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OK, I know I mentioned yesterday that I might provide "my penetrating analysis of the Mahmoud Khalil situation" today.
Sorry, I kinda lied. I don't have a penetrating analysis. I'm torn between my libertarian bias and my conservative bias Leaning libertarian, though. I've noticed strong arguments on both sides. Inside my own head!
The WaPo editorialists, perhaps under the sway of Jeff Bezos, go libertarian: The Khalil case is a threat to First Amendment rights.
Mahmoud Khalil, a green-card holder and student activist, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Saturday not for criminal activity, but for things he said. If President Donald Trump gets away with deporting him, as he intends, the danger is that more legal immigrants — possibly U.S. citizens as well — will be punished for exercising their First Amendment freedoms.
So that's bad, right?
In contrast, Erielle Azerrad at the City Journal opines that Deporting Hamas Supporters Like Mahmoud Khalil Is Perfectly Legal.
For noncitizens, residing in the United States is a coveted privilege, not a right. Progressives, however, have lost sight of this principle of immigration law—at least as applied to a zealous supporter of Hamas.
Former Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil is the first target of the Trump administration’s effort to crack down on law-breaking Hamas supporters on college campuses. The Syrian-born green-card recipient served as one of the ringleaders of the post-October 7 riots at his former university and functioned as the lead “negotiator” for the student group known as Columbia United Apartheid Divest (CUAD). CUAD was one of the primary agents of chaos on Columbia’s campus during last spring’s “encampment,” during which rioters smashed windows, defaced and occupied buildings, disrupted classes, and harassed and threatened Jewish students. Interestingly, recent court filings show that Khalil received his green cards just five months ago—long after he and CUAD wreaked havoc (and just eleven days after President Trump’s electoral win).
Interesting! And, for those keeping score, in direct contradiction to the WaPo's assertion that Khalil was in trouble "not for criminal activity, but for things he said."
Reason's Robby Soave finds that Deporting Mahmoud Khalil is unjustified.
Setting aside the constitutional issue, the detention of a student activist for engaging in what would clearly be considered First Amendment–protected activity under other circumstances is very alarming. If the State Department wishes to proceed with this course of action, the burden is on the government to sufficiently explain why Khalil should be deported. Authorities must persuasively demonstrate that his conduct crosses some very, very red line.
Yet, at present, the government's justifications don't come anywhere close to satisfying such a requirement. On the contrary, the official explanation for Khalil's detention is so woefully insufficient as to be laughable—except, of course, this matter isn't funny at all.
Indeed. Lack of amusement is something antithetical to the teachings of St. Elvis, and something Pun Salad tries to avoid.
Could I get away with singing "I used to be disgusted, But now I'm just confused", St. E.?
Greg Lukianoff and Robert Shibley provide Five things to remember as the Mahmoud Khalil case develops. They provide aid and comfort to fence-straddlers like me, granting that the case is "complicated".
ICE alleged that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization,” and reportedly told Khalil at the time of his arrest that his student visa had been revoked. This seems to have been an error, as Khalil’s attorney pointed out that he held a “green card” and was a lawful permanent U.S. resident. Permanent residents don’t need visas to be in the United States, but ICE took him off to a detention center anyway.
It wasn’t clear at first whether Khalil had perhaps been accused of some kind of lawbreaking, but White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday confirmed that wasn’t the issue. She announced that Khalil is being targeted under a law that she characterized as allowing the secretary of state to personally deem individuals “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States of America” and have them removed.
Unfortunately, there are many complications in this case, and as Jed Rubenfeld wrote recently for The Free Press, “anyone who says the law is settled or obvious here is wrong.”
At the NYPost, Jeffrey Lax does a little pastiche of that famous Niemöller poem: First they came for a disgraceful Holocaust comparison in the case of Mahmoud Khalil.
Yet Democrats and the left-wing media are cynically using Jews — and, yes, once again, even evoking the Holocaust — to argue against Khalil’s detention.
They are wielding Jewish history — and the ultimate example of Jewish victimhood — to protect this terrorist-surrogate antisemite and object to his deportation.
When Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn) denounced Khalil’s arrest, he intoned, “Today it’s Mahmoud Khalil. Tomorrow, it’s me or you.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) similarly stated, “If the federal government can disappear a legal US permanent resident without reason or warrant, then they can disappear US citizens too.”
Both quotes deliberately recall the famous 1946 poem “First They Came . . .” by Martin Niemöller.
In it, Niemöller bemoans the German people’s silence during the Nazis’ rise to power. He catalogs the incremental purging of various groups — Communists, socialists, Jews and others — in the march to the Holocaust.
“Then they came for me,” the poem ends. “And there was no one left / To speak out for me.”
Shame on Murphy, Ocasio-Cortez and the mainstream media for this craven display.
