Comment on Senate 5: Synchronized swimming

New York Times: “When students have protested this fall, administrators have often enforced—to the letter—new rules created in response to last spring’s unrest. The moves have created scenes that would have been hard to imagine previously, particularly at universities that once celebrated their history of student activism…” “The changes follow federal civil rights complaints, lawsuits and withering congressional scrutiny accusing universities of tolerating antisemitism, after some protesters praised Hamas and called for violence against Israelis.”

New York Times: “Flash displays of hate and white power are happening more frequently in the United States, a trend that experts say is a reaction to changing demographics, political turmoil and social catalysts. More than 750 such incidents have taken place since 2020, according to the Anti-Defamation League, with more than half of them occurring in the last 18 months.” “National experts describe a familiar pattern: Small groups of mostly masked men chant and wave swastika or white power flags in public and yell racial slurs at targets as varied as immigrants, Black people, Jews and L.

“With a motion for civil contempt already looming over him in Washington, D. C., another judge warned Rudy Giuliani that ‘on pain of contempt’ he must comply with requests from the Georgia election workers he defamed to surrender his assets squirreled away in an increasingly controversial storage unit on New York’s Long Island,” the HuffPost reports.

Greg Sargent: “Matt Gaetz’s withdrawal from consideration as Donald Trump’s attorney general is unquestionably a big victory for the rule of law. But now that Trump has put forth Pam Bondi—the former Florida attorney general whose loyalty to Trump is almost as slavish as Gaetz’s—it raises a question: Why assume she’ll be any less wedded to his agenda of unleashing the Justice Department on his enemies and otherwise reducing it to a tool of his most corrupt designs and whims?”

“Two in-house investigators at U. S. intelligence agencies recently quit their jobs. There’s growing fear in Washington that they could be the start of an exodus — or a purge — of government watchdogs,” Politico reports. “A wave of departures by inspectors general would give President-elect Donald Trump the opportunity to nominate or appoint people of his choice to the watchdog posts — leaving dozens of federal departments, agencies and offices subject to oversight by people who would owe their positions to Trump.”

Israel and Lebanon have agreed to the terms of a ceasefire agreement to end the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, Axios reports.