On Wednesday, the Biden administration officially announced that Israel would be admitted into the State Department’s Visa Waiver Program, which allows Israeli citizens to travel to America without visas, a long-time priority for successive Israeli prime ministers. Before the announcement was even made, however, Arab-American activists in the United States sued to block the move.

In a lawsuit filed in a U.S. District Court in Michigan, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee alleges that the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department have bent the rules of the program in order to allow Israel to join. Under the program, participating countries must allow all U.S. citizens visa-free travel to their own countries. Israel, the lawsuit claims, does not.

“Every other country that has been admitted to the VWP treats all U.S. citizens exactly the same, without imposing requirements, regulations, or restrictions based on national or ethnic identities, and no other country restricts U.S. citizens access to any territory under its control based on their national or ethnic identities, as Defendants are permitting Israel to do,” the lawsuit claims.

Israel, the lawsuit says, does not allow U.S. citizens of Palestinian heritage unfettered access to the country as the rules require, limiting those who are residents of the West Bank and Gaza or are of Palestinian heritage. The United States is entering into an agreement “that allows the Government of Israel to create different classes of U.S. citizens and treat them disparately in a way that is not reciprocal with how the U.S. treats Israeli citizens,” the lawsuit claims.

Fetterman Caves on Dress Code

The famously bedraggled junior senator from Pennsylvania, John Fetterman, told his fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill Wednesday that he will wear a suit when presiding over or speaking in the chamber. If he feels an irresistible urge to loosen up when a vote is taking place, he said, he will revert to his old custom of keeping one foot in the cloakroom while doing so.

The majority leader, Senator Schumer,  previously said he was relaxing the chamber’s unofficial dress code in order to accommodate Mr. Fetterman, who suffered a stroke while on the campaign trail in 2022 and was hospitalized with severe depression earlier this year. A number of his fellow senators grumbled about the special treatment of Mr. Fetterman. Senator Manchin had in recent days been circulating a petition, the Show Our Respect To the Senate, or SHORTS, a resolution seeking to have the dress code reinstated.

Philly Dries Up Following Widespread Looting

All of Philadelphia’s state-run liquor stores, operating under the name Philadelphia Fine Wine and Good Spirits, were closed Wednesday following widespread looting in the city Tuesday night that saw some 18 different branches broken into. The stores were closed in the interest of employee safety and to assess damages, state officials said. The stores, the only places to buy hard liquor in the city, will reopen “when it is safe to do so,” they said.

Also Noteworthy:

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• The next big labor strike looks to be coming for Las Vegas’s hotels and casinos.
• Young men and women who enlisted in the National Guard in New York to serve their country are now filling out immigration forms for Venezuelan migrants.
• The U.S. Army War College thinks war with Communist China could cause 3,600 casualties per day, so it’s considering a draft.
• Why are right-wingers hating on Taylor Swift these days?
• New Poll: 79 percent of Republicans in Iowa are considering candidates other than Trump.
• California bill would make it even more difficult to evict squatters than it already is.
• One of the government lawyers prosecuting Florida residents accused of being part of the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill has been arrested for stabbing people on a Tampa bridge.