THE ONLY THREAT IS INTERNAL:

 For years, the resentment had been building.

In Israel, Jewish men and women are drafted into the military, but the ultra-Orthodox are largely exempt. Unlike other Israelis, many ultra-Orthodox receive state subsidies to study the Torah and raise large families.

And in a country that calls itself home to all Jews, ultra-Orthodox rabbis have a state-sanctioned monopoly on events like marriage, divorce and religious conversions.

A series of political twists has suddenly jolted these issues to the fore, and the country's long-simmering secular-religious divide has become a central issue in the national election on Tuesday.

In a country buffeted by a festering conflict with the Palestinians, increasingly open warfare with Iran and a prime minister facing indictment on corruption charges, the election has been surprisingly preoccupied with the question of just how Jewish -- and whose idea of Jewish -- the Jewish state should be.

SO MUCH WINNING!:

President Donald Trump's top advisers are rushing to find an escape hatch for a series of tariff increases in the coming months, worried about the potential for further economic damage.

THE ACTUAL BLAXODUS:

Gregory Cheadle, the black man President Donald Trump once described at a rally as "my African American," is fed up.

After two years of frustration with the president's rhetoric on race and the lack of diversity in the administration, Cheadle told PBS NewsHour he has decided to leave the Republican party and run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representative as an independent in 2020.

Now, the 62-year-old real estate broker, who supported the Republican approach to the economy, said he sees the party as pursuing a "pro-white" agenda and using black people like him as "political pawns." The final straw for Cheadle came when he watched many Republicans defend Trump's tweets telling four congresswomen of color, who are all American citizens, to go back to their countries, as well as defend the president's attacks on Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and his comments that Cummings' hometown of Baltimore is "infested."

"President Trump is a rich guy who is mired in white privilege to the extreme," said Cheadle, of Redding, Calif., who switched from being an independent to a Republican in 2001. "Republicans are too sheepish to call him out on anything and they are afraid of losing their positions and losing any power themselves."

BIKINI ATOLL?:

On August 28, the Quinnipiac poll released its survey of registered voters from August 21-26. Not only was Trump's job approval down by 2 points to 38 percent, but his job disapproval was up to 56 percent. Trump's disapproval numbers hit 51 percent among white voters, 54 percent among seniors, 60 percent among independents, 61 percent among those ages 18-34, and 62 percent among women.  

On the issues, it was even worse for Trump: 37 percent felt the economy was getting worse vs. only 31 percent who said it was getting better (a double digit rise from June among those who felt the economy was worsening), and by 41 percent to 37 percent, voters felt that Trump's economic policies were hurting more than helping the economy. On the other major issues? Nothing for Trump to tweet about. His approval rating was negative compared with his disapproval rating as follows: 38-56 percent on foreign policy, 38-59 percent on immigration, 38-54 percent on trade, and--worst of all--32-62 percent on Trump's handling of race relations. 

Little surprise then that according to Quinnipiac, Trump would lose head-to-head matchups against Biden, Sanders, Harris, Buttigieg, and Warren.  Trump's highest support levels were at only 40 percent against Warren, Harris, and Buttigieg.  Trump trailed Biden: 54-38 percent. It is worth noting that Biden carried Democrats in this poll 94-3 percent, while Trump carried Republicans against Biden by 87-10 percent. In short, Biden peeled off more Republicans than Trump peeled off Democrats. 

 Gallup released its polling data after Labor Day of its survey from August 15-30; Trump had a job approval rating of 39 percent and a disapproval rating of 57 percent. This provides a sense of how bad Trump's summer has gone: Gallup's July 1 -12 survey had Trump at 44 percent approval and 51 percent disapproval. 

Next up:  the Washington Post/ABC News poll taken from September 2-5. From their poll released July 1, to this poll released September 10, Trump's job approval declined by 6 points to 38 percent and his job disapproval increased by 3 points to 56 percent. Among registered voters only, that approval-to-disapproval rating for Trump stood at 40-55 percent. This September data also showed Trump falling to 36 percent approval with 58 percent disapproval among independents (vs. 42 percent approval to 54 percent disapproval in July). Men split evenly at 47 percent approving to 47 percent disapproving Trump's job performance, but women disapproved Trump's job performance over approval by 64-30 percent. Even 53 percent of white voting age women with less than a college education disapproved of Trump's job performance, while only 42 percent approved. 

