Month: October 2018

Far-Right German Party Tries to Recruit Jews by Attacking Muslims

Germany’s most prominent right-wing nationalist party is trying to attract Jewish voters by stoking the flames of anti-Islamic sentiment. The twist: Some of the party’s leaders have a history of offending the very people they’re trying to reach.

The Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) claims it’s not anti-Semitic. But in May, the party confirmed that some of its local politicians exchanged anti-Semitic messages in a WhatsApp group chat. In June, AfD co-leader Alexander Gauland downplayed the Nazi era, claiming that “Hitler and the Nazis are just a speck of birdshit in over 1,000 years of successful German history.” And last year AfD regional leader Björn Höcke said that Germany needed to do “a 180-degree reversal on the politics of remembrance” of the Holocaust. Referring to Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial, he claimed that “Germans are the only people in the world that have planted a monument of shame in the heart of their capital.”

But like many nationalist parties, AfD tends to back Israel. And now it’s trying to appeal to Jews by arguing that the two groups share a common enemy: Islam. In the town of Offenbach, the AfD is launching a new association called Juden in der AfD, or Jews in the AfD.

“The AfD is the only party in the Federal Republic that makes anti-Semitism toward Jews by Muslims a topic without trivializing it,” says Dimitri Schulz, the initiative’s Jewish founder, according to ABC News. Schulz also decried the “mass immigration of young men from Islamic culture,” and particularly their “anti-Semitic socialization.”

In a Facebook post, the AfD highlights several acts of anti-Semitism perpetrated by Muslims. Anti-Semitism is “normal” for those who live in Arab countries, Joachim Kuhs, a Christian AfD leader, argues to Deutsche Welle. “Why should they be different when they get here?”

The AfD’s pitch likely won’t work for most of Germany’s roughly 100,000 Jews. Already, a host of Jewish organizations have warned against joining the party. The AfD, they warn, simply wants to further its own misguided xenophobic goals. They’re right: The best solution to Germany’s migrant crisis, as Jenipher Camino Gonzalez explained in a July piece for Reason, is to loosen work restrictions so immigrants can actually find good jobs.

ABC notes that anti-Semitic attacks do appear to be on the rise in Germany. “But,” it adds, “93 percent of the perpetrators are far-right Germans.” Evidently, AfD’s fans contribute far more to the problem than AfD’s foes.

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‘Sunday Night Football’ Ratings Hit Season Low As Stadiums Fail To Fill Seats

The NFL suffered another blow this weekend after ratings for its most watched program, Sunday Night Football, hit a season low according to Deadline – thought metered market results are up year-over-year 12% after last year’s SNF aired one day after the Las Vegas shooting at Mandalay Bay. 

In a 26 -14 win on SNF, the Baltimore Ravens are now 3 – 1 this season and the Keystone State team are hung near the bottom of the AFC North. The game in Pittsburgh also saw another type of bottoming out in the ratings for the league and the NFL.

The primetime Week 4 match-up drew a 12.3/21 in metered market results

…

Last year’s Week 4 game went on to earn 16.7 million viewers and a 5.8/21 rating among adults 18-49 in the final numbers. Last week’s SNF scored a 6.4/25 in the key demo and 19.5 million sets of eyeballs. –Deadline

Empty seats

Meanwhile, as TV ratings dwindle, stadiums suffered from low attendance this weekend – as photos of thousands of empty seats made their way around Twitter – such as the Bengals vs. the Falcons game (Bengals won 37-36): 

The Indianapolis Colts also failed to draw much of a crowd at Lucas Oil Stadium for their 37-34 loss to the Houston Texans. 

