Unsightly Mental Blemishes

The UK may soon be getting tests for detecting COVID-19 antibodies:

The UK has ordered 3.5 million antibody tests designed to reveal whether people have been infected with the new coronavirus. The UK’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, who today announced he himself has tested positive for the virus, has said these tests will be a “game changer”, but the reality is they might not have that much of an impact in the short term. …

Antibody tests, by contrast, detect the antibodies our bodies produce to kill the virus, which we keep producing even after the virus is eliminated. These tests can reveal who has been infected even after they have recovered. Handheld tests that require only a drop of blood can give results in 10 minutes, and can be mass produced quickly and cheaply. …

How accurate do the tests need to be? “It’s very difficult to say,” says Emily Adams at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the UK, who is helping assess the tests developed by Mologic, one of the companies supplying the UK. Part of that process will be working out what accuracy is required for different uses, says Adams. …

The antibody response to the coronavirus may be delayed compared with other infections. The tests can be used only 14 days or more after people develop symptoms, says Adams. [NewScientist]

My Arts Editor and I will be very interested in taking this test, if it ever makes its way to the United States, after the recent revelation – at least for us – that symptoms congruent with stomach flu have been associated with COVID-19, and, I’ll tell you, we each had one doozy of a dose of stomach flu, from roughly the last week of February to the end of the first week of March. Possibly the worst I’ve ever had.

It does cross my mind to wonder, given it’s been seen in a low percentage of cases, if it happened to be concurrent infections.

When you think you’re smarter than you are:

An Australian astrophysicist has been admitted to hospital after getting four magnets stuck up his nose in an attempt to invent a device that stops people touching their faces during the coronavirus outbreak.

Dr Daniel Reardon, a research fellow at a Melbourne university, was building a necklace that sounds an alarm on facial contact, when the mishap occurred on Thursday night.

The 27 year-old astrophysicist, who studies pulsars and gravitational waves, said he was trying to liven up the boredom of self-isolation with the four powerful neodymium magnets.

The rest, in The Guardian, is here.

No doubt some wealthy baron tried this. But the servant always got a bit twitchy.

It’s silky smooth, for all the raw personality flaws on display. Gosford Park (2001) covers the goings-on at the named British estate, sometime after World War I, where a collection of upper-class Brits, plus servants, plus an American film producer and his fairly cloddish servant have all gathered to eat, shoot pheasant, and gossip.

Their host is Sir William McCordle, wealthy factory owner, randy upper-class chap with that superiority complex that everyone hates, even his children, and especially those who need his support, financial or otherwise, to achieve their goals – or even stay afloat. And therein lies the rub, because virtually everyone who isn’t a servant, and perhaps one or two of them, might have a reason to do him in. Nearly everyone’s related to them, but he sees himself as king of the castle, not kindly benefactor – and that doesn’t play well in this landscape.

One attempt on his life goes awry, as someone – perhaps his son – appears to mistake Sir William for a peasant. Excuse me, pheasant. But, after much aggravation and an inadvertent admission of fooling around, eventually his body is found, both poisoned and stabbed, and now the plot may be afoot – but not necessarily for the killer. After all, the man had little in the way of ethics or morals, but plenty of energy for all those drab and dirty little pursuits for which the upper classes are most famous – taking advantage of everyone beneath them.

If you’re looking for a sharp whodunit, wend your way elsewhere, because the storytellers of Gosford Park are more interested in exploring how the superstructure of British society of the time is supported by all those folks underneath – even down at the police station. In a sense, the knife in the back of Sir William is emblematic of the knife of corruption and disconnectedness which has slowly been tearing apart and leveling British society ever since.

Oh so smoothly does Gosford Park do it in. No one, even those taking it between the shoulder blades, actually realizes it’s going in.

President Trump decided to further deflect blame for his vast incompetencies in connection with the COVID-19 outbreak this weekend by blaming … the medical profession and hospitals:

So let’s make some points about motivations, the first prior to the quote, and fallout.

I think we’re seeing some first-class projection here. That is, if Trump was a hospital administrator, he would be figuring cost vs price and trying to drive up the price by hoarding. Of course, that would be unethical, if not out and out illegal, so he would have to cover it up in order to preserve his reputation.

And, since the world is like Trump, or they’re suckers (see: Trump University), he assumes hospitals do this. Or, at least, are most likely to look like they do. Such is the Trump way when responsibility threatens to come a-calling.