But just as with Quinnipiac, this Washington Post/ABC News gets worse once you get beyond the beauty contest questions. Trump's economic approval rating dropped from 51 to 46 percent with disapproval on the economy jumping by 5 percent from 42 percent in July to 47 percent. It is worth following the trend lines: Last November in this poll 65 percent described the economy as excellent or good, but in this September poll that had dropped by 9 percent to 56 percent. This poll also found that by 60 percent to 35 percent the nation felt that a recession was very or somewhat likely. And only 35 percent approved of Trump's handling of the trade negotiations with China, with 56 percent disapproving. 

The drop-offs were quite pronounced among independents: who split equally at 46 percent approving and 46 percent disapproving Trump's handling of the economy, which the Washington Post noted was a severe "backsliding" from July when independents approved of Trump's handling by a 12 percent edge. Not to mention that 60 percent of independents disapproved of how Trump was handling the trade negotiations with China. Overall, 43 percent of the respondents felt that Trump's trade and economic policies had increased the chance of a recession next year, vs. only 16 percent who felt Trump's policies had decreased the chances for a recession. 

ALONG THE ANGLOSPHERE:

ALWAYS BET ON THE dEEP sTATE:

President Donald Trump's administration has released $250 million in military aid for Ukraine, U.S. senators said on Thursday, after lawmakers from both parties expressed concern that the White House had held up money approved by Congress.

THE OBVIOUS QUESTION BEING...:

The most debated aspect of Menashi's record, just in terms of the amount of heat its generated among opinion journalists and pundits, is a 2010 academic article he wrote titled "Ethnonationalism and Liberal Democracy."

That article was flagged by MSNBC's Rachel Maddow last month, when she broadcast a lengthy segment claiming that Menashi argued that "democracy can't work unless the country is defined by a unifying race."

That characterization inflamed Menashi's defenders. The Volokh Conspiracy's David Bernstein argued that, by attacking Menashi, Maddow revealed herself as the real racist. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal's editorial board offered a more substantive reply to Maddow, claiming that the article is a relatively benign defense of "Israel as a liberal democracy and Jewish state" -- and claiming that any senator who accepts her argument drifts too far towards the "anti-Israel fringe."

The Wall Street Journal is correct that the lion's share of Menashi's article is an academic defense of Israel against scholars who "argue that liberal democracy precludes the state from adopting a particularistic ethnonational identity." Arraying himself against scholars who argue, in the words of one of Menashi's antagonists, that Israel "remains distinctive among democratic states in its resort to ethnoreligious criteria with which to denominate and rank its citizens," Menashi spends most of his article listing examples of other nations that also give favorable treatment to persons with a particular ethnonational identity.

To the extent that Menashi seeks to prove that many nations have a thread of ethnonationalism woven into their legal tapestry, his article is persuasive. He lists a wide array of laws -- a Greek law that "grants automatic citizenship to 'persons of Greek origin' who volunteer for military service," an Irish law creating a special process allowing persons "of Irish descent or Irish associations" to gain citizenship, and so forth -- that give some degree of favorable treatment to people who can trace their family's origins back to that nation.

Near the end of his article, however, Menashi diverges from his largely descriptive effort to normalize Israel, and suggests that ethnic diversity is itself harmful. "Social scientists have found that greater ethnic heterogeneity is associated with lower social trust," he writes. "Ethnically heterogeneous societies exhibit less political and civic engagement, less effective governing institutions, and fewer public goods."

"Surely," he concludes with a flourish, "it does not serve the cause of liberal democracy to ignore this reality."

Menashi's article does not lay out a policy agenda to deal with this "reality." Should the government teach citizens about diverse cultures so that they are more accepting? Does Menashi agree with University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax that "our country will be better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites?"

