment from DB: Biomedical research should be focused on genetics and how that influences health risks and outcomes. The government, however, requires researchers to focus on human diversity not based on genetics, but on unscientific racial and ethnic classifications invented by the government in the 1970s for entirely different purposes. These classifications at best are weak proxies for genetic diversity, and more often are completely nonsensical. What do we learn by using data on “Hispanics,” who can be 100% European, 100% Indigenous, 100% African, or any combination? What does a study on “Hispanic” Cubans in Miami tell us about “Hispanic” Dominicans in New York? Or take the “Asian American” classification, which includes Caucasian South Asians, East Asians, and Filipino Austronesians, groups that have nothing more genetically in common with each other than any random humans. I could go on, but instead if you are interested in more you can read this piece, or an expanded version in chapter 6 of my book Classified.