Anti-Israel campus “protests”: follow the money; why speech is protected but disruptive conduct is not; SCOTUS rules 9-0 against EPA overreach

(a) I cannot add much to this cartoon:

(b) But seriously , who is funding all these NPCs (“non-player characters”, for those unfamiliar with online gaming)?

• numerous observers have noticed that so many of the protersters have the exact same type and color of tent, clearly bought in bulk
• well, the NYPost traces domestic funding (including direct payments to protesters) to “Students for Justice in Palestine”, which itself is bankrolled by…. (Cue Metallica parody:) “Soros of Puppets, he’s pulling their strings”… https://nypost.com/2024/04/26/us-news/george-soros-maoist-fund-columbias-anti-israel-tent-city/ See also https://redstate.com/wardclark/2024/04/26/george-soros-connected-groups-paying-for-antisemitic-campus-protests-calling-for-revolution-n2173357
• From abroad… Tom Nash explains that, while US universities are required by law to report direct donations over $250K by foreign governments, this can be circumvbented by funneling the donations through private companies and foundations. He claims that according to a recent FBI investigation, no less than $13 billion was funneled in this manner to US universities, mostly “elite” ones… and the top donors/bribers are, in that order, Qatar, China, and Saudi Arabia.

(c) Prof. Eugene Volokh has a well-deserved reputation as a free speech absolutist, even of speech he and I will consider vile. However, in this essay in The Volokh Conspiracy he lays ou why in the eyes of statute law, and especially of jurisprudence, disruptive conduct such as sit-ins, camp-outs, and blocking students from attending class does not enjoy the same protections as speech. In fact, according to a 2019 court ruling, disrupting a book fair by shouting slogans through a loud-hailer or other amplification device is not protected even if the words themselves are protected.

(d) oldie but goodie: I wonder who came up with the metaphor “civilizational jenga” and it appears to have been first used in this essay by Insty

(e) And ending with some good news that went mostly unreported in the media. According to administrative decrees by unelected bureaucrats, the EPA’s legal mandate to protect the nation’s waterways had been expanded beyond reason to include, effectively, any puddle on your property. A property owner somewhere in Idaho had been told by the EPA he had to remove a drainage ditch or pay a $3K/day penalty. Sixteen (!) years later, the case made it to the Supreme Court… which ruled 9-0 (!!!) that the EPA’s mandate only covers waterways in the usual sense of the word and that the decrees were unconstitutional overreach.

Continued happy Passover (mo`adim le-simcha), and a happy Orthodox Easter to any Christians of the Eastern Communion reading this!