The LA Chargers 29-27 win over the 49ers at StubHub stadium drew a similarly sparse crowd of mostly 49ers fans: 

The Cowboys didn’t fare much better in their 26-24 win over the Detroit Lions at AT&T Stadium: 

(h/t Warner Todd Huston @ Breitbart)

Lastly – we come to the matter of the Packers use of a “creative” American flag which drew harsh rebuke over Twitter: 

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Georgetown Prof: White GOP Senators In Kavanaugh Hearing “Deserve Miserable Deaths”

Authored by Abigail Marone via Campus Reform,

Georgetown University Distinguished Associate Professor Christine Fair tweeted that white Republican senators in the Brett Kavanaugh hearing deserve to die. 

“Look at thus [sic] chorus of entitled white men justifying a serial rapist’s arrogated entitlement,” Fair tweeted on Thursday.

Referencing a video of “Lindsey Graham’s tirade,” Fair, who is a victim of sexual assault, added, “all of them deserve miserable deaths while feminists laugh as they take their last gasps.”

“Bonus: we castrate their corpses and feed them to swine? Yes,” she concluded the tweet.

“Professor Fair’s extremely offensive and violent remark goes against everything in line with Georgetown’s values,” TJ Collins, a recent Georgetown graduate told Campus Reform. “President DeGioia should immediately issue a statement condemning the tweet, and Professor Fair should not be permitted in the classroom ever again,” Collins added.

“As a student applying to this school, I wouldn’t have dared use that kind of language on a social media platform, especially surrounding a sensitive and controversial issue. Georgetown wouldn’t have admitted me if they had seen stuff like that,” a current Georgetown student who wished to remain anonymous, told Campus Reform. 

“I don’t think people that Georgetown actually employs should be held to a significantly lower standard. And clearly, any of her students that see this rant are going to feel threatened if they have opinions that differ from hers” the student continued. 

Upon being contacted by Campus Reform to comment for this article, Fair stated, 

“There is a war going on against women and you, and your despicable herd of so-called journalists seeking to protect male privilege and shame women for our victimization or our rage are complicit in this war.” 

Days before, Fair tweeted, “GOP doesn’t care about women. We knew this. Fuck them.”

In addition to her colorful Twitter timeline, Fair also runs a blog called ShitMenSay. “This is where I post snarcastic missives based upon the shit men (and sometimes woman-hating women) say to me via email, voicemail and comments ‘deposited’ on my various social media like celestial droppings of stupidity,” Fair writes in the blog description.

“This blog is not about “doxxing” foes or people with whom I disagree politically or otherwise. This blog is about ACCOUNTABILITY,” she continues. She has published home addresses, phone numbers, and places of employment of people who contacted her. Fair has also bragged about emailing the spouses and employers of those who contact her. 

“Despite what some clowns have said, NO ONE finds themselves mocked and outed on #ShitMenSay without harassing me. No one. Some men have had the audacity to whine that I am outing my poor, defenseless harassers. I tell these weasels to take their (almost always) white, male privilege and kindly deposit it in the only orifice that doesn’t embarrass them when it’s open” she says in her blog description. 

Fair runs a second blog titled Tenacious Hellpussy, which she describes as “a nasty woman posting from the frontlines of fuckery.” Fair published Campus Reform’s request for comment and her response on her blog in a post titled: When “Aunt Lydia” of Campus Reform Tried to Launch Another Harassment Campaign: This is what she got.

“Dear Aunt Lydia (or perhaps, more appropriately, Rachel Mitchell? Which do you prefer? I prefer Aunt Lydia, so I”ll roll with that. Cool?)” she says at the start of her response.

“You don’t like my violent words – which in fact are not posing a threat to anyone. I am not calling for violence. I merely speaking to what my spirituality says these vile souls deserve.” Professor Fair writes.

“Surely, as a fine upstanding Christian, you condemn the goddless heathens like me to an afterlife of hell? You can micturate in your yoga pants at my WORDS, but I am angry at the VIOLENCE done to women and children in this country and the preponderant complicity of ONE political party right now” she continues.

Her full response can be viewed here.

Georgetown University did not respond to the request for comment in time for publication. 

