I just published my article on Grenada’s annual October 25 Thanksgiving. As I explain in that piece, Grenada’s Thanksgiving commemorates the date of the commencement of the 1983 U.S.-led intervention to restore order on the island after a palace coup. It occurred to me right after publishing the article (somehow only after) to check whether then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan noted the intervention in his Thanksgiving Proclamation. I found that he hardly could have in his 1983 Thanksgiving Proclamation since he issued it on September 15. I checked 1984 out of due diligence, but the 1984 Thanksgiving Proclamation was similar in brevity and substance to the 1983 edition. To be sure, short, lite Thanksgiving Proclamations have been more common than small Thanksgiving dinners. I conducted some research last year to see whether I could turn former President Calvin Coolidge’s Thanksgiving Proclamations into an article. I succeeded with his first Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1923, but in so doing I discovered that Coolidge’s Proclamations became more and more simple through the final one he issued in 1928.
Category: NLJ Addenda
Russia on the rights of “occupiers”
Israel has no right to self-defense against Hamas militants in Gaza as an occupying power in Palestine, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations said Wednesday.
The Russian government is appropriating Soviet humor. (I dare say that this is a better example of Russia’s questionable Iran-coddling commentary than the one I used for an October 14 article at The New Leaf Journal.)
The Meaning of Matter of Salama
The Board said all the way back in 1966 that long and pervasive discrimination can amount to persecution. Matter of Salama, 11 I&N Dec. 536 (BIA 1966) (recognizing discrimination against Jews in Egypt as persecution). Matter of Salama was one of the first BIA decisions construing the phrase “persecution on account of race, religion, or political opinion” in the Immigration and Nationality Act. What today’s decision confirms is that the Board’s analysis in Salama, that “a government campaign of discrimination” may be persecution, remains true.
I wrote a detailed analysis of a 1966 Board of Immigration Appeals decision in Matter of Salama, 11 I&N Dec. 536 (BIA 1966). In that post, I worked through the decision and examined the small number of citations to it in precedent decisions. I opined that although I first came across the decision while researching economic persecution precedents, its analysis is too limited to provide much value in that area of asylum law. The Hoppock Law Firm’s description of Salama as holding that “long and pervasive discrimination can amount to persecution” is over the target. However, as I explained in my piece, the limited analysis makes it difficult to discern an easy-to-apply broader principle in Salama.
Corey Seager Breaks Bonds’ Divisional Series Walks Record
I came across an article noting that Corey Seager of the Texas Rangers was walked three times in a 3-game sweep of the Baltimore Orioles in the American League Divisional Series, breaking Barry Bonds’ 2003 record of 8 for a divisional series. I am not a baseball fan and am not following the playoffs, but I took note of the article since I recently wrote about some of Barry Bonds’ more absurd intentional bases on balls and regular walks records, with a focus on 2001-2007. There is one major difference between Bonds’ 2003 NLDS and Seager’s 2023 ALDS. 6 of Bonds’ 8 walks in the 2003 NLDS were intentional whereas only one of Seager’s 9 walks in 2023 were intentional.