And the fallout? The medical profession remains one of the most respected in society, which may reflect negatively; hospitals, however, are the entities that charge outrageous fees and resist publicizing prices, so they’re not so high on the list.

What would I like to see now? Undoubtedly, there are medical professionals in the Trump cult. I’d like one, or several, of them to step forward with evidence backing up Trump’s claim, OR step forward to say, No, there’s no evidence for this claim, and I’m no longer a Trump supporter.

It’s called having self-respect.

It would appear that North Korea is a little worried about COVID-19, according to an analysis by Benjamin Silberstein on 38 North:

The North Korean response to the global coronavirus outbreak has been uniquely strict by global standards. In late January, the country announced a complete suspension of foreign tourism and, soon thereafter, closed off its border almost entirely to all travel and the transport of goods. By early February, it appeared the border to China was practically shuttered, an extreme move given that China accounts for 90 percent of North Korea’s foreign trade. The government took even more drastic measures against smuggling operations along the border to China. Usually, the state turns a blind eye to much of this smuggling, and a great deal of it can occur relatively freely thanks to rife and institutionalized corruption. But in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, the state has announced harsh punishments against smugglers and stepped up monitoring operations along the border. Chinese authorities have warned residents on its side of the border that anyone who gets too close to the border risks getting shot by North Korean soldiers. Symbolically, the government even refused to take in over twenty defectors that the Chinese government was going to repatriate, in fear of the virus.

I am not aware that the North Korean medical sector has any particular strengths, and the North Korean dictator Kim Jong un must be terrified of President Trump gaining leverage over him, unless he thinks he can survive the loss of 1-2% of his population without a revolution.

And that’s certainly possible. Silberstein’s conclusion?

The North Korean government is stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, it lacks the tools to control and contain a virus outbreak inside the country. On the other hand, the measures meant to keep the virus out could also have disastrous consequences. A decision by the state, for example, to shut down the country’s marketplaces to stem the spread of the virus would deal a major blow to the public’s access to food. Depending on the situation in China, Beijing may provide aid to North Korea should the food situation become difficult—as it almost certainly did after last year’s poor harvest—but this cannot be taken for granted.

It’s not hard to see any cure or vaccine being withheld if it’s under the control of President Trump, while the rest of the West would probably deliver it on humanitarian grounds. The Chinese? I’m not sure.

Trying to keep it out until it burns out is the North Koreans’ best bet, probably. They are used to deprivation, and thus may not revolt.

Match-less:

Delightful attention to detail.

It’s a little sad that I must immediately be suspicious of the President when he says something, but when he voiced negative comments about the efforts of GM to produce ventilators on an emergency basis, the red flags went up:

“Our negotiations with GM regarding its ability to supply ventilators have been productive, but our fight against the virus is too urgent to allow the give-and-take of the contracting process to continue to run its normal course,” Trump said in a statement. “GM was wasting time. Today’s action will help ensure the quick production of ventilators that will save American lives.” [WaPo]

That action, taken on Friday, was Trump’s first invocation of the Defense Production Act., used to order GM to produce ventilators (in concert with Ventec Life Systems), but then he followed it up:

“As usual with ‘this’ General Motors, things just never seem to work out,” Trump tweeted. “They said they were going to give us 40,000 much needed Ventilators, ‘very quickly’. Now they are saying it will only be 6000, in late April, and they want top dollar.”

“Always a mess with Mary B.,” he added, referring to Barra, the company’s chief executive.

And CEO Barra’s response?

GM responded that i’ts been “working around the clock for weeks to meet this urgent need” and that its commitment to build the ventilators “has never wavered.”

“We are proud to stand with other American companies and our skilled employees to meet the needs of this global pandemic,” said Mary Barra, GM’s chairman and CEO.

At this juncture, independents are wondering what’s going on, while the Trump cultists will be stirred up since, well, their Great Leader doesn’t like GM. So what’s going on? Aaron Blake provides enlightenment the next day:

A reader writes regarding the Philly’s need for a hospital and my suggested course of action:

Was the imminent domain Olen’s idea or yours? I wasn’t sure from the pull quotes and your comments. It’s a great idea. We should promote that kind of thinking among cities and counties.

Eminent domain was my idea.

