TLDR DIGEST 5/1-8
“In 2020, FIRE recorded 136 instances of punishing or firing professors for airing their views — a fourfold increase over just five years. In 2021, 111 were targeted. “2020 was the worst year for sanction attempts, but it created a ‘new normal,’” FIRE research fellow Komi Frey told The Post. “Already there have been 35 attempts in 2022. At this rate, 2022 will exceed not only 2021, but 2020 as well.” But some professors are speaking out against cancel culture. Here are five, of diverse backgrounds and ideologies, who are refusing to bow to the mob.”
Five professors tell how they were canceled — and why they fought back
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“I had tweeted, ‘Biden should just make AOC the head of the CIA because nobody’s looking through phones like Puerto Rican women.’ You gotta see the women in my family, they’re all up in my phone. And some white guy, Ryan, I think he’s from Idaho, was like, ‘That tweet is so offensive.’ I was like, ‘Dude, shut up. Go eat a potato.’”
NYC comic Chris Distefano laughs off woke culture in Netflix special
https://nypost.com/2022/04/30/nyc-comic-chris-distefano-jokes-woke-culture-in-netflix-special/
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“Although private companies are not required to follow the First Amendment, nothing prevents them from doing so voluntarily. And in Twitter’s case in particular, there are strong reasons to believe that the First Amendment should presumptively govern. All four of the main principles that have historically guided the Supreme Court in interpreting the First Amendment apply just as powerfully to social-media platforms as they do to governments…A long history of free-speech jurisprudence backs [Musk] up.”
Elon Musk Is Right That Twitter Should Follow the First Amendment
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“For his system to work, Putin depends on millions of people, including doctors, soldiers, academics, and police officers, to all be motivated and play along. That motivation is being sucked out of the system. Whether Putin has the repressive mechanisms necessary to rule purely through fear is unclear: The prisons are already packed. The endgame in Russia doesn’t involve anything as dramatic as regime change, to say nothing of revolution. All it needs is for people to stop pulling their weight, because they can see that the government is no longer competent or acting in their interests. (Something similar happened in the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s: The system seized up as people gave up on it, leading to elites changing course. Back then, a senseless war in Afghanistan catalyzed despondency. Today, Ukraine could play an analogous role.)”
‘We Can Only Be Enemies’
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“A “NerdProm Week” of corporate media feting the politicos they cover with celebrities and booze rather than a simple @whca awards dinner celebrating the first amendment is a bigger threat to our Democracy than Elon Musk buying Twitter.”
Pelosi's daughter calls glitzy WHCA dinner a 'bigger threat to our democracy' than Elon Musk
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“If the U.S. enters a post-Roe world, legal abortion would likely disappear in almost half of the states, unless there’s a way to get mifepristone into those places. That raises a question University of Pittsburgh School of Law assistant professor Greer Donley is exploring right now: Can states ban the shipment of mifepristone if the FDA explicitly says it’s allowed? A Massachusetts case may provide some answers. When the FDA approved the powerful, long-acting opioid Zohydro in 2013, the governor tried to ban the sale of the drug in his state. The drug’s maker sued, and a U.S. district judge ruled that the state did not have the authority to overstep the FDA. Donley thinks this could provide the framework for a legal argument against state bans on mail-order abortion pills. If it works, it could also mean the pill remains available in places that ban abortion altogether. This idea that the states can’t do something that frustrates the purpose of federal law, that’s the strongest way to go at mifepristone.”
The Abortion Pill Is Safer Than Tylenol and Almost Impossible to Get
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"...there is nothing “anti-First Amendment” about calling out antisemitism. Indeed not identifying and attacking antisemitism in our midst would be a major moral failing, especially when it comes in conjunction with proposals to instrumentalize the university by having it engage in antisemitism....BDS has unquestionably shown itself antisemitic. If the centerpiece of the BDS agenda is an academic boycott of Israel, how does this square with the First Amendment values the Crimson editorialists profess to embrace? I hope the Crimson will see how wrong its editorial is and withdraw it. At a minimum I hope its anonymous authors will take responsibility for the views they have expressed. I call on all members of the Harvard community, including its current leadership, to make clear their righteous opposition to BDS’s antisemitism and those organizations who support it."
Antisemitism Comes to Harvard, in Both Intent and Effect
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“In 2015, UPl reported that Canadian police found that between 2001 and 2010, MAC gave almost $300,000 to the International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy-Canada (IRFAN-Canada), which in turn had sent millions to Hamas-affiliated organizations in the Gaza Strip between 2005 and 2009, prompting the Canadian government to list IRFAN-Canada as a terrorist entity in 2014.
