… Saturday Night Live.

There is a sort of stoicism about Europeans, a belief that the human situation is pretty bad anyway and that it can’t be put that much righter than it is; and I think that America is much more based on the expectation that things can be fixed… There’s a sort of stoical nihilism which is part of the European idea, which says “Well… It’s a wreckage. Find some shelter somewhere… and wait until that lot’s blown by.“

It’s rare – because politically incorrect – for academics to admit that burqas pose a real problem in intellectual settings. Instead they end up saying the most moronic shit about the glories of teaching silent invisible women. So bravo Robshaw for stating the obvious but still socially unacceptable: Burqas make teaching pretty much impossible. Good on Robshaw, too, for disposing of the whole Islamophobe thing.

If someone offers arguments why the burqa should be banned, you can call them an Islamophobe if you like – you might even be right – but you haven’t engaged with their arguments. Even if the arguments are advanced without sincerity, they still need to be judged on their merits. Someone else who decidedly wasn’t an Islamophobe could come along and advance the same arguments, and then what could you say?

We’re getting there, folks.

… endures legal harassment from the same. Background, and a protest letter, here.

Snapshots from the Caliphate.

Already eighteen and only just bagged your first murder? This is America! This is Bama! Remember: There are competing states. I’m gonna assume you’ve already bagged a bunch, but only got caught for this one.

Rutgers University, Vision 2020: Be the Walmart of Universities.

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OTOH: Does this sound like Walmart to you?

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UPDATE: Walmarts here we come! A reader reminds me to note that Rutgers has indeed convinced Schiano to take all of the school’s money.

A story for our times.

“I’d love to see those Trump supporters come up with a conspiracy theory about a Jewish billionaire with his own media company. Good luck making that stick.”

Only 13 years old and already so confident an AR-15 marksman he’s about to kill his whole middle school!

Football coach Greg Schiano is well on his way to being hired again at Rutgers. Feast your eyes on his past there, and look forward to the fun Rutgers will have defending Penn State’s most blind, deaf, and dumb employee.

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His old buddy Jerry’s in the news again.

Uh… What was that first thing? Well, it wasn’t in Alan Dershowitz’s original defense of his legal activity, but UD thinks he must have overlooked it, so she has added it to his list. Dershowitz is not merely the legal savior of Claus von Bulow, OJ Simpson, Michael Milken, Mike Tyson, and a raft of other innocents; he also helped keep the world safe for female genital mutilation by assisting the defense of Jumana Nagarwala. Don’t sell yourself short, Dersh! You’ve done so much for the civil liberties of butchers.

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And your life’s work on behalf of Jews has been awfully selective, hasn’t it? When John Yoo called Jewish war hero Alexander Vindman a traitor on a Fox news segment which included you, you smiled and said the White House legal team needed more people like Yoo.

Both you and Yoo have been backtracking like crazy – unsurprisingly, Vindman’s lawyer is preparing to go after Yoo for slander – and I can’t blame you. Nor can I blame the 92nd Street Y for having nothing to do with you.

This Vox piece is the best summary of Hoda Muthana’s situation I’ve seen; it predates a judge’s recent ruling that she is not in fact an American citizen. Certainly the details in my headline suggest that, along with requesting Yemeni citizenship (her father was born in Yemen), Muthana could approach Tunisia on behalf of herself and her son.

Furthermore, ISIS remains wealthy; it is certainly in a position to give Muthana and her son money to buy citizenship in any number of countries that trade citizenship for hard cash. She might ask private wealthy sympathizers (from the Gulf states?) to give her money; or a Go Fund Me page might be set up by family and friends for this purpose.

The only full-throated defense of welcoming Muthana back to the States that I’ve seen is Noah Feldman’s sober warning that revoking her citizenship will “set a terrible precedent for others whom the government might try to strip of their citizenship in the future.”

To which ol’ UD says: Well, there’s precedent and there’s precedent. How often, in fact, has the US government revoked a person’s citizenship? My sense is that it happens exceedingly rarely. And why? Because it’s exceedingly rare that a US citizen voluntarily leaves the country to become a terrorist in an organization at war with the US, an organization that carries out mass murder all over the world, and in its own territory tortures, takes slaves, and publicly beheads. As her first act abroad, Muthana filmed herself burning to ashes her despised passport; and as her second act she broadcast international propaganda calling for the extermination of Americans. This series of acts Feldman characterizes as “offending public sentiment.”

The next time a U.S. citizen abroad offends public sentiment, you can expect the government to start looking for ways to pull his or her citizenship. That prospect is worrying to say the least.

Yes, the next time some old hippie in France burns the American flag you can expect… Really? Muthana did much more than hurt our feelings; she tried to fucking kill us. UD‘s beloved Christopher Hitchens said it best: My enemies are the theocratic fascists… I want to destroy them. In the case of Hoda Muthana we want to keep her out of our country rather than destroy her.

Feldman points out that this desire originated with the politically liberal Obama presidency; his administration was the first to tell her no. In this extreme case of indeed virtually unprecedented degeneracy and obvious threat, public sentiment is not offended; it is united in being justifiably terrified and disgusted.

… just-released announcement, the president has issued this tweet, from Mar-A-Lago:

It has become clear to me over the last few days that the circumstances relating to my treatment of Ukraine, a US ally and a country at war, have become a major disruption to the nation’s work.

Therefore, I will be stepping down from public duties.

I regret my ill-judged, self-serving behavior in regard to the interests of our country. My departure leaves many unanswered questions for the victims of my term as president. I am sorry, and I hope that in time they will be able to rebuild their lives. Of course, I am willing to help any appropriate law enforcement agency with their investigations, if required.

Sondland confirms the quid pro quo in his testimony today; Trump will certainly, while Sondland’s testifying, write an attack tweet. Let’s see how close UD can get to what he will write. Here’s UD’s guess:

Gordon Sondland. Barely know the man, but am informed by impeccable sources (Richard Spencer, David Duke, others) that his parents “fled” a very precarious Germany ca. 1940 because they lacked loyalty to its leader. Given that family background, how loyal can Sondland be to our country? When will he too flee?