The responsibility of government is safeguarding citizens and promoting the welfare of society as a whole – not ensuring companies get the profit they want. If the corporate entities refuse to participate as needed in the face of an emergency, they also do not get to profit when the emergency passes.

A client suggesting an alternative payment plan.

The Happytime Murders (2018) turns on a plot mechanism reminiscent of Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988): humanity has a companion intelligent race, the puppets. These are provided by The Jim Henson Company, and are generally well done.

But, this may involve the same puppeteers as your beloved Sesame Street used when you were a kid, but this isn’t for your kids. This is about a hard-boiled private eye puppet, Phil Phillips, a disgraced former cop accused of deliberately missing a shot on another puppet who had a gun to the head of his partner. Not only did his shot miss the criminal puppet, the ricochet hit and killed an innocent passing puppet. Meanwhile, his human partner, Connie Edwards, fights for her life and suffers a life-threatening injury to her liver, but survives.

Years later, he’s as seedy as Sam Spade, scraping by, when an old friend, actor and puppet Mr. Bumblypants of Happytime Gang fame, a TV show now years defunct, is killed in an apparent porn store robbery where Phillips was in the back room, examining records for a client. Into this walks his former partner, Edwards, full of bitter zingers and reproach for Phillips, and the LAPD decrees they shall work together on this case.

As they investigate, though, In rapid succession other members of the cast of Happytime Gang are murdered:  Phillip’s brother, Larry, is torn apart, Lyle is caught in a gang-land style hit, Goofer, a smack addict, is found drowned in the surf at the beach, and Phillips’ old flame, the human Jenny, dies in a car bombing.

Phillips is nearby for all but Larry’s murder, and so the police pick him up for questioning.

The plot continues on and isn’t a bad little plot overall, although there were times when it should have been creative and, instead, relied on dropping F-bombs like a World War II bombing raid. It takes advantage of some of the inevitable differences between puppets and humans, has a lovely twist at the end, but it’s not quite compelling. I think the problem lies with the puppet Phillips, because, despite the skill of the puppeteers, he is just not quite good enough at portraying his inner turmoil. It may be the fact that he’s a puppet, it might even be the cultural contamination of the various Muppet creative efforts. Or it could have been a pacing problem. I’m just not sure.

But I shan’t condemn it like Hollywood did, where The Happytime Murders was nominated for several Golden Raspberry awards; it simply wasn’t that bad. Dialog is delivered crisply, the human actors reach just the right balance of unease with puppets, the expected bigotry comes through, as does the fury of those humans who have reason to respect their puppet counterparts. And the two sex scenes (not the hot tub scene, which is only so-so) were absolutely delightful, as my Arts Editor’s guffaws confirmed.

But the script didn’t deliver as much creativity as was required, substituting inadequate profanity, and Phillips just wasn’t quite compelling. It’s an interesting effort, if only for trying to understand why it doesn’t quite make the grade.

Gerund:

noun In Latin, a noun derived from a verb and having all case forms except the nominative.
noun In other languages, a verbal noun analogous to the Latin gerund, such as the English form ending in -ing when used as a noun, as in singing in We admired the choir’s singing.
[Wordnik (from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition)]

Used by my Arts Editor as she puzzled over dogging it, catting around, and fishing: why do fish not get the same treatment? she wonders. (I fear she did not use gerund properly, but don’t tell her that.) It also reminds me of the observation presented in Calvin and Hobbes,

Verbing weirds language.

Out of respect for author Mr. Watterson, I shall not steal the comic. Wherefore art thou, Bill?!

Judith Klausner is just the right amount of whimsy for me:

Yep, that’s praying mantises … mantisii … ummmm plural anyways … wearing those playing cards. There’s more of her work here. Enjoy! She’s also the artist responsible for the recent spate of Roman-Greco heads carved out of Oreo creamy centers.

Helaine Olen suggests that our ineffective governmental actions in the face of COVID-19 are not just the result of the Trump Administration’s chronic incompetence, but of a society which has been trained to be can’t-do:

So are Iranians:

Standing over the still body of an intubated 5-year-old boy wearing nothing but a plastic diaper, an Iranian health care worker in a hazmat suit and mask begged the public for just one thing: Stop drinking industrial alcohol over fears about the new coronavirus.

The boy, now blind after his parents gave him toxic methanol in the mistaken belief it protects against the virus, is just one of hundreds of victims of an epidemic inside the pandemic now gripping Iran.