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Italian Yields Blow Out After Europe Says Budget “Almost Certainly Violates Rules”

After posting strong gains in early trading, the rally in Italian stocks has faded sharply, with the FTSEMIB index now down 0.6% after rallying 1.8% earlier and Italian bonds tumbled to session lows after Italy’s proposal for a 2.4% budget deficit saw a frosty reception at the European finance ministers gathering in Luxembourg.

Italy’s embattled finance minister, whose proposal for a 1.6% deficit was overruled by the ruling coalition last week, Giovanni Tria was greeted with little enthusiasm from his counterparts; France’s Bruno Le Maire said that the European Union’s budget restrictions must be respected by everyone while European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Pierre Moscovici said that Italy’s budget amounts to a “very, very significant” deviation from its previous projections and almost certainly violated the rules.

The last statement echoed an earlier report in the Italian press according to which Europe was certain to reject the Italian deficit proposal, throwing the budget process in limbo, and potentially leading to another debt (and currency) crisis.

Perhaps in response to the latest snub, Bloomberg reported that Tria would will cut short his attendance at the Eurogroup to return to Rome Monday night to finalize the government’s budget outline for 2019 which has so far only released the deficit target.

“I will try to explain what is happening and how the budget plan was formulated,” Tria said on his way into the meeting. Fellow ministers can stay “calm” about Italy’s budget as the government is committed to reducing its debt burden in 2019, he added.

After Moscovici’s statement hit the wires, selling resumed in Italian bonds with the curve flattening led by front-end losses as risk aversion picks up with FTSE MIB paring gains. BTP futures broke earlier lows at 122.80 on a sharp pick up in volumes with 3% of daily volumes trading on the decline. 5y yields broke above Friday’s high at 2.40%, followed by 2y yield above 1.24%, while the yield on 10-year notes rose 11 basis points to 3.26 percent just after 4pm in Rome, hitting session highs. The spread over German bunds reached 278 basis points.

Indicating that relations between Italy and Europe are set to get worse, Italy’s Deputy PM Di Maio said that EU’s Moscovici spoke out against Italy’s budget plan to “upset markets”, adding that there is no reason to question the 2.4% budget deficit.

He also said that the government “will never sacrifice workers on the altar of the spread and of the crazy rules which have been imposed on us,” during a conference with reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Rome. “This government doesn’t butcher people, the music has changed.”

Needless to say, European disagreed, with French finmin Le Maire saying that “I just want to be very clear, that there are rules. And rules are the same for every state. Our futures are linked. All the futures of the euro zone are linked.”

Others quickly piled on: Moscovici doubled down, saying that the Italian authorities’ announced targets appear to be not “compatible” with the EU requirements. “It’s not in the interest of anybody to have a crisis in Italy, with Italy, on the markets or between Italy and the European Commission ,” Moscovici said. “Let’s keep our nerves.”

Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra echoed the general concern: “The signals we’ve been getting so far aren’t very reassuring, at the same time many of the details are still unclear,” he said. Although Italy isn’t part of the Eurogroup’s agenda “you can rest assured that this will be a topic on everyone’s mind,” he added.

To summarize: anyone who thought that Europe would greet Italy’s budget with a wink and a smile will be disappointed as it now appears that Brussels will take the process personally, if only to teach Italy’s upstart, populist leaders just who’s the boss.

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IMF’s Lagarde Warns “Clouds On Horizon Have Materialized”, Global Growth To Slow

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde just stole the consensus jam out of the global recovery donut, warning during a speech in Washington that trade wars and tighter credit are dimming economic outlooks, signaling that her outlook for 3.9% growth may be overdone.

The fund will update its World Economic Outlook on Oct. 9 ahead of opening its annual meeting in Bali, Indonesia.

“Six months ago, I pointed to clouds of risk on the horizon,” Lagarde said, according to her prepared remarks.

“Today, some of those risks have begun to materialize.”