MAC denied any wrongdoing, but the events help shed some light on why Revenue Canada might be conducting an audit of the charity. The agency’s Review and Analysis Division (RAD) operates under the Anti-Terrorism Act and is responsible for preventing “the abuse of registered charities for the financing of terrorism.” There are other issues that indicate the MAC that should be worthy of scrutiny by Revenue Canada. By its own admission, the MAC looks to the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization committed to promoting shariah law in the Middle East and Western democracies.”
Canadian Islamists Claim ‘Islamophobia’ to Avoid Legal Scrutiny
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“…those who would have previously moderated the Democrat machine, as occurred during Bill Clinton’s ascendency, find themselves unable to restrain a party now dominated by its far-Left fringe. And for all its alleged benefits, wokeness is not generally a good business strategy; it just cost Disney an estimated $50 billion, while causing firms such as Netflix to lose subscribers, in part due to what Musk describes as a “woke mind virus”. Yet so deep are the partisan divisions that it’s unlikely that much of the Silicon Valley and the Brahmin Left are ready to seek refuge in the clutches of the GOP .”
Do we need a capitalist civil war?
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“If anything unites these disparate crusades, it is that modern progressivism has become a lifestyle brand—one that its practitioners are eager to impose on you. You should avoid single-use plastics, not for practical purposes but to contribute to the moral imperative of saving the world. You should use electric equipment to maintain your property. And if your property has a footprint that doesn’t fit within the compact urban/suburban circumstances preferred by progressives over sprawling neighborhoods dominated by single-family homes, too bad. All the horrors of prohibition—from illicit marketplaces, to overburdening law enforcement, to the increased risk of unnecessary conflict between police and formerly law-abiding citizens—are dismissed. If reckless menthol cigarette smokers won’t do what’s best for themselves, they must be forced to behave more responsibly by a beneficent state.”
Losing the Country, One Minor Irritation at a Time
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“Biden [] may be locked in, as a political matter, to abortion rights maximalism, irrespective of his personal views. But the White House has decided that this is not the way it wants to frame the issue. Democrats want to say that if “they” come for abortion tomorrow, “they’ll” also come for privacy, gay marriage, etc., tomorrow. I suspect part of the reason is the David Shor argument that talking about stuff that isn’t popular is bad for Democrats. And because Biden can’t say “safe, legal, and rare,” he’s blocked off from a popular position on abortion. Another reason is that the Democrats already have nearly all pro-abortion single-issue voters in their column (overturning Roe might transform some people into new single-issue voters, though I am skeptical). Again, if I spent my life fighting for abortion rights, this would piss me off. I’d be screaming at the TV, “Talk about the actual thing they’re taking away! Defend abortion for more than two seconds before changing the subject!””
Why Joe Biden Hates Saying the A-Word
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“Katz should take comfort in the current legal climate, where juries of his peers can do a lot more than the authors of "deeply concerned" letters. In 2019, an Ohio county jury awarded $44.3 million to an off-campus bakery that Oberlin College had falsely smeared as racist after the bakery apprehended a black Oberlin student for shoplifting and assault…Across the country, since 2014 there have been more than 700 civil rights lawsuits over investigations of supposed "discriminatory harassment," a category that includes alleged racism. More than half of those cases have resulted in either a court decision or legal settlement favorable to the plaintiff, with awards reaching ever-larger sums. Only one week after the Oberlin decision, a South Carolina jury deciding such a case awarded a former Clemson University student $5.3 million for defamation and civil conspiracy claims. Professor Katz could do at least as well.”
Defamed Professor Joshua Katz Should Sue Princeton University
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"Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s first ever lending facility backed by Bitcoin is the latest effort by crypto exchange Coinbase Global Inc. to bring money from the Wall Street to the digital-asset space. “Coinbase’s work with Goldman is a first step in the recognition of crypto as collateral which deepens the bridge between the fiat and crypto economies,“ Brett Tejpaul, head of Coinbase Institutional, said in an email response. Coinbase did not provide further details about the loan. A spokeswoman from Goldman Sachs said last week the loan was collateralized by Bitcoin owned by the previously undisclosed borrower.”