Iranian media report nearly 300 people have been killed and more than 1,000 sickened so far by ingesting methanol across the Islamic Republic, where drinking alcohol is banned and where those who do rely on bootleggers. An Iranian doctor helping the country’s Health Ministry told The Associated Press on Friday the problem was even greater, giving a death toll of around 480 with 2,850 people sickened. [AP]

The source? Well, at least their leaders don’t appear to be running their mouths irresponsibly:

The poisonings come as fake remedies spread across social media in Iran, where people remain deeply suspicious of the government after it downplayed the crisis for days before it overwhelmed the country.

We are so much more alike than different, but so many of us still bare our teeth at them. And, while I take news from the TehranTimes with a grain of salt, this is worth considering:

[Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria] Zakharova said the “unprecedented political and economic pressure” on Iran allowed the outbreak to take hold in the country.

Iran is unable to buy medicine and medical equipment due to the US economic sanctions which the Trump administration has been continuously tightening as part of “maximum pressure” on Tehran.

The coronavirus outbreak has prompted various international leaders, figures and groups to call for Washington to suspend its sanctions.

Earlier this week, eight countries sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, warning about the negative impact of unilateral sanctions on the international anti-coronavirus efforts.

The UN chief has said himself the sanctions are heightening the health risks for millions of people and weakening the global efforts to contain the spread of the pandemic.

In a tweet on Saturday, Iran’s Ambassador to France Bahram Qassemi said “those who still speak of sanctions and maximum pressure should accept responsibility for the death of thousands of people”.

Despite the international outcry, Washington imposed its latest round of coercive measures against Iran on Thursday.

It’s worth asking if the American sanctions strategy on Iran is responsible for part of the intensification of COVID-19. As of this writing, Iranian deaths due to COVID-19 are 2,517, with more than 35,400+ reported infected, out of a population of roughly 83 million. Of course, these numbers come with the usual data trustability caveats.

I am a little bewildered at the arguments presented to the SCOTUS for keeping the Federal Dreamers program (DACA – Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) going:

This caught me by surprise:

It’s worth noting, as symbolic of the Fox News mission to shield the President from criticism, that Trish Regan, last seen authoring a rant claiming the COVID-19 pandemic was nothing more than a hoax concocted to damage the President’s credibility, has “parted ways” with Fox Business Network:

The Fox Business Network announced on Friday that it had parted ways with Trish Regan, the conservative news host who ignited controversy earlier this month when she dismissed the coronavirus pandemic as a conspiracy to throw President Trump out of office.

“We thank her for her contributions to the network over the years and wish her continued success in her future endeavors,” the network said in a statement to CNN Business. “We will continue our reduced live primetime schedule for the foreseeable future in an effort to allocate staff resources to continuous breaking news coverage on the Coronavirus crisis.”

The news of her departure was first reported by NBC News.

Regan faced fierce criticism earlier this month when she described the coronavirus to her viewers as an “impeachment scam.”

Regan claimed “many in the liberal media” were using the pandemic “in an attempt to demonize and destroy” Trump.

Regan appears to have become a burden to the Trump reelection effort, as her rant made her directly representative of Trump’s minimizing view of the COVID-19 pandemic, right up until he turned turtle and claimed he had seen it as a pandemic a month earlier, before almost anyone else. By dumping her, they can diminish the shadow she throws across the campaign, continue to refuse to acknowledge Trump was in denial and delayed starting up the emergency programs necessary to maximize survival odds.

Yes, that does mean lie right into the mouth of God, if necessary.

But this is what happens when you no longer benefit Trump. Right under the wheels, thump-thud-thump.

Stunning:

Frisson:

• a brief moment of emotional excitement : SHUDDER, THRILLproduce a genuine frisson of disquiet— Patricia Craig
  a frisson of surprise
  a frisson of delight [Merriam-Webster]

Noted in “What’s the Plan?” Ari Schulman, New Atlantis:

As a pandemic loomed, the country moved in remarkably short order from shrug to shutdown. Understandably, some are already questioning the wisdom of this move, noting how little information we’re acting on and the devastation the shutdown is already wreaking on the economy. The New York Times grants shutdown skepticism the frisson of “taboo.”

I thought it was a nice composition.

First of the season.