One glimpse at the collapse in global economic data and it’s perhaps more than obvious that consensus needs some adjustment…While Lagarde acknowledged the global expansion is still the fastest in seven years, recent data suggest a cooling.

As Bloomberg reports, Lagarde said protectionist rhetoric was turning into “actual trade barriers,” spreading uncertainty among businesses and consumers. A strengthening U.S. dollar and tightening financial conditions have increased challenges for many emerging markets, she said.

Specifically, Lagarde called on countries to resolve their trade disputes, warning that the fracture of corporate supply chains could have “devastating” effects.

“History shows that, while it is tempting to sail alone, countries must resist the siren call of self-sufficiency — because as the Greek legends tell us, that leads to shipwreck,” she said, without naming countries that are putting up new barriers.

Additionally, Lagarde warned nations to guard against “fiscal and financial turbulence.” She said global public and private debt has reached a record $182 trillion, up almost 60 percent from 2007. Emerging markets and developing countries are being pinched as central banks raise interest rates in advanced economies, she said.

“That process could become even more challenging if it were to accelerate suddenly,” she said.

“It could lead to market corrections, sharp exchange rate movements, and further weakening of capital flows.”

And finally, in what appears to be a dig at President Trump, Lagarde urged world leaders to rebuild trust in institutions and policymakers…

“In too many cases, workers and families are now convinced that the system is somehow rigged, that the odds are stacked against them,” she said.

Ironically, she urged this rebuilding of trust while noting that since 1980, the top one percent of income earners have captured twice as much of the gains from growth as the bottom 50 percent.. but we should all trust them now…?

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What Will Model 3 Numbers Be For Tesla’s Most Important Quarter In Its History?

As the all-important third quarter draws to a close, and with Elon Musk’s legal problems for now in the rearview mirror, everybody is scrambling to come up with an accurate estimate of the number of Model 3 vehicles that Tesla will have produced and delivered during a quarter that is supposed to push the company into profitability according to its CEO.

Sunday night marked the end of the third quarter and, with it, came an e-mail from Elon Musk to employees that seemed to indicate that the company was on the precipice of becoming profitable, but not quite there yet. Musk wrote in his email to employees:

“We are very close to achieving profitability and proving the naysayers wrong, but, to be certain, we must execute really well tomorrow (Sunday). If we go all out tomorrow, we will achieve an epic victory beyond all expectations.”

Though we’re not sure how “epic” of a victory meeting your already disclosed guidance would qualify as, another important question relates to “expectations” for the company and its Model 3. Namely, what are they?

One of the most popular production tools to monitor Model 3 production has been the Bloomberg Model 3 tracker, which was introduced back in February of this year. It tracks the number of VIN registrations that Tesla makes in order to estimate the amount of vehicles that are being produced. This tracker currently estimates that Tesla will have made 53,457 Model 3s over the course of the quarter. This is slightly more than Wall Street estimates of 50,416 and in the middle of Musk’s July estimate of 50,000 to 55,000.

All of these numbers fall short of the 5,000 vehicle per week milestone that was talked about all summer before seemingly becoming all but forgotten amid the latest legal fiasco.

Bloomberg said 94,192 Model 3 vehicles have been made since production started in July of last year. More than half of those came over the course of the last quarter, according to estimates. Bloomberg’s estimate amounts to 4,112 vehicles per week for the quarter.

But the Bloomberg tracker has its weak points. Because it goes by VIN registrations, it is subject to how and when Tesla decides to register VIN numbers. For instance, Tesla filed an enormous amount of registrations in the first two weeks of August: 29,609 of them to be exact. But it hasn’t filed any since then, leading the production tracker to fall off and leave everybody guessing.

Goldman Sachs thinks that this drop off could be because of bottlenecks at Tesla’s paint shop. Others have guessed that it’s a product of the company delivering its “in transit” backlog that it had in place at the end of last quarter.

Here is a list of some predictions for the Model 3, from various sources, that we’ve compiled.

Then, early on Monday, electrek reported that Tesla had produced 53,000 Model 3s in the quarter. 

