THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES AND THE BIKINI WAX: Transgender woman files human rights complaint against Windsor spa:

The owner of a local waxing spa is mounting a public campaign to clear the name of his business after he was served a human rights complaint for denying service to a transgender woman.

Jason Carruthers, the president of Mad Wax on Walker Road, said he was surprised at the legal move since he had explained to the complainant that the spa did not offer Brazilian wax services on male body parts.

“I have no male wax staff,” Carruthers said Friday. “We are not able to provide that service.”

A local transgender woman claims she was denied services based on her gender identity and gender expression and is seeking $50,000 for “immense harm to my dignity.”

The good news, such as it is, is that this is Canada, and the hierarchy of intersectional harm is a bit fuzzy in this case: “the female employee working that day was a practising Muslim who refrains from physical contact with males outside of her family.” And in an age of Me Too!, are we really arguing about whether a woman should be forced to groom the male genital area?

BOYCOTT NOT, LEST YE BE BOYCOTTED: Did Columbia Law Dean Gillian Lester Troll Professor Katherine Franke? Me at Volokh: “Dean Lester’s critique of trying to constrain the ‘global exchange of ideas’ applies to Franke herself and her support of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI)…as much as it does to Israel’s refusal to admit her.”

WHY DO AMERICAN INDIANS JOIN THE ARMED FORCES?: Adventure? Patriotism? Remunerative employment? In other words, the same reasons as everyone else? Not according to this ridiculously PC and condescending exhibit at the Smithsonian.

TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, JOHN BRENNAN EDITION: Have you ever see an ex-CIA director attack the United States and its allies, and express sympathy with America’s enemies? Well, you have now.

I’ve never been a Trump fan, but I try to judge his policies based on whether I think they are good or bad policies, not whether I’m a Trump partisan. And I acknowledge that overall his policies have been far better than what I expected in most areas. But there is a whole coterie of people out there who will take the opposite position of Trump just because its Trump. People who, for example, were in favor of moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem when Rubio promised to do it, but suddenly turned against it when Trump moved it, or who suddenly changed their position on the Iran deal when Trump chose to end it. Brennan is just an example of a troubling phenomenon where people are saying and doing things they would never otherwise, simply to oppose Trump.

EMPTY  VIRTUE-SIGNALING, GAZA EDITION: My Twitter yesterday and today:

They: Israel is using excessive force against Gaza protesters.

Me: What level of force should Israel use to protect against breach of its borders by violent Hamasniks, and what expertise do you have to determine that?

They: Israel is using excessive force against Gaza protesters.

THE STRATEGIC CASE FOR MOVING THE U.S. EMBASSY TO JERUSALEM IS VERY SIMPLE: Since Oslo  in 1993, Israel has allowed Palestinian terrorists to set up a government in Ramallah, made three peace offers within internationally-accepted parameters, withdrawn from Gaza and parts of Samaria, suffered an intifadah, and in return has gotten… a worldwide Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign? The Palestinians have believed that they could win by stalling, waiting until the world’s impatience forced Israel to concede. Moving the U.S. Embassy without a peace agreement demonstrates to the Palestinians that things can and will move on without them, as do the growing ties between Israel and the Sunni powers. Either accept that Israel is here to stay and make the necessary accommodations, or be left in the dustbin of history.

BECAUSE LEFTIST POLITICS HAS BECOME A RELIGION: Two thousand years waiting for a restoration of Jewish sovereignty in Jerusalem, and for some American Jews, today’s significance is that it gives them a chance to emote their hostility to Trump. Sad!

ADVENTURES IN PROGRESSIVE LACK OF SELF-AWARENESS: Michelle Goldberg: How the Online Left Fuels the Right.

What Goldberg essentially says is “instead of trying to silence conservatives, let’s be incredibly condescending to the point where we *might* be willing to debate some of those we consider to be sufficiently intelligent. And let’s throw in some largely irrelevant contempt for Israel too, because I need to virtue-signal my Progressive bona fides before I can mildly criticize Progressives.” Yep, columns like this will certainly stop the online left from fueling the right. Not. How about taking serious ideas seriously?

