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September 2016

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 29, 2016 21 Comments
We followed the Washington Redskins name controversy rather closely, including legal action taken against them.  Now the Supreme Court is taking up a case that, while not directly related to the Redskins, may impact the team and its name. The Washington Post reports:
The Supreme Court will decide whether a federal law that bars the registration of disparaging trademarks violates free speech, a case with direct implications for the Washington Redskins in their fight to defend their famous team name. The justices on Thursday announced that they will consider whether part of the 1946 Lanham Trademark Act that prohibits registration of a trademark that “may disparage” persons violates the First Amendment, as an appeals court has ruled.
The Court didn't take the Redskin case, but instead took another with similar implications that was further along in the legal process.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 29, 2016 8 Comments
As much as I enjoyed former French president Nicholas Sarkozy's colorful assessment of Obama and heartily disliked his open mike remarks about Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, it wasn't a huge surprise when Sarkozy lost his reelection bid. Last month, however, Sarkozy announced he's running for president again, and it seems that he has landed on Brexit as among the key issues of his campaign.  Indeed, Sarkozy has pledged to help the UK reverse its decision to leave the EU. The International Business Times reports:
Sarkozy claims he would reform the EU with German counterpart Angela Merkel, thus making it possible for the UK to organise another vote on whether to remain.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 29, 2016 1 Comment
Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY, has had an abysmal few years when it comes to anti-Israel and sometimes antisemitic activity. You can scroll through our Vassar Tag for dozens of posts. Here are a few of those posts that provide an overview: When I appeared on campus in 2014 to challenge pro-BDS faculty to a debate, one of those faculty tried to organize a boycott of me!

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 29, 2016 38 Comments
Now that the demonstrations have subsided in Charlotte, North Carolina, a San Diego neighborhood is facing potential unrest in the wake of a police shooting involving a black man.
A black man was shot in an encounter with El Cajon Police Tuesday, multiple witnesses said, while a woman wailed nearby, demanding to know why police shot her brother. Hours later, police officers told NBC 7 San Diego the man, now identified as Alfred Olango, was acting erratically and failed to comply, although they did not release details on the specific threat he presented to officers. Dozens of officers swarmed a public shopping center in the heart of El Cajon at 1 p.m. The community is approximately 30 miles east of downtown San Diego.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 29, 2016 21 Comments
According to a recent Gallup poll, D. C. gridlock and "do nothing Congress" accusations seem to have taken its toll on Americans' preference for divided government.  Just 20% of Americans now prefer the presidency and Congress to be controlled by different parties...the lowest it's been in 15 years. Gallup reports:
One in five Americans believe it is best for the president to be from one political party and for Congress to be controlled by another, the lowest level of public support for divided government in Gallup's 15-year trend. The remainder are evenly divided between those who favor one party controlling both the presidency and Congress (36%) and those saying it makes no difference how political power is allocated (36%). Americans' current preference for one party controlling both the presidency and Congress is near the record high of 38% from four years ago. That fits with a pattern of heightened support for single-party control seen in the past two presidential election years. In 2004, the preferences were more evenly divided. These results are based on Gallup's annual Governance poll, conducted Sept. 7-11.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on September 29, 2016 1 Comment
Prominent and ordinary Indians took to social media expressing their grief following the death of Israeli statesman and Nobel laureate at the age of 93:
“It was during his service as the minister of foreign affairs in the 1990’s that Peres also began his special relationship with India. He was the first minister of foreign affairs to visit India following the establishment of diplomatic relations,” wrote Ambassador Daniel Carmon, Israel's envoy to India, in an article published yesterday in India newspaper Hindustan Times. “He visited India several times in various capacities, visits to be remembered and cherished by all those who met him here.”

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 29, 2016 23 Comments
For months now, "smart" people on the left and the right have claimed that Donald Trump would destroy the Republican Party's chances of holding onto the Senate. It's now looking as though those predictions were premature. Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post:
Democratic hopes of winning Senate fade as Trump proves less toxic for Republicans Democrats are now facing a tougher road to capturing the Senate majority as the presidential race tightens and Donald Trump is not proving to be the dramatic drag on down-ballot candidates that Republicans once feared.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 29, 2016 32 Comments
Mika Brzezinski went on an epic feminist rant on today's Morning Joe, condemning not just Donald Trump for his comments about a former Miss Universe, but raging against the entire beauty pageant culture in which women are judged on their . . beauty. Mika summed up her intellectual argument this way: "you stupid men." Brzezinski considers it unfair that beauty pageant contestants are expected to be trim, whereas men like Trump and Newt Gingrich "can walk around as rotund as all get out." But if those guys had entered the Mr. Universe contest, every inch of their oiled bodies would come under the microscope. But they haven't. Thank God. And if a woman in exercise of her free will enters a beauty contest, that's her choice.
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