Of course, this “most important quarter” remains under intense scrutiny because Musk is expected to turn the company profitable and cash flow positive. The company is doing this by bringing all hands on deck – focusing on only the most expensive Model 3 versions, enlisting volunteer work from customers and generally redlining all of the resources at their disposal. The consensus is that if they can’t turn a profit this quarter, it may be difficult for them to turn a consistent profit ever.

The company is expected to report earnings at the end of this month, but it should also report total number of Model 3s produced early this week. Given that the company has dominated the financial media due to the SEC’s recent lawsuit against Elon Musk, we anticipate that the numbers Tesla reports this quarter may be the most examined and opined on in the company’s history.

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Watch Live: President Trump’s Victory Lap Over New ‘NAFTA’ Deal

Almost exactly 25 years after then-President Bill Clinton signed Nafta into law, President Trump has delivered on his campaign promise to torch the free-trade agreement and replace it with something more amenable to US businesses and – crucially – US workers. The agreement will cover $1.2 trillion in trade between the three countries.

Just hours before a midnight deadline (a hard stop because it represented the last chance for outgoing Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to sign the agreement before handing power to the much more skeptical AMLO), US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland announced that the two sides had reached an accord, ending a tense period of negotiations during which Canada repeatedly threatened to walk away, something that probably would have led to the collapse of Nafta without a successor agreement in place.

With the easing trade tensions sending US stocks soaring back to just below their all-time highs, President Trump is seizing on the opportunity to take a well-deserved victory lap in the form of an 11 am press conference.

Watch it live below:

Shortly before the press conference was slated to begin, Trump economic advisor Larry Kudlow denied that there were any lingering tensions between Trump and Canadian President Justin Trudeau. While the Mexican peso and Canadian loonie rallied on the news, John Normand, head of cross asset fundamental strategy at JP Morgan, said Monday morning that he expects the loonie to outperform the peso in the coming months. He added that changes to the agreement are “modest” and not “transformational.” Other analysts said the agreement looks more like “rebranding” than “revolution”, though the Trump administration won key concessions that will likely increase the percentage of car parts made in North America, while Canada also agreed to open up its dairy market to US farmers. Canada walked away with some concessions; the new agreement preserves Chapter 19 of the deal, which allows an independent panel to resolve disputes among the agreement’s members, per the Washington Post.

But while Trump was quick to celebrate the deal on Twitter, it’s worth remembering that it must still be ratified by Congress. And if the ongoing confirmation saga of Trump SCOTUS pick Brett Kavanaugh has taught us anything, it’s that nothing is over until the president signs it into law.

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Why Do We Want To Be Poorer and Less Equal Than We Are?

Two of the major economics stories Americans tell about ourselves don’t seem to be true. Yet we are really enamored with the ideas that income inequality is on the move, separating the wealthy from the rest of us (“we” rarely consider ourselves part of the wealthy), and that the middle class is on the verge of extinction (as Pew found recently, fully 47 percent of people in households making over $100,000 a year consider themselves “middle class”).

Mark J. Perry of the American Enterprise Institute and the University of Michigan (Flint) has compiled Census data that refute these popular claims. “The Gini index measure of income dispersion reveals that there has been no significant trend of rising income inequality’ for US household incomes over the last quarter century,” he writes. “The Gini index in 1993 was 0.454 and last year it was 0.482, the same as in 2013, and this statistical measure of income inequality has also shown remarkable stability for the last several decades in a narrow range between 0.46 and 0.48.”

There is, of course, an argument to be made that existing income inequality is too vast (and it is indeed larger than it was in the 1970s, both in America and throughout most advanced economies). But as Perry notes, that isn’t the case being advanced:

We hear all the time about “rising income inequality” in America (there are more than 100,000 Google search results for that term), about “the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer,” the “stagnant or disappearing middle class,” all of the recent income gains going to the rich,” the lack of income mobility and other narratives of pessimism. In a December 2013 speech, President Obama described rising income inequality as the “defining challenge of our time” and promised that for the rest of his presidency, he and his administration would focus all of their efforts to stop the increase in income inequality. And yet, the data in today’s Census Bureau tell a much different story. [emphasis in original.]

Perry notes that median household income in 2017 reached $61,372, a new record and the fifth consecutive year of increase. When you adjust for the smaller sizes of households, things look better still:

Compared to 1975, the average household income per US household member has increased by 74% from $19,500 to $34,000, while the median household income per person has increased by 45% from $16,600 to $24,160. Without adjusting for household size, average household income increased by only 50% since 1975 (vs. 74% adjusted for average household size) and median income increased only 25% (vs. 45%), demonstrating the importance of adjusting for changes in household size when comparing median household incomes over time.

There’s also little doubt that standards of living have improved dramatically over time. By virtually any measure, food today is better than it was in the past, and cheaper too. The same goes for virtually any consumer good, with exceptions for health care and education (which are both more expensive when adjusted for inflation) and, in some part of the country, housing as well. But even there, there are many improvements. Anyone who wears glasses can tell you that frames keep getting more expensive and stylish but lenses keep getting thinner, lighter, and more scratch-resistant while staying about the same in nominal dollars.

Perry’s data also tells a welcome story about the “vanishing” middle class. To the extent that it’s shrinking, it’s because more people are making more money, not less.

There are more charts and discussion at Perry’s invaluable Carpe Diem blog.

It’s self-evident (maybe) why politicians want to talk about increasing income inequality and a vanishing middle class. They posit themselves as solutions to such problems, either via regulation and redistribution (on the left) or champions of much-needed economic vitalism (on the right). The media are often willing to play along, perhaps sensing a good story or perhaps simply being bowled over by agenda-driven research. (The latter seems to be the case in Time‘s recent ridiculous cover package about teachers needing to sell blood plasma simply to get by.) People getting poorer all the time is a variation on “if it bleeds, it leads.”

But why are the rest of us so quick to buy in to the idea of eroding standards of living and fairness? At least since 1995, Reason has run some variation of the data Perry pulled together (read “The Good Old Days Are Now“) and they almost always show progress. There are times, such as during the financial crisis, when earnings and assets absolutely took a hit, but what’s amazing is how resilient the declinist narrative is even in relatively good times. We really, really want to be worse off than we are.

Economists such as Cornell’s Robert Frank argue that humans seek relative status above virtually anything else, so that if we’re all better off, that doesn’t really make us feel any better. That may be part of an answer, but it’s odd then that objective increases in well-being rarely get discussed. Even increases in income undersell total compensation. As Reason‘s Veronique de Rugy has noted, fringe benefits have increased far more over the past 40 years than wages. We probably don’t feel richer simply because the value of our employer-provided health insurance has increased by 60 percent.

Perhaps it’s an age thing: You don’t really appreciate what you have until you reach a certain age and the stories we tell ourselves are mostly written by people too young (or too old) to fully grasp social reality? Or perhaps the data that Perry and others pull are misleading, falling into the category on knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing?

The notions that the “middle class” is on the verge of extinction and that only the super-rich are making bank aren’t new, but we are in a particularly intense moment of unreality when it comes to discussions of politics and policy. Trying to get a firm grasp on how people are actually doing is now even more urgent than it otherwise would be.

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Martin Armstrong Warns Kavanaugh Is The Tipping Point For Decline & Fall Of America

Authored by Martin Armstrong via ArmstrongEconomics.com,

Kavanaugh’s hearing exposed the serious fact that the US Congress has become too polarized to even govern…

What has been done to Kavanaugh is a serious disgrace for if the allegations of Ford are true, then she is at fault for not bringing charges back then and claiming it has defined her life. NOBODY should be allowed to bring any allegations against anyone decades after with no proof. They call them a Cold Case when they cannot solve a murder and Chicago’s track record is that they solve less than even one in six such murders and that is current incidents.