Coinbase Is on Other Side of Goldman’s First Bitcoin-Backed Loan
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“We don’t have to look far to find examples of the BLM and abolish the police movements’ forces trying to glorify riots. The end of this past April marked the 30-year anniversary of the Los Angeles riots that broke out in 1992 following the acquittal of city police officers who were caught on film beating Rodney King. People’s City Council – Los Angeles, a popular Twitter account for progressive causes, tweeted the following with pictures of the devastation: “TODAY IN HISTORY – April 29, 1992. Today marks the 30 year anniversary of the 1992 LA uprisings. The city will never forget this and we shall rise up again. POWER TO LOOTERS. POWER TO RIOTERS.” Calling the ’92 riots an “uprising” has become a popular tactic with the BLM to abolish the police movements. It seeks to legitimize the destruction of the property of people who had nothing to do with what caused the outrage in the first place, lumping it under the umbrella of the objectively true message that Black lives matter.”
Don’t Let Them Whitewash The 2020 Riots
https://www.dailywire.com/news/dont-let-them-whitewash-the-2020-riots
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“Former Attorney General Bill Barr said that Chief Justice John Roberts may have to arrange for a special counsel to investigate and identify who leaked a Supreme Court draft decision this week. Barr said that the leaker could potentially be prosecuted for obstruction of justice. “Obstruction means you’re attempting to influence, you know, through some kind of wrongdoing. I don’t think it’s a stretch” to prosecute the leaker under that charge, he said.”
Bill Barr Says SCOTUS May Need Special Counsel To Out Leaker, Floats Criminal Charges
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“So, what was so objectionable about Professor Azerrad’s presentation that it could be said to justify effectively torpedoing a decades-old center that has been an academic jewel? In his letter, Taylor claims that Azerrad’s remarks were “inconsistent with the fundamental mission of the College,” which “centers around the inherent belief that only when we lift up human dignity can we move the world forward.” Since Azerrad apparently failed this fuzzy test, Taylor says, “I . . . denounce this lecture and am sorry that this happened at Saint Vincent.” Taylor adds that students and faculty should “be inspired to search for truth,” but only if that search will “lift up human dignity.” If the latter condition is not met, then the search for truth apparently must yield. A college that genuinely understands its mission would be embarrassed to suggest that a significant tension exists between the search for truth and the fostering of dignity.”
A Tyranny of the Minority
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“The inhospitality of rich, liberal states to the poor and working classes is a problem at the international level as well. During the recent Afghan-refugee crisis, resettlements to coastal areas foundered on the lack of available affordable housing. When the State Department released a list of cities with potential homes for refugees, it left off America’s largest progressive cities: New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. Refugees are actually not welcome here, it seems.”
The Right to Move Is Under Attack
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/red-state-abortion-ban-help-people-move/629756/
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“…same-sex activity in a strictly segregated society where most marriages are arranged is, while not acknowledged, not entirely unusual, even aside from the practice of bacha bazi, in which preteen boys are bought or sponsored by wealthy, powerful men for sex and entertainment.”
Millions of Afghans Want to Flee. LGBTQ Afghans Have To.
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“[I]n this 21st-century version of the Cold War, non-Western countries will refuse to take sides the way many had to during the original Cold War. The nonaligned movement of the Cold War years will reemerge in a new incarnation. This time, the Rest will maintain their ties to Russia even as Washington and its allies treat Putin as a pariah. Russia’s economy will be diminished, and if it succeeds in creating a “sovereign internet,” it will de-modernize and become ever more dependent on China. But it will remain a country with which a significant number of states will still be quite content to do business—and quite careful not to antagonize Moscow.”
The West vs. the Rest
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“Disney's stock has lost nearly $50 billion in value since the start of March, when it took a political gamble to oppose Florida's controversial new education law. Disney’s stock was down more than 2% on Friday and by more than 8.5% over the past few days as Florida lawmakers work to punish the company for wading into the state’s politics. The stock's market cap has declined by about $46.6 billion since March 1, just days before the company came out against the legislation.”
Disney has lost $50 billion in value since war with Florida began
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“In a progression that is still scarcely believable, post-structuralist theories that were first transmitted from academic theorists and activists to young people exploring their capacity for self-invention, were then adopted as mantras by the most powerful political figures in the United States.”
How hipsters started the gender wars
https://unherd.com/2022/05/how-hipsters-started-the-gender-wars/
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“Florida flourished economically by comparison with other states, especially California, which imposed singularly strict COVID mandates and suffered one of the nation’s worst surges in unemployment. Yet California’s overall death toll has been slightly worse than Florida’s.If California’s cumulative rate of excess mortality equaled Florida’s, about 5,000 fewer Californians would have died during the pandemic. And if California’s unemployment rate equaled Florida’s last year, 500,000 fewer Californians would have been out of work. Those are the hard truths that Americans need to hear after two years of COVID hazing. It won’t be easy convincing them that they fell for a deception, but it can be done, as DeSantis demonstrated at a recent appearance when he urged a group of high-school students on the podium to take off their masks. “We’ve got to stop with this COVID theater,” he said. “If you want to wear it, fine, but this is ridiculous.””