WHEN YOUR POLITICAL VIEWS BECOME POLITICALLY CORRECT ORTHODOXY, FREE SPEECH SEEMS LIKE A THREAT: Law Professor Ronald Collins: Abandoned? The Liberal Flight from the First Amendment. This process of abandonment has been going on for decades, especially when the First Amendment conflicts with antidiscrimination laws, as I documented in my 2003 book You Can’t Say That!

ANALYSIS–TRUE: Antonin Scalia Law School Is Under Attack for Being Successful and Different.

Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University has a very highly cited faculty, showing that it has a relatively large impact on the world of legal ideas. It is ranked as the 21st, just after the University of Texas. This ranking is an extraordinary achievement, given that it was a young school with a small endowment, not at all comparable to long established schools like Texas. As is clear from objective data, Antonin Scalia Law School’s faculty is also unusual in having a faculty that it is right of center in a profession where every school with a higher citation count is left of center, sometimes far to the left of center.  For instance, schools in the top twenty citations regularly have less than ten percent conservatives and frequently less than five percent.

The existence, much less grand success, of my law school is a minor miracle in today’s academic climate, especially since we’ve been grossly underfunded for almost our entire existence. This success, moreover, belies the notion that the dominance of Progressives in academia is primarily the result of lack of interest by non-Progressives, as opposed to viewpoint discrimination (which we often are able to take advantage of by hiring non-Progressives overlooked by other law schools). Unfortunately, there are certain organizations that are not satisfied with Progressives holding 90+% of faculty positions at law schools and elsewhere, they want to stamp out all right-of-center dissent.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE TRUMP, REMEMBER THE JEWS AND THE BICYCLISTS ARE TO BLAME: Women’s March leader blames Trump Muslim ban, Mexican border wall on Israeli PM.

“PEACE PARTNER”: Abbas says Jews’ behavior, not anti-Semitism, caused the Holocaust.

Yair Rosenberg comments,  “It’s almost like he thinks there is no international accountability for open anti-Semitism.” Shh, Yair, you are disturbing the Narrative.

Related: Abbas–“Israel has imported frightening amounts of drugs in order to destroy our younger generation.”

MY GRANDPARENTS CRIED WHEN FDR DIED–THAT WAS THE WRONG REACTION: The Tablet: “While [FDR] was uncertain about whether [Jewish refugees] would be better off on the slopes of the Andes or the savannahs of central Africa, there was one place he knew he didn’t want them: the United States of America.”

I’M EMBARRASSED FOR THE AUTHOR: USC lawprof Michael Simkovic: A well-organized campaign to bait, discredit, and take over universities is exploiting students and manipulating the public.

Here’s a taste:

Recently, the Federalist Society invited South Texas College of Law Houston’s Josh Blackman to lecture at CUNY law school.  Professor Blackman’s sparsely attended lecture drew protestors because of Blackman’s previous criticism of an amnesty program for undocumented immigrants and his use of language the protestors interpreted as racial dog whistling.

A university official asked the students to be respectful, defended Blackman’s right to speak, and admonished the students “please don’t take the bait.”  One student noticed Blackman recording himself and asked Blackman, “You chose CUNY didn’t you? Because you knew what would happen if you came here.”  (CUNY, like Vassar, has a reputation for left-wing student activism).  Blackman deflected the question.  One protestor used an expletive, which Blackman repeated.

According to both Blackman and CUNY, the protestors were non-violent.  Security was present to maintain order.  Blackman—tall and muscular—towered over the students and appeared calm throughout the exchange.

(1) Josh Blackman is an incredibly mild-mannered, polite, nice guy. The protesters didn’t identify any “dog whistle” language; they just called him a racist because that’s their default criticism of anyone they don’t like. Simkovic should be ashamed of himself for suggesting that the students may be correct in asserting Blackman has actually indulged in racism, which is a kiss of death in academia. A public apology should be forthcoming.

(2) Josh hasn’t criticized the amnesty program per se, which he supports, he’s criticized its implementation by executive order, which he believes is unconstitutional. The fact that neither the students nor Simkovic can appreciate the distinction doesn’t speak well of either.

(3) Josh is, I believe, the most prolific speaker for the Federalist Society in the country. He has spoken at dozens of schools. By Federalist Society rules, the students at each chapter have to invite him, he can’t invite himself. In short, the idea that he somehow chose CUNY to provoke a reaction is ridiculous, and the notion that presenting an anodyne talk on free speech, which Josh had presented at several other law schools without incident, should provoke any sensible, mature person is ridiculous.