The Kavanaugh vote was strictly down the party line and that demonstrates the problem. The hatred and degree to which a person is attacked goes beyond that person but seriously harms his entire family.

This is now becoming a serious deterrent to anyone in the future looking at taking such a post. Will they find someone in your past you just hates you for some reason who now thinks it is pay-back time? The Congress is now far too disconnected from the notion of God, truth, and justice for all.

There is a complete breakdown of anything civilized in the country they are supposed to serve. The judiciary, which is traditionally distant from partisan bickering, is now smack in the middle of it. This nonsense that those appointed to the court vote only partisan means that we should simply replace the court with an artificial intelligence system that decides cases based strictly upon the Constitution.

This Congress would NEVER be capable of even writing a Constitution. If they existed in 1776, there would be NO United States. If they would have ever agreed to have a revolution against the King, they would have then turned on each other. Very few would have survived such an event. I personally am fed up with politics. My cousin has the musket that our family used in the American Revolution. If my family, who has fought in every war from the American Revolution onward were alive today, they would seriously wonder what they even fought for.

There is no doubt that historians will look back on the hearing as a turning point in this country when the Decline and Fall of the United States was at least exposed and some will make this event as the tipping point. This has exposed that hatred that is brewing beneath the surface. The computer will no doubt be correct.

We have gone way too far to ever return to normality.

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The ACLU Usually Stays Neutral on Judicial Nominees, But It Just Came Out Against Brett Kavanaugh

KavanaughThe American Civil Liberties Union has decided to oppose the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, citing the allegations of sexual misconduct against the embattled judge.

This is an unusual step for the ACLU, which almost never takes a position on judicial nominations. In its 98-year history, the civil liberties organization’s national board has only come out against a specific Supreme Court candidate in four cases.

“As a nonpartisan organization, the ACLU does not oppose Judge Kavanaugh based on predictions about how he would vote as a Justice,” explains ACLU President Susan Herman in a statement. “We oppose him in light of the credible allegations of sexual assault against him.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Friday to advance Kavanaugh’s nomination with the understanding that the FBI would conduct a limited investigation of the claims made by Christine Blasey Ford, a psychology professor who has accused Kavanaugh of attempting to rape her at a high school party 35 years ago. Kavanaugh has emphatically denied the accusation.

As of yet, there is no evidence that corroborates Ford’s story, and other alleged attendees of the party have failed to back up her account. But Kavanaugh’s evasive and misleading statements about his teenage drinking have made it easier to believe that he is hiding something.

Thus I can understand why the ACLU would make an exception in this case—there is good reason to be concerned about Kavanaugh’s character, though absent additional information it is impossible to say with any certainty what actually happened at that party 35 years ago. (Kavanaugh is also accused of other instances of sexual misconduct in his high school and college years, but these allegations are more flawed than Ford’s.)

But it would be easier to accept the ACLU’s anti-Kavanaugh stance as a one-off move if the organization had not done so much recently that makes it appear like it’s mutating into a generic progressive organization. The ACLU’s Twitter feed recently seemed to endorse a catcalling ban, and the group’s Michigan chapter sent a letter to Walmart imploring the company to stop selling Redskins merchandise. (The letter heavily implied that continuing to stock Redskins gear was contributing to a hostile educational environment in a local school, and thus possibly violating the law.) Former board member Wendy Kaminer has expressed serious concerns that the ACLU is backpedaling on some of its foundational free speech commitments in cases where the speech in questions is offensive to the progressive left. (Former ACLU president Nadine Strossen had a different perspective.)

The ACLU has done so much to protect the civil liberties of all kinds of people. It would be a shame if it became just another left-of-center group, primarily interested in rights violations that affect those in good standing with intersectional progressivism. The decision to oppose Kavanaugh might be perfectly defensible on its own, but it certainly adds to this impression.

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