In this post I suggested another reason to avoid exposure to COVID-19 are the possible long-term consequences, of which none are known. Well, The Mirror has published an article that suggests surviving men may be really unhappy – at least, the fathering kind:

… a new study has warned that the disease could also cause damage to men’s testicles.

While this link is yet to be proven, researchers from Wuhan’s Tongji Hospital are urging male coronavirus patients to have their fertility tested once they’ve recovered.

In their study , which has been widely shared on Chinese social media, the researchers, led by Professor Li Yufeng, explained: “New coronavirus infections are mainly caused by damage to the lungs and immune system, but in theory new coronavirus infections can also cause testicular damage.

How so?

The coronavirus invades cells through the combination of a protein (S protein) and an enzyme, dubbed ACE2.

In particular, large amounts of ACE2 are expressed in the testis, indicating that coronavirus has the potential to cause damage in this area.

The researchers added: “It is theoretically speculated that new crown infection may cause testicular damage, affecting sperm production and androgen synthesis.

“Obstructed sperm production will affect male fertility, and severe cases may cause male infertility; androgen deficiency may affect male secondary sexual characteristics and sexual function, and reduce quality of life.”

So they haven’t seen any cases, they’re merely theorizing. It’s hard to really analyze the danger here, since it’s based on theoretical interactions and not sample cases.

It’ll be interesting to see if this just sinks under the surface as no evidence comes available, or if men start complaining. This could render the uninfected men quite attractive.

On Lawfare, former CIA analyst Yaya J. Fanusie assesses the weaponization – my word – of cryptocurrencies:

As the North Korean case highlights, two things enable cryptocurrency laundering: easy access to unhosted wallets and the existence of cryptocurrency exchanges around the world with lax anti-money laundering (AML) measures. Although the U.S. began regulating cryptocurrency exchanges in 2013, most other nations have lagged behind in applying AML rules to cryptocurrency activity. The intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force, which sets global AML standards, provided formal guidance in 2019 for how all countries should regulate their virtual asset sectors. But illicit actors will likely continue exploiting differences in national regulatory regimes to find noncompliant exchanges where they can trade crypto anonymously. Even this month, a Seychelles-based exchange announced it would cease U.S. operations so that it could onboard clients without verifying their identity. …

Legal and regulatory activity surrounding crypto and illicit finance will likely grow in the coming years as U.S. adversaries rely increasingly on cryptocurrency operations to fund threats. The U.S. Treasury now designates cryptocurrency addresses just as it designates bank accounts and other property, and the Justice Department is seeking to acquire funds held by 113 cryptocurrency accounts involved in the North Korean laundering transactions. With such enforcement actions likely to continue, intelligence analysts, sanctions compliance officers and financial crime investigators will need to become much more conversant with the world of crypto.

Fanusie structured this essay around an apparent North Korean hack of an exchange which netted the autocracy around $250 million. The easy lesson to draw is here is, if you really insist on holding & using cryptocurrencies, be careful of your exchanges.

The hard question?

I think the hard question is whether or not the unintended consequences of cryptocurrencies overwhelm the perceived advantages of cryptocurrencies. I am aware that cryptocurrencies were initially – allegedly? – devised to deprive governmental entities of control of money supplies. Financial histories are replete with accounts of countries printing money in order to satisfy debts, only to see inflation spiral out of control to the detriment of the citizenry. In fact – not following cryptocurrencies much – I have to wonder, or ask my readers, if the flip side of that desire has been considered: there are times when printing money by increasing the debt is highly desirable – such as the $2 trillion stimulus bill, now under consideration, to rescue workers left bereft as companies are forced to suspend operations in the face of COVID-19. Can cryptocurrencies display enough flexibility to perform the same function – save citizens from undeserved financial disaster – even if not in the same way?

But, more importantly, I have to wonder if the cryptocurrencies invented and enabled by the West are being used by its adversaries to damage the West. North Korea, despite the imbecilic blather of President Trump, is no friend of the United States, and would happily see us drown in our own toxins, helping it along if possible. So would Russia and, probably, China – all have national ambitions unblunted by the terrible wars that have left Europe unsettled for more than a century.

And while I have little reason to doubt the idealistic goals of the progenitors of the primordial cryptocurrency example, bitcoin, I do have to wonder about other cryptocurrencies, as well as the founders and managers of exchanges. Are their motivations congruent to the original, or merely pecuniary? Almost regardless of the answer, is this blinding them to the existential dangers they let loose by chasing their dreams? Remember this?

