Archive for 2024
January 5, 2024
HAMMER HITS NAIL ON HEAD: The Real Scandal of Claudine Gay Affair.
Bates College Professor Tyler Austin Harper hit the nail on the head in his essay on the Claudine Gay affair in The Atlantic.
Harper states what should have been obvious to the meanest intelligence: the biggest and most revealing part of the scandal is the lengths to which Gay’s defenders chose to go in order to defend a person manifestly guilty of the charges of which she had been accused. And her defenders did so not because of any particular allegiance to Gay, but because her accusors were conservatives whom the defenders despised.
The true scandal of the Claudine Gay affair is not a Harvard president and her plagiarism. The true scandal is that so many journalists and academics were willing, are still willing, to redefine plagiarism to suit their politics. Gay’s boosters have consistently resorted to Orwellian doublespeak—“duplicative language” and academic “sloppiness” and “technical attribution issues”—in a desperate effort to insist that lifting entire paragraphs of another scholar’s work, nearly word for word, without quotation or citation, isn’t plagiarism. Or that if it is plagiarism, it’s merely a technicality. Or that we all do it. (Soon after Rufo and Brunet made their initial accusations last month, Gay issued a statement saying, “I stand by the integrity of my scholarship.” She did not address those or subsequent plagiarism allegations in her resignation letter.)
Rufo won this round of the academic culture war because he exposed so many progressive scholars and journalists to be hypocrites and political actors who were willing to throw their ideals overboard. I suspect that, not the tenure of a Harvard president, was the prize he sought all along. The tragedy is that we didn’t have to give it to him.
Harper is not a conservative nor a fan of Rufo, but he recognizes that all these media and academic defenders of Gay essentially proved Rufo’s key point: academia and the media are politicized and corrupt.
Or as Rufo tweeted on Tuesday:
To all of my critics who snidely dismissed me as a "bad-faith actor" and a "cartoon villain": I was right. You were wrong. Gay is gone.
The world of politics cannot be divided neatly between "good actors" and "bad actors." Reality is not a Marvel movie; politics is not a child's…
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) January 2, 2024
“Bad-faith” in this meaning, not sharing our ideology and cocktail party invitations. When Kevin Williamson was hired and then nearly-immediately fired in 2018 by the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg after his crybully staffers melted down, Williamson reminded Goldberg that the Atlantic had always welcomed controversial authors, and specifically mentioned the late polemicist Christopher Hitchens. To which Goldberg replied, Godfather-style, “Yes. But Hitchens was in the family. You are not.”
Rufo, et al, aren’t in the family, and therefore the DNC-MSM have been doing everything they can to salvage what remains of Gay’s reputation, instead of (okay, don’t laugh) objectively reporting news about her.
Related: From VDH: Harvard — Out the Frying Pan Into the Fire.
Will students who emulate Gay’s habit of copy-and-paste, failure-to-footnote, and misuse-of-data now be exempt from dismissal or suspension?
After Gay’s embarrassing December 5 congressional testimony and her resignation, what now is the Harvard policy toward antisemitism?
If next week, anti-Israel students once again call for the destruction of the Jewish people in Israel all the way “from the river to the sea,” or if they again storm Harvard’s Widener library, screaming support for the October 7 massacre and intimidating Jewish students, what will the new — or old –Harvard do?
Again nothing?
Finally, Harvard insinuated that Gay was fired by racist outside pressure –despite the fact that many of her critics were large donors furious about the diminution of the reputation of their alma mater.
Is Harvard suggesting that its own mega-donors are racists?
What then might come next?
The resignation of the entire board of the Harvard Corporation* that is the ultimate cause of Harvard’s descent into mediocrity.
As Jim Geraghty wrote on Wednesday, “An institution as powerful as Harvard can withstand a certain amount of embarrassing hypocrisy, but not that much. With each day that she remained, Gay further damaged the ‘brand’ of an institution that not only takes great pride in its prestige — some would say insufferable pride in its prestige — but needs to convince families that nearly $80,000 per year in tuition, housing, and food is worthwhile.”
“*Up until about a week ago, everybody called it Harvard University, but if Harvard is going to call itself a corporation despite its tax-exempt status, perhaps the rest of us ought to do the same,” Geraghty adds.
ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: When Will We Stop Worrying About Whether Old Entertainment Will Offend People? “Not only is the BFI warning that mid-20th-century spy thrillers might be offensive to modern snowflakes, but it’s also claiming that audiences found these movies offensive when they first hit theaters.”
IS IT THAT SURPRISING? The Surprising Reason Airline Crews Dim the Cabin Lights (It’s Not to Help You Sleep).
NONSENSE, NO BAD ECONOMIC NEWS IS ALLOWED UNTIL MID-NOVEMBER: The Latest Jobs Report May Actually Be ‘Catastrophic.’
THOUGHTS ON LIFE AND ART FROM LARRY CORREIA:
My book sales suggest otherwise. 😀
And before the inevitable leftist horseshit about “McDonalds is popular too!” I’ve got lefty critics, lefty authors, and lit professors who think Son of the Black Sword is one of the best fantasy novels of my generation, and then they can’t… https://t.co/uCePTqEFlW
— Larry Correia (@monsterhunter45) January 5, 2024
HUTCH HAS LEFT THE BUILDING: Starsky and Hutch actor David Soul dies, aged 80.
VIVEK DOES IT AGAIN, FLIPS SCRIPT ON NBC REPORTER AS SHE HAS MELTDOWN ON CAMERA:
He did it earlier this week when a Washington Post reporter Meryl Kornfield asked if he condemned “white supremacy.” He then proceeded to decimate the media games while also speaking against all racial discrimination. But he predicted exactly what she would do, which is write up what she wanted regardless of what he said. Even though he predicted it during his conversation with her, she did it anyway.
They should just learn their lesson and stop trying to play these games, but then they wouldn’t be the liberal media if they did that, would they? They keep trying to shape reality into the narrative they want, but reality doesn’t comply.
NBC News reporter Dasha Burns tried again on the subject of white supremacy with Ramaswamy, as though anyone would believe that he is a white supremacist or in favor of white supremacy, and it’s more than a little hilarious that it’s a liberal white reporter trying this on a man of Indian descent. What they don’t like is the way he says to stop racism by not being racist, to anyone. He ripped apart how some of these definitions from people on the left of “white supremacy” include things like “punctuality,” which would itself be a racist construct.
Vivek handles Regime Media like a boss.
NBC News reporter Dasha Burns has a meltdown as Vivek shreds her scripted reality. pic.twitter.com/PUuhjZl7Dj
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) January 5, 2024
As Stephen Kruiser writes, “OK — I’ve Got the Perfect Gig for Vivek Ramaswamy:”
Ramaswamy has no bona fides as a conservative, or anything else, for that matter. He thought he was a libertarian for a while, then he just did a peace out on voting for a long time, and now he’s a Republican. His hot takes aren’t rooted in ideology; they tend to seem like something he cobbled together after hours of scrolling social media.
* * * * * * * * *
Republican politicians — aspiring or elected — need to learn how to say, “Wow, you’re an idiot,” to a hostile press. As most of you know, I have been writing about liberal bias in the mainstream media for over 20 years. I have seen waves of Republicans come through Washington who can’t grasp that The New York Times and WaPo will still brutalize them no matter how much you-know-what-kissing they do.
For the 14 people out there who are Ramaswamy fans: he’s not going to be president. I do see that he has a role to play in a future Republican administration, however. If a Republican does win back the White House, toss the press secretary gig to Vivek right away.
I’m already enjoying the thought of him saying, “Stupid question,” with the frequency that Biden’s former Spokesditz Jen Psaki said, “Circle back.”
Faster, please.
MARTIN HACKWORTH: Claudine Gay: the great DEI grift exposed.
BIDENOMICS: The Welfare-Industrial Complex Is Booming.
Drill into the nation’s 3.7% unemployment rate, and you’ll find a growing welfare-industrial complex beneath the seemingly strong labor market. Government, social assistance and healthcare account for 56% of the 2.8 million net new jobs over the past year, and for nearly all gains in blue states such as New York and Illinois.
The tens of thousands of migrants pouring into big cities need to be tended to. So do the hundreds of thousands of drug-addled and mentally ill homeless living on the streets. Progressive government doesn’t do anything on the cheap. America’s welfare state has thus become a proverbial Big Dig, and it keeps getting bigger.
New York City is spending $394 a day—or $143,810 a year—to house and feed each migrant, many in formerly posh hotels. Mayor Eric Adams grouses about the flood of migrants, but what does he expect when the city makes itself a welfare magnet?
Meantime, the homeless population continues to swell, even as government shovels more money into housing subsidies—nearly $43 billion in the Democrats’ March 2021 Covid bill alone. The number of homeless shot up 85,389 between 2019 and 2023, with California and New York combined accounting for about half the increase, according to a recent federal government report.
The national media is perpetually puzzled why regular Americans aren’t giving Presidentish Joe Biden credit for the booming economy. But it isn’t booming for working Americans — which the media would know if they cared to meet any.
BOOK I NEED TO READ: “Don’t You Know Who I Am?”: How to Stay Sane in an Era of Narcissism, Entitlement, and Incivility. #CommissionEarned
HEALTH: Chemicals that may cause cancer, infertility ‘widespread’ in packaged products like Cheerios. “Products that had among the highest levels of plastics were Yoplait’s Original Low Fat French Vanilla; Ben & Jerry’s vanilla ice cream; Wendy’s crispy chicken nuggets; Burger King’s Whopper; General Mills’ original Cheerios; Perdue ground chicken breast and Del Monte sliced peaches, according to the report.”
WHY IS THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION SLANDERING ALL ARAB/MUSLIM STUDENTS AS TERRORISTS? Education Dept. investigates university for condemning Oct. 7 Hamas attack. “The Biden administration’s Department of Education opened an investigation into San Diego State University after an administrator sent an email condemning Hamas and offering support after the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, according to a school official. A spokesperson for San Diego State University told Campus Reform it received a notice from the Department of Education on Tuesday about a complaint that the school ‘discriminated against Islamic, Arab and/or Palestinian students by sending an all-campus email on Oct. 9.'”
Does the DOE assume that these students are all Hamas sympathizers who would be offended or feel marginalized by criticism of rape, torture, and murder? How bigoted is that?
WHEN YOU’RE IN A HOLE…: I Know How to Save Star Wars (and Marvel, Too).
CHANGE: UMass Boston removes DEI requirements from job listings. “The University of Massachusetts Boston will no longer require aspiring faculty members to submit ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ statements following advocacy from a national free speech group. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression told The College Fix it plans to monitor the job postings to ensure UMass Boston follows through on its promise.”
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: West Coast shipping rates surge as Red Sea fallout goes global.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: OK — I’ve Got the Perfect Gig for Vivek Ramaswamy. “Vivek Ramaswamy’s casual ease with curb-stomping idiotic questions from the Dem cheerleading squad is a breath of fresh air relief from the stench of the roll over and play dead Republicans in Washington. I would once more remind you, dear readers, that I haven’t had a nice thing to write about this guy until now.”
DECOUPLING: Apple’s suppliers have so far spent $16 billion to move from China.
New research by investment bank TD Cowen seen by AppleInsider estimates that Apple’s loss of earnings because of China are considerable, and in part are behind its suppliers moving, or reshoring, to other countries.
“Over the last four years since the start of the pandemic, we estimate Apple’s revenues have been impacted by over $30 billion,” says TD Cowen in the note. This comes from “undersupplying the market due to production disruptions stemming from component supply, available labor pool, and/or government-mandated movement restrictions.”
TD Cowen’s analysts believe that because of this impact on its manufacturing chain, Apple and its 188 major suppliers are all investing to reshore as quickly as possible — and that they will continue to do so.
There’s been a lot of money exiting China with much more to come.
ESTABLISHMENT-SANCTIONED INSURRECTIONS ARE FINE: Why No Arrests at the Insurrection in California?
The point of the J6 persecution is to tell righties they can’t expect to get away with what lefties routinely do.
BEFORE THIS IS OVER, MOST WILL VIEW THEM AS MARTYRS FOR DEMOCRACY: ‘Sympathy’ surging for Jan. 6 rioters, 43% agree ‘they had a point.’