THERE ARE LEGAL RISKS TO DEFAMING PEOPLE: Court upholds sanctions on professors who called peer ‘racist.’

Sanctions will stand against two liberal professors who labeled a peer and a conservative group “racist” for their views and activism, a judge ruled.

Tennessee Technical University professors Julia Gruber and Andrew Smith were rightly punished by Provost Lori Bruce for putting up fliers that called nursing professor Andrew Donadio a “racist,” federal judge Waverly Crenshaw ruled recently.

Provost Bruce wrote in her sanctions that the anonymous posters were clearly meant to “target one individual, a coworker, and a small group of students to threaten and harass and intimidate them, [and] to incite others to participate in the harassment.” The posters were anonymously distributed on campus in February 2021.

Donadio (pictured, with student leader Gittle Sciolis) is involved with the campus Turning Point USA group, which Gruber and Smith also accused of racism through their fliers.

“I’m heartened for the Provost’s and University’s victory,” Professor Donadio told The College Fix.

Donadio also noted that to his knowledge, he has “never had a spoken word with either of them.” He declined further comments due to the “possibility of legal action.”

The accusations came as a result of Donadio’s public support for keeping the “Redskins” mascot of a local school as well as his work as the campus advisor for Turning Point USA. Donadio is also a Republican Putnam County commissioner.

I would not be surprised if he sued. I think I would, in his shoes.

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A MUCH BIGGER BLOG: Media Myth Alert is Taking stock: Top mythbusting posts of 2022.

ROUNDUP: Legal issues facing higher education in 2023.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Use These Five Easy Tricks to Identify the Marxist in the Room.

MARK JUDGE: Shredding Away the Covid Insanity:

Forget Jan. 6. The worst day in recent American history came on May 2020, when the city of Los Angeles filled the skateboarding park at Venice Beach with sand. The move was a deterrent done in the name of preventing the spread of COVID. A month later, and without permission, the skaters dug out the park and started riding again.

For those of us who are skateboarders , the closing of the park was a dark day. We seem to intuitively know what has since been proven: joyful exercise in fresh air and sunlight is a natural preventative to illness, including COVID. We knew better than the buzzkill bureaucrats.

Now, science has caught up with the skaters. A new study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that “a regular exercise routine may significantly lower the chances of being hospitalized or even dying from COVID-19.”

Skateboarding is the perfect form of blocking COVID . Shredding down a hill with the sun on your face and the wind in your hair is the antithesis of masking up. It’s no wonder the sport has thrived during the pandemic. By the end of 2020, skateboard sales had jumped 75% compared with 2019, according to ActionWatch, which records the numbers. . . .

Then there is Girlswirl, a female skating group that began in 2018 when nine girls on a text chain in California decided to get together and encourage themselves and others to take up skateboarding. The group is now a thousand members strong and has held more than 100 public group skates.

Seeing the pictures and video of the Girlswirlers, who describe themselves as “the world’s okayest skaters,” it almost seems like a bygone America. Smiles. Laughter. Fun. Joy. Being outdoors.

Last January, University of Exeter scholar Dr. Paul O’Connor released a study showing that skateboarding provides a significant psychological boost.

No wonder the “public health” people hate it.

THE JANUARY 6 COMMITTEE SEEMED CURIOUSLY UNINTERESTED IN HIM: MTG: Ray Epps ‘should be in jail.’

AMERICAN REFUGEES: New U.S. Census Data: Major Migration From Blue States To Red States. 9 of the 10 states with the least net domestic migration voted for Joe Biden in 2020, and 9 of the 10 states with the most net domestic migration voted for Donald Trump.

9 of the 10 states with the worst business tax climates voted for Joe Biden in 2020, and 8 of the 10 states with the best business tax climates voted for Donald Trump.

LIFE IN THE BLUE ZONES: WATCH: Looters Ravage Buffalo After Deadly Blizzard.