(4) Josh is certainly reasonably tall, but when a security guard comes to you before a talk and asks if you have an “exit strategy” and gives you suggestions about various emergency routes out of the law school, even a six-footer might feel a bit threatened. I wonder how Prof. Simkovic would feel if a security guard came to him before one of his classes, and suggested he needed an “exit strategy” in case the protesters intent on disrupting his class and chanting expletives outside his classroom turn violent?

The whole piece is like this, full of illogic and innuendo, suggesting that the fault with the threats to free speech on campus lies with those who engage in and defend free speech, rather than those bent on suppressing it. Read it and weep.

UPDATE–ADL APOLOGIZES: ADL regrets calling group that targets anti-Israel students Islamophobic and racist. Background here.

ANOTHER “TRUMP-INSPIRED HATE CRIME” BITES THE DUST: Suspect admits to toppling more than 100 headstones in St. Louis Jewish cemetery.

In 2017, large swathes of the American Jewish community were in the throes of what I termed The Great Anti-Semitism Panic of 2017. The last few years have seen an increase in visible anti-Semitism among alt-right trolls, but the panic that ensued with the election of Donald Trump was bizarrely and extremely disproportionate to any actual threat to the safety or standing of American Jews. (For noting this, one Jewish newspaper editor, Rob Eshman, called me an “apologist for anti-Semitism.”)

One incident that received disproportionate attention was the vandalism of a St. Louis Jewish cemetery. Even though some of us cooler heads noted that similar incidents of vandalism occurred with some frequency during the Obama and Bush years, many so-called Jewish leaders were quick to cast blame on the atmosphere allegedly created by Trump. St. Louis police arrested the perp, a thirty-four year old African-American man, yesterday, and announced “[t]here is no evidence to indicate the incident was racially, ethnically or religiously motivated.”

Those who participated in creating and spreading the panic should be ashamed of themselves, and heads should roll at certain organizations. But they aren’t, and they won’t. Heck, I still haven’t gotten an apology from Eshman.

MAYBE THEY SHOULD JUST LEAVE “ANTI” OFF OF THEIR NAME: Defamation by the Anti-Defamation League:

The ADL’s national office tweeted, “thank you to @umich student leaders for exposing Canary Mission’s Islamophobic & racist rhetoric as ‘antithetical and destructive to supporting Israel and eliminating anti-Semitism on campus.'”

I googled ADL and Canary Mission, and could not find any ADL report analyzing or condemning Canary Mission. So I emailed ADL’s media folks yesterday morning, and asked if they could “please point me to the underlying evidence that ADL has relied on in support of it accusation of racism and Islamaphobia?” I sent a follow up email six hours later, and received this response: “Our research team is pulling together examples for you, so please stand by.”

It’s now the next morning, and still nothing. One would think that the ADL, an organization whose reputation depends on correctly identifying anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry, wouldn’t accuse a fellow Jewish organization, or anyone for that matter, of racism without having the research on hand to support it. It shouldn’t take a post hoc research effort, much less one that hasn’t borne fruit more than twenty-four hours after an initial inquiry.

BETTER TO REMAIN SILENT AND BE THOUGHT A FOOL: CUNY Law Students Explain “What We Mean When We Say ‘Fuck the Law.'”

Spoiler: They mean “Fuck the Law.” A good dean would not only have cracked down on these students’ bad behavior in disrupting Josh Blackman’s talk, she would have strongly suggested that they keep quiet to avoid embarrassing themselves and their law school even more.

THE SOFT BIGOTRY OF LOW EXPECTATIONS: The Shameful Character Assassination of Trayon White. This “shameful character assassination,” mind you, consists of calling out an anti-Semitic member of the D.C. City Council who happens to be African American. There’s certainly an argument for presuming ignorance rather than malice when someone says something as stupid as “the Rothchilds control the weather,” but not based on the race of the speaker.

NEW YORK TIMES CALLS THE TRUTH “FAR-RIGHT CONSPIRACY PROGRAMMING.” Leil Leibovitz in The Tablet:

On Saturday, Nellie Bowles, a technology reporter for The New York Times, wrote a piece about Campbell Brown, the former news anchor recently hired by Facebook to help the social media giant improve its relationship with the news media. One obvious problem is Facebook’s contribution to the dissemination of fake news, which Brown is now fighting. How? Let the Paper of Record tell you all about it.