The full answers to these questions cannot be found in Menashi's ethnonationalism article. Certainly the article, at the very least, suggests that Menashi is much more likely than the typical judge to be sympathetic to policies that seek to make the United States more homogeneous. That said, at his confirmation hearing, he did deny that the views expressed in the article shape his understanding of American law. The United States, he claimed at the hearing, is "not one of those countries" that is based on ethnic or linguistic "tradition.

HOW HOLLOW ME SEEK TO FILL THEMSELVES:

People are rightly anxious about nationalism. Its connection to malignant movements in Europe and Japan in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries gives reason to demur from the nationalist cause. More recently, the association of nationalism with race-based identity politics in America speaks to the ugly, jingoistic possibilities latent in the idea. In short, nationalism is bad, it is said, because it is too parochial and too exclusionary. These extremes together make nationalism too prone to violence. Nationalism is akin to primitive tribalism and thus to be avoided. . [...]

[T]the entrance into history of Jesus Christ provides a new perspective on this nationalist interpretation of the Old Testament. Christ fulfills ancient Israel's purpose, now carried forth by the Church. Christ explicitly extends his message to Jew and Gentile alike. As Paul puts it in Galatians, in Christ "there is neither Jew nor Greek" (Galatians 3:28). The Great Commission and its call to "make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:18) suggests a mission that transcends the particularity of nations. The call to "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21) is often used to justify a crude division of authority between the state and the church. Which, however, are those things that are not God's? Is not all of creation His? Even Paul's famous admonition to obey worldly authorities (Romans 13) is in the context of stating that all authority comes from God. So, to be precise, there is nothing that is Caesar's independent of God. Caesar doesn't even own himself.

Similarly, Augustine's famous division between the City of God and the City of Man does not teach that the City of Man has some autonomous source of power. Augustine makes clear that each City has its proper role, but also that the City of Man has an inferior role. The role of the earthly city is essentially to create basic order and protect against rank injustice. It is the "tranquility of order" that Augustine seeks. But Augustine is not naïve about the earthly city. He famously says that worldly governments that do not properly understand their relation to the divine are "criminal gangs" or "robber bands." Augustine's political teaching in City of God is essentially this: the state's job is to protect public order and then to allow the Church to do what it needs to do, including acts of charity as well as the Church's more formal sacramental and liturgical duties.

Christians should be cautious about placing too much stake in any nation. As Christ himself suggests, the ultimate kingdom "is not of this world" (John 18:36).

Nationalism as a Substitute for the Church

In his classic work on nationalism, Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson identified the rise of nationalism with a concomitant decline in the influence of religion. According to Anderson, the nation arose as an instrument of unity as both secularism and religious division weakened the unifying power of faith. Anderson was a Marxist, and he saw nationalism as an obstacle to his universalist ideology.

From a Judeo-Christian standpoint, political theologian William Cavanaugh has likewise argued that it is no accident that the rise of the nation coincided with the rise of secularism. Cavanaugh sees in nationalism a "migration of the holy" from church to state. 

THE POINT BEING, SHE COULD READ THEM ALOUD:

Hillary Clinton spent an hour yesterday reading her emails at my exhibition of all 62,000 pages of them in Venice. She is pictured here at a replica of the Oval Office Resolute Desk, stacked with her emails. pic.twitter.com/V8T27klycr

— Kenneth Goldsmith (@kg_ubu) September 11, 2019

THANKS, UR!:

One of the most important and least-known provisions of Obamacare was actually the brainchild of former Senator Al Franken. When health care reform was being debated in the Senate, he offered an amendment to include something called a medical loss ratio (MLR). It requires insurance companies that cover individuals and small businesses to spend at least 80 percent of the premiums they charge on patient care. For companies that cover large groups, the MLR is raised to 85 percent.

That limits private insurers to spending 15-20 percent of premium dollars on everything else, including administration, marketing, and profits. They are further required to report annually on how their premium dollars were spent, and if they exceeded those limits, pay a rebate to their customers.

Beginning in September, those rebates are about to be issued. Reporting for the Kaiser Family Foundation, Rachel Fehr and Cynthia Cox note that, for 2019, insurers will be issuing a total of at least $1.3 billion in rebates, exceeding the previous record high of $1.1 billion in 2012.

HE OUGHT TO BORROW HILLARY'S BLACKBERRY: