WHY PLAGIARISM MATTERS. “To the extent that [former Harvard president] Claudine Gay’s behavior is common, it points to a widespread culture of corruption, favoritism, and elitism in academia… What does it say to our students when we punish them for something that’s dismissed as ‘no big deal’ when one of us is caught? It says: If you’re an elite, one of the Chosen, then you can get away with what ordinary folks are destroyed for. Rules are only for common folks, not the elite.” A startling amount of what we hear from every institution these days seems intended only to get this message across to the plebs.
April 24, 2024
STREISAND EFFECT: Watch the Video That the House the Sergeant at Arms Wants to Fine Rep. Massie for Sharing.
This is the U.S. House of Representatives under the direction of Speaker Mike Johnson. Democrats are celebrating his total capitulation with no victory for securing our border. #MTV pic.twitter.com/TtaIgnX9eg
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) April 20, 2024
This author isn’t inherently offended by someone flying the flag of another country. We could imagine some Americans (including Congresspersons) waiving British flags during World War II as a sign of friendship and solidarity even before we entered the war, and many friends have been flying the Israeli flag, particularly since October 7, 2023.
But this author has yet to hear someone rationally explain why we should care so much about Ukraine. It is no longer a republic versus a dictatorship, as it was at the start of the war. It has devolved into deciding which dictator rules Ukraine: Putin or Zelenskyy. We find it hard to care about that question. We suppose we prefer Zelenskyy but not enough to go further into debt over it. Many say this will weaken Putin, as if our bigger problem isn’t China. Putin isn’t trying to tell us what movies we can watch, but China is and they are taking other steps to actively subvert our Republic. And don’t even get us started when they unleashed a plague that screwed up most of the world. All things being equal, we would rather ally with Putin against China, rather than drive Putin into China’s arms.
But whatever you think of the display, We the People have a right to see it and evaluate it for ourselves, right? The people who vote for these people have a right to decide if this is appropriate behavior for a Congresscritter and vote according to their views.
However, Massie posted that the House Sergeant at Arms threatened to fine Massie for informing the American people of the display they put on[.]
Last year, Newsweek ran a story headlined, “The Startling Similarities Between Joe Biden and Lyndon Johnson.” LBJ couldn’t sell those on his own side of the aisle on why Vietnam was a necessary war in the mid-1960s, and Biden at age 81 lacks the ability to rally those on the opposite side of the aisle on why Ukraine is a necessary war in 2024. Particularly after a half century of his own party pulling the rug out from nations we had previously given our support to. No wonder many in the GOP are skeptical.
WELL, OF COURSE: “What I do know is that even the most peaceful of protests would be treated as outrages if they were interpreted as, say, anti-Black.”
Plus: “And besides, calling all this peaceful stretches the use of the word rather implausibly. It’s an odd kind of peace when a local rabbi urges Jewish students to go home as soon as possible, when an Arab-Israeli activist is roughed up on Broadway, when the angry chanting becomes so constant that you almost start not to hear it and it starts to feel normal to see posters and clothing portraying Hamas as heroes.”
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WATCH: Joe Biden just had his “fine people on both sides” moment on Monday.
Reporter: “Do you condemn the anti-Semitic protests on college campuses?”
Biden: “I condemn the antisemitic protests. That’s why I have set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.”
Video at link.
Yesterday, Biden’s handlers sent out a deputy press secretary to perform cleanup duties, rather than risk another Trunalimunumaprzure! moment with Biden himself:
Biden sent out a random mid-level staffer to clean up his "both sides-ing" of the antisemitic protests terrorizing Jewish students on college campuses pic.twitter.com/QcyWooXCfS
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 23, 2024
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Twilight of the Wonks.
Impostor syndrome isn’t always a voice of unwarranted self-doubt that you should stifle. Sometimes, it is the voice of God telling you to stand down. If, for example, you are an academic with a track record of citation lapses, you might not be the right person to lead a famous university through a critical time. If you are a moral jellyfish whose life is founded on the “go along to get along” principle and who recognizes only the power of the almighty donor, you might not be the right person to serve on the board of an embattled college when the future of civilization is on the line. And if you are someone who believes that “misgenderment” is a serious offense that demands heavy punishment while calls for the murder of Jews fall into a gray zone, you will likely lead a happier and more useful life if you avoid the public sphere.
The spectacle of the presidents of three important American universities reduced to helpless gibbering in a 2023 congressional hearing may have passed from the news cycle, but it will resonate in American politics and culture for a long time. Admittedly, examination by a grandstanding member of Congress seeking to score political points at your expense is not the most favorable forum for self-expression. Even so, discussing the core mission of their institutions before a national audience is an event that ought to have brought out whatever mental clarity, moral earnestness, and rhetorical skills that three leaders of major American institutions had. My fear is it did exactly that.
