Tom Goldstein

DC Lawyer, political junkie, occasional poker player and Chicago sports fan. NOT the SCOTUSBLOG guy. Favorites include bookmarks for stuff to read later.

[Tom Goldstein @tomgoldstein]

The same age I am now

[Michael A. Cohen (NOT TRUMP’S FORMER FIXER) @speechboy71]

One would be hard pressed to come up with a better example of Mamdani’s rank hypocrisy and hatred of Israel then commemorating Pakistan’s independence, a country that literally has a state religion, was formed after the forced transfer of millions, has committed an actual genocide (not an imaginary one), and is actively and illegally deporting million of Afghans … while refusing to participate in the Israel Day parade and condemning Israel because he “can’t support any state that privileges one religion.” (Israel doesn’t have a state religion.)

He’s just such a lying hypocritical jerk.

[Tom Goldstein @tomgoldstein]

@HilltopHorror @mattyglesias That is what I believe he's saying.

[Tom Goldstein @tomgoldstein]

@HilltopHorror @mattyglesias See his follow up comment

[Dan Williams @danwilliamsphil]

So either establishment elites moderate or voters seek democratic representation through corrupt demagogues - the only people who can credibly signal that they don't depend on social approval by establishment elites (Trump, Farage, etc).

[Tom Goldstein @tomgoldstein]

@johnvmcdonnell @RatAlt64 @mattyglesias See his follow up comment

[Dan Williams @danwilliamsphil]

So either establishment elites moderate or voters seek democratic representation through corrupt demagogues - the only people who can credibly signal that they don't depend on social approval by establishment elites (Trump, Farage, etc).

[Tom Goldstein @tomgoldstein]

@estherzelda0514 @DavidPhelan3 As an early GenXer in high school in the early 80s, I worried a lot about nuclear war. I member vividly when The Day After aired in 1983. Experts were predicting a 10-20% chance of nuclear war at some point in the next 20 yrs. I started feeling better after Gorbachev showed up.

[blue dog geosh @bluedoggeosh]

Democrats need to be better at punching left, in no way in America should someone wearing a Mao Zedong fit spewing communist propaganda to a group of college students be welcome in kind in liberal spaces.

Hasan Piker and people who follow him are not liberal and therefore are not Democrats. Democrats need to start acting like it and differentiate ourselves from them instead of capitulating to the worst in our coalition.

[Tom Goldstein @tomgoldstein]

@MarcWatkinsEsq Night of the Living Dead

[Tom Goldstein @tomgoldstein]

@RachelXReads @CathyYoung63 E.g. "but if not"

[Jacob L @JacobL1994_]

The Einsatzgruppe Trial established in law that there is no moral or legal equivalent between collateral damage from war, and going door to door executing civilians because of their race.

As such, no amount of collateral damage, however tragic it is, will ever be morally or legally equivalent to the mass deliberate extermination of Jews carried out by Hamas and their accomplices.

Remember that the crime of genocide is determined by intent. Thus, men with rifles and gasoline going house to house looking for Jews to burn is genocide, and military operations to prevent them from doing that again, which unfortunately result in civilian casualties, is not.

[Tom Goldstein @tomgoldstein]

@JTAlexander I've had short stretches where I've listened to 3 to 4 books a week, usually at about 1.5 speed, and had no trouble with retention. Typically a mix of novels, history, and sometimes science. In general, I listen to about 30 to 40 books a year.

[Tom Goldstein @tomgoldstein]

@RUBluegrass @HistoryBoomer Part of the Divine Commedy.

[Tom Goldstein @tomgoldstein]

@AdamFrost99158 @HistoryBoomer I love DQ. Read very much like a 20th century novel.

[Tom Goldstein @tomgoldstein]

@HistoryBoomer @CathyYoung63 I've read 17 in full, several others in part, including about 70% of the Bible, and several (Iliad, Odyssey, BK, Moby Dick, P&P) multiple times.

[Tom Goldstein @tomgoldstein]

@Steve_Sailer @charlesmurray Larry David has been a pretty major figure in comedy this century, but yes, he's somewhat of an outlier.