“Ms. Brown,” wrote Bowles, “wants to use Facebook’s existing Watch product — a service introduced in 2017 as a premium product with more curation that has nonetheless been flooded with far-right conspiracy programming like ‘Palestinians Pay $400 million Pensions For Terrorist Families.’”

As those of us who are in the reality based community know, the Palestinian Authority’s financial support of terrorists and their families is very, very far from a conspiracy, far-right or otherwise. Reading Bowles’s report, for example, Lahav Harkov, the Knesset reporter for The Jerusalem Post, took to Twitter to share some of her meticulous reporting on the Palestinian pay-for-slay program with Bowles: Read the real news, and you’ll learn that, in 2017, the PA doled out more than $347 million to families of terrorists who had murdered Jews, increasing the amount to $403 million this year.

REVISITING 2016 MEDIA BIAS: With the elite media increasingly suggesting that they were too harsh on Clinton and not hostile enough to Trump in 2016, it’s perhaps time to revisit just how biased elite media outlets were in 2016. Consider, for example, this NPR interview with the executive editor of the New York Times, Dean Baquet. Baquet explains why the newspaper decided to use the word “lie” when referring to what seems like ordinary campaign obfuscation: “I think the moment for me was the birther story, where he has repeated for years his belief that President Obama was not born in the United States.” This, for some reason, justifies using the word “lie” more generally with regard to Trump and his campaign, but not with regard to any false statements by Clinton: “I don’t think Hillary Clinton, to be honest, has crossed the line the way Donald Trump did with the birther issue.” Thus, in NewYorkTimesworld Clinton merely obfuscates and exaggerates, while Trump lies. You can’t make this stuff up.

My guess is that Clinton lost far more votes because they resented the elites were shoving Clinton down their throats than because of the “Russian interference” the elites now want to blame for Clinton’s defeat. The response, apparently, is for the elite media to double-down on its strategy of overtly favoring whomever runs against Trump, which, I suspect, is how we get more Trump in 2020.

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME?: CUNY Law Fed Soc co-president: Disruption of Blackman can be a “learning moment”

NOT THE ONION: Democratic Party files suit alleging Russia, the Trump campaign, and WikiLeaks conspired to disrupt the 2016 election. Someone must think this is good for fundraising.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE BIG MONEY IN POLITICS THEN YOU SHOULD OPPOSE BIG GOVERNMENT IN OUR LIVES: Judge James Ho of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, a Trump appointee:

To be sure, many Americans of good faith bemoan the amount of money spent on campaign contributions and political speech. But if you don’t like big money in politics, then you should oppose big government in our lives. Because the former is a necessary consequence of the latter. When government grows larger, when regulators pick more and more economic winners and losers, participation in the political process ceases to be merely a citizen’s prerogative—it becomes a human necessity. This is the inevitable result of a government that would be unrecognizable to our Founders. See, e.g., NFIB v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519 (2012).

So if there is too much money in politics, it’s because there’s too much government. The size and scope of government makes such spending essential. See, e.g., EMILY’s List v. FEC, 581 F.3d 1, 33 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (Brown, J., concurring) (“The more power is at stake, the more money will be used to shield, deflect, or co-opt it. So long as the government can take and redistribute a man’s livelihood, there will always be money in politics.”).

But whatever size government we choose, the Constitution requires that it comply with our cherished First Amendment right to speak and to participate in our own governance. If we’re going to ask taxpayers to devote a substantial percentage of their hard-earned income to fund the innumerable activities of federal, state, and local government, we should at the very least allow citizens to spend a fraction of that amount to speak out about how the government should spend their money.

H/T Josh Blackman via Twitter

DON’T FLY SUN COUNTRY: Sun Country Airlines Strands Hundreds of Passengers in Mexico.

Gary Leff: “The airline acknowledged that no one was staffing the airline’s counters and that phone lines were just disconnecting callers because of volume. And they say they hope providing a refund for the cancelled flight ‘will more than compensate for the cost of making alternative arrangements home.’… However they should have chartered a plane. Or they should have covered the cost of each passenger’s tickets home on another carrier. Without interline agreements that means they’d be paying retail. The airline took money and agreed to provide transportation, not strand passengers.”