The mix of ideas and perceptions swirling through the contemporary American academy is not, intellectually, an impressive product.
Nope.
I DON’T KNOW WHY IT’S UP TO COLUMBIA: Columbia has ‘made clear’ it ‘does not want NYPD’ on campus as pro-Hamas occupation takes over school.
Related: Columbia Jewish students told to flee campus as situation unravels.
STEPHEN KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Let the Protesters Stay Until Academia Burns to the Ground. “In yesterday’s Briefing, I was mostly referring to the student mobs who have been making all of the anti-Israel noise and trouble on campuses all over America. We can’t forget the adults in academia who are paid handsomely to indoctrinate the kids and saddle them with such crippling ignorance, however. What we’re seeing is the product of decades of pumping impressionable minds full of, to borrow a leftist word, misinformation. . . . We’re not seeing something that came from the deep recesses of the collective college student consciousness. This has been simmering just below the surface for a very long time. Academic leftists are the cancer, the anti-Israel protests are the symptom. What we’ve seen on American campuses since last October has proven what those of us who write about the rot in academia have been saying for years. That rot is pervasive and really does make it seem as if there is nothing redeemable in higher education.”
WELL, THEY HAVE TO SATISFY THE RADICAL MUSLIM VOTING BLOCS IN MICHIGAN AND MINNESOTA, WHILE NOT BEING TOO OBVIOUSLY ANTI-SEMITIC: White House bobs and weaves through questions on Gaza campus protests.
SOME PARTS OF AMERICA STILL WORK: SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites, aces 300th rocket landing (photos, video).
Also: Rocket Lab launches new NASA solar sail tech to orbit.
ED MORRISSEY: Once Again, With Feeling: Decolonize Academia Now! “I wish to offer this essay again to remind us that we could force these schools to recognize the damage they are doing by restoring proper market signals to the education industry. And until we do, American Academia will continue to operate as a toxic and destructive element in our society, imposing indoctrination rather than education and producing generations of moral failures and petty totalitarians. And as the past six months have demonstrated, other approaches simply aren’t working.”
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I’M NOT EVEN SURE THIS IS SATIRE:
Columbia Admins Promise To Carefully Investigate Whether 'Let’s Kill Every Jew We See On Campus' Chant Violates School’s Conduct Policy https://t.co/zqkQGy2Nki pic.twitter.com/dl5EPzvFrH
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) April 23, 2024
I mean, this is straight news: 54 Columbia Law Faculty Condemn Administration For Disciplinary Action Against Anti-Israel Student Protesters.
I mean, most of these people were probably all in for the “punch a Nazi” fad, but now they’re all in for a “kill the Jews” protest. If these were right-leaning students, the faculty would be applauding.
THE GOLDEN STATE’S SLOW SUICIDE CONTINUES: Wall Street Journal: “Slavery Reparations in California?” Various committees of the California Legislature have now approved various recommendations of the Task Force on Reparations. They. Just. Can’t. Stop.
TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! Biden, 81, suffers ANOTHER embarrassing gaffe as his attempt to brand Trump untrustworthy spectacularly backfires at Florida rally.
President Joe Biden suffered another gaffe during a speaking event as he tried to paint his opponent, former President Donald Trump, as untrustworthy.
Biden, at 81 years old, the oldest president in American history, appeared before supporters at a community college in Tampa, one week before Florida bans abortions past six weeks.
He called out Trump, his 2024 general election opponent, as the sole person responsible for the ‘cruelty and chaos’ that’s occurred after the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
However, when he did so, he accidentally asked: ‘How many times does he have to prove we can’t be trusted?’
ABC News tried to cover for the president, replacing the word ‘we’ with ‘he’ in describing the speech, though he was clearly heard saying ‘we.’
The House of Stephanopoulos airbrushing fellow Democrats? I’m shocked, shocked!
Evergreen:
VETERAN JOURNALIST AND JOURNALISM PROFESSOR W. JOSEPH CAMPBELL: NPR’s Uri Berliner Was Right. “Uri Berliner’s provocative recent essay lamenting ‘the absence of viewpoint diversity’ at NPR brought to mind the critiques of Liz Spayd, the little-remembered final public editor at the New York Times.”
LIBERTARIAN FUTURIST SOCIETY ANNOUNCES PROMETHEUS AWARD FINALISTS FOR BEST NOVEL: Congratulations, everyone!
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THEY’RE GOING TO FIND IT HARD BROADCASTING WITHOUT ELECTRICITY: BBC rejoices as Britain commits economic suicide in pursuit of Net Zero.
WOULD THIS SURPRISE ANYONE: U.S. Report Claims North Korea is Producing Pathogens for Germ Warfare Program.