Even this month, a Seychelles-based exchange announced it would cease U.S. operations so that it could onboard clients without verifying their identity.

That would worry me a lot if I were in cryptocurrencies. While there is certainly more than one lesson in history concerning mismanagement of the money supply by government entities for personal or nationalistic reasons, there is an argument to be made that better societal management through responsible selection of leaders is far more appropriate than simply leaving in an outraged huff and taking one’s marbles into the bear’s den – which may turn out to be an accurate description of cryptocurrency advocates’ actions.

Ever sit out in the wilderness, campfire petering along (yeah, this isn’t your fantasy), hear a wild, drawn out cry, and think, that’s the cry of the …

President Trump cast doubt Thursday on New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s assertion that his state, which has become the epicenter for the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, will need 30,000 ventilators to properly care for the influx of patients anticipated to flood hospitals in coming weeks.

“I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they’re going to be,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity in a phone interview. “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You know, you go into major hospitals sometimes they’ll have two ventilators, and now all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’” [WaPo]

I have a feeling.

Or, from Fox News, a couple of weeks ago, when Trump was informed of estimated death rates:

In this clip, Trump:
1. Denies WHO's coronavirus death rate based on “hunch"
2. Calls coronavirus "corona flu"
3. Suggests it's fine for people w/ Covid-19 to go to work
4. Compares coronavirus to "the regular flu," indicating he doesn't get the difference pic.twitter.com/uC9c03zX31

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 5, 2020

Now, this is just my hunch …

Yeah. No training, no learning, no curiosity, no idea. But he’s got a hunch. It’s the cry of the wild – and lame – amateur.

But, back to the WaPo article, this next paragraph was enlightening:

El Greco’s The Vision of St. John:

I just want to know why this dude on the left is wearing a hazmat suit.

Getting away from COVID-19 for a moment, many years ago I speculated that a democracy could vote itself out of existence through the election of a Party devoted to that goal; I never seemed to notice that this, roughly speaking, is what happened to the Wiemar Republic in the 1930s. It lends some urgency to the question of how a democracy can prevent such an occurrence, given that attempting to stop such a thing is nominally a transgression of democracy itself.

But can’t the same be said for permitting a democracy to destroy itself? Actually, I suspect not, despite the allure of the concept, because democracy is not an end in itself, nor an unalloyed good. Democracy is a tool that a group of people have chosen to use as their tool of governance. We like to believe it’s the best tool in all circumstances, but, quite frankly, this belief may only be a belief.

All that said, for the advocate of a democracy that is in the midst of enemies, real or perceived, that might wish to destroy that democracy, a safeguard is a desirable, yet nettlesome, thing, for well-regarded democracies are all about the rights accorded to the individual and respected by the State. How to go about that?

Well, it turns out Israel has to tried to thread that needle, as Lila Margalit explains on Lawfare:

The power to bar political parties from participating in elections was first recognized by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1964, in a case involving the “Socialist’s List,” a party affiliated with the pro-Nasserist Al-Ard movement, banned as a security threat a year earlier. Despite the lack of any explicit statutory authorization to disqualify political parties, the court held that the CEC [Central Elections Committee] had the inherent power to disqualify parties that seek to undermine the very existence of Israel. Two decades later, in 1985, the constitutional Basic Law: The Knesset was amended to provide statutory authority to disqualify parties that negate fundamental constitutional norms. The amendment was passed following another court ruling, which held that the CEC could not disqualify parties on additional grounds unless the law was changed.

Today, this provision—Article 7A of the Basic Law—allows parties as well as individual candidates to be barred from running for office if their purposes, activities or statements negate Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state; incite racism; or support the armed struggle of an enemy state or a terrorist group against the country. The power to disqualify a party is held by the CEC, a highly politicized body that includes party representatives from the outgoing Knesset and is headed by a Supreme Court justice. The CEC’s decisions can be appealed to the Supreme Court, and any decision to disqualify individual candidates must be affirmatively approved by the court before it becomes final.

Interestingly enough, under Article 7A only right wing individuals and organizations have been banned. I do find it discouraging to see the CEC is highly politicized, though. It suggests to my mind that disqualification is just another weapon in the war between political parties, just another paving stone on the pathway to hell.