[Tom Goldstein @tomgoldstein]

@Steve_Sailer @charlesmurray And Rodney Dangerfield!

[Tom Goldstein @tomgoldstein]

@Steve_Sailer @charlesmurray There's also The Marx Brothers, Mel Brooks, Billy Crystal, Adam Sandler, and Sascha Baron Cohen.

[Derek Thompson @DKThomp]

I'm glad that the author of "Rent Control Is Fine, Actually" calls themself Unlearning Economics, bc it's good to just state things clearly, such as the open animosity that many left economic populists have for the field of economics and economists themselves.

Economists aren't gods, and economics isn't a divine truth, but economists are good--better than most--at something critical for making public policy: They're good at identifying tradeoffs. "Rents are too high, so freeze them" is compelling politics. But in the absence of other pro-supply policies, if you make it illegal to increase rents, landlords will stop upgrading units and convert them to condos, which reduces the supply of units for rent, reduces mobility, and drives up rents for everybody else.

The left econ populists have some clear, and clearly stated, policy ideas:

- Rents are too high, so freeze them.
- Electricity is expensive, so stop rate increases.
- Homes are too expensive, so ban institutional investors.
- Power prices are rising, so ban data center construction.

... All these policies feel like solutions because they're brisk, they name enemies, and they take on the most visible source of frustration. But they are much better as villain-naming exercises than they are as a complete public policy. On their own, each creates other problems: less housing built, less clean electricity built, abdicating energy policy by encouraging AI firms to build data centers abroad in unsavory countries with more emissions, etc.

I can't think of a single economic populist idea that wouldn't be helped with a little dose of economics, which is why it's troubling when I see the left participating in, and even celebrating, the great unlearning of economics.

[Tom Goldstein @tomgoldstein]

@ASFleischman Alex is outstanding at shameless grifting. Absolutely world class.

[Tom Goldstein @tomgoldstein]

@NathanJRobinson @CoryBooker https://t.co/c2J2w9Kgkr

[Yair Rosenberg @Yair_Rosenberg]

As I write and document quite explicitly in the piece, Einstein was a binationalist before Israel's founding (as were many notable Zionists!), but then became a supporter of Israel once it was established in 1948. He hosted Israel's first prime minister David Ben Gurion at his home in 1951. When he turned down the Israeli presidency in 1952, he referred to the country as "our state of Israel." Do you think they would have offered the job to an enemy? In reality, Einstein was an ally of the socialist government in power and a harsh critic of the Israeli right that opposed it -- which was actually a problem, because the presidency is supposed to be nonpartisan. Einstein regularly lambasted the Israeli right, not Israel or the Zionist project, which is quite clear if one actually reads the critical statements and who he refers to.

In 1955, in one of his last interviews, Einstein said "I have great hopes for the future of the Jewish state." https://t.co/wXpI229f9q
The last speech Einstein composed was intended to mark the 7th anniversary of Israel's founding, and he wrote it in conjunction with Abba Eban, Israel's ambassador to the United States (not the sort of thing an anti-Zionist would do). Explaining his idea in a letter to the embassy, Einstein wrote that "a somewhat critical attitude concerning the behavior of the world powers toward Israel and the Arab states could have a salutary influence. It is easier for me to say those things than for any person connected officially with organized Jewish life. To do this well it has to be carefully prepared in cooperation with responsible Israelis."

Einstein died days before Israel's Independence Day, but we have the text of the undelivered speech. In it, Einstein wrote:

"The establishment of the State of Israel was internationally approved and recognized largely for the purpose of rescuing the remnant of the Jewish people from unspeakable horrors of persecution and oppression. Another purpose was to provide conditions in which the spiritual and cultural life of a Hebrew society could find free expression. Thus the establishment of Israel is an event which actively engages the conscience of this generation.

It is, therefore, a bitter paradox to find that a state which was destined to be a shelter for a martyred people is itself threatened by grave dangers to its own security. The universal conscience cannot be indifferent to such a peril."

He also wrote: "It is anomalous that world opinion should only criticise Israel's response to hostility and should not actively seek to bring an end to the Arab hostility which is the root cause of the tension."

And, as Einstein always did, he closed with an appeal for peace, coupling his defense of Israel with this conclusion: "International policies for the Middle East should be dominated by efforts to secure peace in Israel and its neighbors." He never stopped advocating for Israeli-Arab peace, and raised the same point in that final interview cited above. To him, all these sentiments were not contradictory but complementary.
https://t.co/8ba6h2iRCh
He bequeathed his intellectual assets and likeness to Hebrew University.

One does not need to align with Einstein's approach to Israel and Zionism to acknowledge the reality of what it actually was. Einstein was a physicist who died in 1955, not some oracle on world politics, and it is perfectly reasonable to disagree today with his views on these and many other subjects. What is not reasonable is to adulterate those views in service of a contemporary ideological agenda.

All of this material is either explicitly discussed or linked in the article. I'm a little confused and surprised that you missed it.

[Tom Goldstein @tomgoldstein]

@curaffairs @NathanJRobinson https://t.co/c2J2w9Kgkr

[Yair Rosenberg @Yair_Rosenberg]

As I write and document quite explicitly in the piece, Einstein was a binationalist before Israel's founding (as were many notable Zionists!), but then became a supporter of Israel once it was established in 1948. He hosted Israel's first prime minister David Ben Gurion at his home in 1951. When he turned down the Israeli presidency in 1952, he referred to the country as "our state of Israel." Do you think they would have offered the job to an enemy? In reality, Einstein was an ally of the socialist government in power and a harsh critic of the Israeli right that opposed it -- which was actually a problem, because the presidency is supposed to be nonpartisan. Einstein regularly lambasted the Israeli right, not Israel or the Zionist project, which is quite clear if one actually reads the critical statements and who he refers to.

In 1955, in one of his last interviews, Einstein said "I have great hopes for the future of the Jewish state." https://t.co/wXpI229f9q
The last speech Einstein composed was intended to mark the 7th anniversary of Israel's founding, and he wrote it in conjunction with Abba Eban, Israel's ambassador to the United States (not the sort of thing an anti-Zionist would do). Explaining his idea in a letter to the embassy, Einstein wrote that "a somewhat critical attitude concerning the behavior of the world powers toward Israel and the Arab states could have a salutary influence. It is easier for me to say those things than for any person connected officially with organized Jewish life. To do this well it has to be carefully prepared in cooperation with responsible Israelis."

Einstein died days before Israel's Independence Day, but we have the text of the undelivered speech. In it, Einstein wrote:

"The establishment of the State of Israel was internationally approved and recognized largely for the purpose of rescuing the remnant of the Jewish people from unspeakable horrors of persecution and oppression. Another purpose was to provide conditions in which the spiritual and cultural life of a Hebrew society could find free expression. Thus the establishment of Israel is an event which actively engages the conscience of this generation.

It is, therefore, a bitter paradox to find that a state which was destined to be a shelter for a martyred people is itself threatened by grave dangers to its own security. The universal conscience cannot be indifferent to such a peril."

He also wrote: "It is anomalous that world opinion should only criticise Israel's response to hostility and should not actively seek to bring an end to the Arab hostility which is the root cause of the tension."

And, as Einstein always did, he closed with an appeal for peace, coupling his defense of Israel with this conclusion: "International policies for the Middle East should be dominated by efforts to secure peace in Israel and its neighbors." He never stopped advocating for Israeli-Arab peace, and raised the same point in that final interview cited above. To him, all these sentiments were not contradictory but complementary.
https://t.co/8ba6h2iRCh
He bequeathed his intellectual assets and likeness to Hebrew University.

One does not need to align with Einstein's approach to Israel and Zionism to acknowledge the reality of what it actually was. Einstein was a physicist who died in 1955, not some oracle on world politics, and it is perfectly reasonable to disagree today with his views on these and many other subjects. What is not reasonable is to adulterate those views in service of a contemporary ideological agenda.

All of this material is either explicitly discussed or linked in the article. I'm a little confused and surprised that you missed it.