We still need to learn the right lessons from America’s disastrous COVID response
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“It turns out “breaking a norm” only counts when a Republican does it…[the Left] will do the kind of things that, if conservatives did them, would warrant 20,000-word articles about how it was a “threat to democracy.” Don’t be fooled. The left couldn’t care less about “norms.” They just want to get their way, by any means they can.”
The left’s hypocrisy exposed in leaked Roe v. Wade decision
https://nypost.com/2022/05/03/lefts-hypocrisy-exposed-in-leaked-roe-v-wade-decision/
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“Levine and the Biden administration simply refuse to listen to anyone who disagrees, including medical organizations across the globe. Sweden’s Karolinska Hospital — one of the world’s top hospitals — decided last May to stop treating under-18 patients with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. And in March 2021, the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence found that hormone treatments did not provide clear benefits for kids suffering gender dysphoria. Don’t forget the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine, an international group of doctors who dispute the idea that getting these treatments is a matter of life or death for kids. Here in America, the Florida Department of Health has come to similar conclusions and does not recommend such treatments for kids. Legitimate, evidence-focused dissents like these Levine dismisses as “the language of medicine and science . . . being used to drive people to suicide.””
Rachel Levine’s ‘gender affirmation’ echo chamber
https://nypost.com/2022/05/03/rachel-levines-gender-affirmation-ignores-science/
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“Democrats and the radical left seek to erase womanhood in all its traditional forms — when it’s politically expedient — but swiftly pivot to defending women and women’s rights when access to an abortion on demand at any stage of a pregnancy is at stake. And they desperately need a wedge issue to mobilize their voter base come the midterm elections, in which Democrats are expected to get shellacked given the Biden administration’s disastrously low poll numbers. Regardless of where one stands on abortion, whether you are pro-choice or pro-life, what’s become apparent is that, at minimum, Democrats have a serious messaging problem when it comes to gender and culture wars. At maximum, they’ve lost the moral authority to lecture to the American people what a woman is or isn’t when they talk out of both sides of their mouths.”
The left’s talk of ‘women’s rights’ exposes its gender hypocrisy
https://nypost.com/2022/05/05/the-lefts-talk-of-womens-rights-exposes-its-gender-hypocrisy/
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“The bigger risk for the party is that a scorched-earth abortion campaign simply allows it to continue to ignore the real reason for its dismal polls (which also happens to be the reason it is now losing court cases): a failed progressive agenda…Even if Democrats were willing to acknowledge these failings, they may feel it is now too late to do anything. Mr. Biden can’t fix inflation and other big problems by November, so the party figures it may as well campaign against the high court. But sooner or later, Democrats are going to need to perform that autopsy. Or risk longer-term decline.”
Nothing but Abortion to Run On
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“The new thought police don’t see themselves as acting solely or primarily out of fear. They believe they are defending the good: inclusion against hate, equality against discrimination, victimized minorities against white privilege. Yet the pseudo-gospel of inclusion breaks down quickly. In the name of inclusivity, a Jewish museum sent us a clear message: Some people are to be excluded. In the name of fighting hate, the museum decided that the millions of Floridians who support Gov. DeSantis—including many Jews—are so hateful that they don’t even merit a voice in the great American conversation. A museum of tolerance has become intolerant.”
Ron DeSantis Is Persona Non Grata at a Holocaust Memorial
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“I have another question. If discrimination on the basis of race, gender, and sexual proclivity is illegal, what is one to make of the vast ball of collusion of wealthy donors, government agencies, and university administrations that has built up to promote illegal discrimination? Isn’t this the definition of conspiracy? I will give the last word to Grinnell College. The self-celebratory webpage of Grinnell’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion states that their students “bring varied geographic, ethnic, racial, religious, and socioeconomic experiences to Grinnell — but their common traits far outweigh their differences.” Thus, my final question. If “common traits far outweigh their differences,” why should hiring new faculty be geared so strongly to amplifying those differences? Just asking.
The dangerous rise of academic diversity quotas
https://spectatorworld.com/topic/academic-diversity-quotas-are-real/
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