In a particularly disgusting maneuver, media outlets like PBS and the increasingly radicalized New York Times have enthusiastically cited two extreme-left “Jewish” groups who oppose Khalil’s deportation.
They know better.
They just don’t care.
It's especially ugly when Khalil and his cheerleaders whine about his "kidnapping". Because you know who they really came first for?
Mahmoud Khalil’s wife said that he was “violently kidnapped” and a hostage.
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) March 15, 2025
Let me show you what violent kidnapping looks like. pic.twitter.com/GpE1YOFWEU
Also of note:
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Eric Boehm notes a common misusage: Howard Lutnick Doesn't Get To Decide What You Buy.
Every day, thousands of transactions take place in which Americans and Canadians consent to exchange currency for goods.
Commerce* Secretary Howard Lutnick thinks there is someone they forgot to ask.
"We don't want to buy 60 percent of our aluminum from Canada," Lutnick explained during an interview with Fox News on Thursday. "We want to bring [aluminum production] to America."
Lutnick's phrasing there is pretty telling. There is no "royal we" in the marketplace—that Canadian aluminum is not being bought by the federal government, but by private American businesses, which are making deals with private companies on the other side of the border.
I've had a bee in my bonnet about the "royal we" and (more generally) the sneaky use of first person plural pronouns to foster a false sense of communal coziness.
So beware when educrats prattle on about "our kids".
"Dude, they are not 'our kids', Stop saying that. You do your kids, I'll do my kids."
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Just a reminder about the Putin Fanboy in Chief. From Jim Geraghty: Putin Flips Trump’s Cease-Fire the Bird.
For weeks, I have been told that I’m being far too harsh on the Trump administration, and that Trump had deftly maneuvered Putin into a box that the Russian dictator would have no choice but to either agree to a cease-fire, or look intransigent and suffer the consequences of a spurned, offended Trump. I was assured that if Putin turned down the offer, Trump would take a much harder stance on the regime in Russia.
Well, I look forward to that much tougher stance from the Trump administration. It’s gonna start any day now, right?
As Jerry Pournelle used to capitalize: Real Soon Now.
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Nothing better to do? Christian Schneider wonders Why Is the Trump Administration Selling Teslas? He notes the unseemliness of RFKJr plugging Steak&Shake's use of beef tallow in its fryers. But Christian points out (literally) that was "merely an appetizer."
The next day, Trump himself, seeking to soothe the bruised ego of the world’s richest man, held a press conference at the White House to convince Americans to buy Tesla automobiles. Tesla, of course, is owned by Trump adviser Elon Musk, who, through his Department of Government Efficiency, is trying to lay off large swaths of the federal workforce. As a backlash to Musk’s erratic, slash-and-burn behavior, many Americans are refusing to buy his cars and Cybertrucks, which are currently the cause of over 98 percent of eye rolls conducted in the U.S.
During the staged sell-a-thon, Trump suggested the people protesting against Tesla should be labeled “domestic terrorists.” In a social media post, he claimed people boycotting Tesla were behaving “illegally and collusively.”
It hasn't even been two months yet, and I'm already tired from "all the winning."
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Speaking of tallow… Jonah Goldberg goes Seussian: Jihad Me at Tallow.
“I Don’t Like Seed Oils!”
I do not like these seed oils, no!
I do not like them, friend or foe.
Would you cook fries in soybean oil?
Would you fry them, watch them boil?
No soybean oil! Not in my fries!
No seed oil tricks, no seed oil lies!
Soy’s for soy boys, weak and bland—
I’ll eat no oils from their hand!
Would you like them from canola?
Maybe just a little cola?
No canola, no thank you please!
Seed oils make me ill at ease.
Cottonseed? Sunflower too?
Seed oils I will give to you.
You should eat fries cooked in fat!
Yummy tallow, fancy that!
Tallow fries? Yes, that’s my style!
Golden, crispy—makes me smile.
Seed oils pale next to beef fat—
Give me tallow fries, that’s that!
I do not like these seed oils, no!
Take your oils, soy boys, go!
Give me butter, tallow, ghee—
Seed oils just aren’t right for me!Need I say: you should subscribe to the Dispatch.
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Hi ho, hi ho! It's off to broke we go! Douglas Murray looks (with some schadenfreude) at the woes of Disney: Grumpy, Dopey and Woke — Disney’s ‘Snow White’ disaster.
As President Trump once memorably put it, “Everything woke turns to s—t.”
That even includes attempts to remake a movie classic like “Snow White.”
This week saw one of the strangest movie promotional events ever. Skipping all the major cities, Disney decided to throw a premiere event for 100 people at a remote castle in Segovia, Spain.
The main aim of Disney seems to have been to get the star of their movie — 23-year old Rachel Zegler — as far away from the public as possible.
For the brattish Zegler has a talent for irritating audiences wherever she goes.
More at the link. Also at the end: more Khalil Kommentary! If you haven't had enough today.
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