MOST WANT FBI INVESTIGATED: Here’s a positive note on which to end 2022 – a new Rasmussen survey finds that 63 percent of likely voters asked agree the FBI should be investigated for conspiring with social media to violate Americans’ First Amendment rights.

NEW YEAR SALE is here. #CommissionEarned

THE LATEST STRATEGYTALK ON CHINA: The Emperor Backed Down: The COVID Lockdown Explosion And Fallout. Runs 28 minutes. Includes new theme music!

VERY RELATED: Xi’s China faces push back from everyone and everywhere. The December 9 China update — background for the podcast.

(Bumped, by Glenn).

OUT ON A LIMB: Fauci Leaves a Broken Agency for His Successor.

After 54 years at the NIH, tomorrow marks Dr. Anthony Fauci‘s last day in office as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). While many were angered by his changing and conflicting recommendations, I am not. They are mere symptoms of a much larger and deeper problem. Dr. Fauci’s agency failed to promptly fund key research during the pandemic. That research would have abruptly ended many of the COVID controversies that divided our country.

In a study of NIH funding published in The BMJ, my Johns Hopkins colleagues and I found that in the first year of the pandemic, it took the NIH an average of five months to give money to researchers after they were awarded a COVID grant. This should be unacceptable during a health emergency.

Consider the question of how COVID spread—was it airborne or spread on surfaces? (Remember all those people wiping down their groceries?) It lingered as an open question without good research for months, as Fauci spent hundreds of hours on television opining on the matter. Finally, on August 17, 2021—a year and a half after COVID lockdowns began—Dr. Fauci’s agency released results of a study showing the disease was airborne. Thanks for that. The announcement on the NIAID website, titled “NIH Hamster Study Evaluates Airborne and Fomite Transmission of SARS-CoV-2” came 18 months too late.

Imagine if, in February 2020, Dr. Fauci had marshaled his $6 billion budget, vast laboratory facilities, and teams of experts to conduct a definitive lab experiment to establish that COVID was airborne. On this question and many others throughout the pandemic, our problem was not that the science changed—it’s that it wasn’t done.

If “Dr. Fauci’s agency failed to promptly fund key research during the pandemic,” that may possibly be due to his funding the key research that enabled the pandemic: Letter confirms Wuhan lab’s COVID-19 leak was funded by US taxpayers.

ARE THEY FUN OR INTERESTING? THAT’S ENOUGH. LET ALONE GORING LEFTY COWS:  Are These 7 Movies on the Woke Mob’s Chopping Block?

END-OF-YEAR THOUGHTS:

SOMEONE NEEDED TO:  Joe Rogan: EXPOSES The Battery Mining Industry!! EXTREME Problems in The Harshest Conditions !?!

GOOD:  Pushback: University eliminates “bias reporting” option that allowed any student to anonymously squelch dissent.

BEHOLD, MY SHOCKED FACE:  Biden White House Plans to Obstruct GOP Investigations.

AND THE GODS OF THE COPYBOOK HEADINGS IN FIRE AND TERROR RETURN: Universal Health Care Ends With The Government Telling You To Kill Yourself.

WELL, YES:  China’s Dictatorial Political System Is The Root Cause Of Its Disastrous Covid Policies.

BEHOLD, MY SHOCKED FACE: Ginni Thomas Transcript From J6 Panel Reveals Witch Hunt Operation Without A Witch.

DEMOCRATS… A CORRUPTION CLUB WITH A POLITICAL PROBLEM:  Hochul In Hot Water Over Covid Test Contract.

THEY HAVEN’T LOST ENOUGH:  The Top 5 Losers Of 2022.

THEIR MASTERS’ VOICES:  Another ‘master-canine’ relationship: NYT runs interference for the FBI.

AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE OF KARENS, NAIL-BITTERS AND BED-WETTERS:  The ‘People’s CDC’ emerges and decrees mask-wearing to be ‘forever’.

BECAUSE IT’S BEING PAID FOR BY GOVERNMENTS:  Why you can’t trust ‘the science’ about anything anymore.