Today’s News 10th January 2024

• The Perpetual War On Free Speech
  The Perpetual War On Free Speech

  Authored by Donald Jeffries via “I Protest” substack,

  The Founding Fathers made the Constitution palatable by including a Bill of Rights.

  Without the First 10 Amendments, the Constitution is just what its early critics, including Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, said it was; a dangerous consolidation of power far less representative of liberty than the Articles of Confederation.

  The First Amendment was always a huge concern with statists of every era.

  

  Those who thirst for power, and will compromise themselves in order to attain it, have never looked favorably upon those critical of them.

  John Adams, the second president of the United States, passed the Alien and Sedition Acts for just this reason.

  He bristled at criticism.

  Fortunately, Thomas Jefferson succeeded him in office and scrapped this tyrannical concept.

  But the notion reared itself again in 1860, with the election of Abraham Lincoln. Adams was a civil libertarian compared to Lincoln. “Honest” Abe didn’t pass any new Alien and Sedition Acts; he just shut down over two hundred newspapers that opposed any of his unconstitutional actions.

  Woodrow Wilson revived these odious acts during World War I. Eugene Debs and others were imprisoned for opposing the pointless shedding of blood, and America’s participation in it. The Supreme Court, in perhaps its worst ruling ever, upheld Wilson’s right to jail antiwar protesters. Great “liberal” justice Oliver Wendell Holmes coined the phrase “yelling fire in a crowded theater” to justify such heinous oppression, placing an ugly asterisk on free speech. Apparently no concerned American asked at the time, just how protesting a war could be construed as yelling fire in a crowded theater. This expression gained great renown across the land, and is forever on the lips of those who seek to censor dissent.

  Franklin Roosevelt built upon the actions of Wilson, who was inspired by the maniacal despot Lincoln. One of the countless unconstitutional agencies created under the New Deal, the Federal Communications Commission was in effect a national Alien and Sedition Act for the radio stations, and would go on to control content in Hollywood and on every television network. It banned selling advertising that discussed “controversial issues.” Vulgarity and “extremist” opinions were strictly forbidden. FDR pushed several inquisitions in Congress, most notably the one chaired by then Senator Hugo Black. You know, the former KKK member who went on to become a “liberal” Supreme Court justice and arbitrarily awarded the 1948 Senate election to “Landslide” Lyndon Johnson, who was the first to court the dead vote.

  The Black Committee and other inquiries attempted to severely curtail the ability of journalists to criticize the New Deal. FDR himself is documented to have personally tried to ruin the careers of his political opponents. And all of this was years before the Pearl Harbor false flag. Once America entered the war, FDR went after draft evaders, and memorably incarcerated American citizens in concentration camps. Not just Japanese Americans, but German and Italian Americans, too. The Roosevelt administration also stole billions in personal property from these poor souls. Much as Lincoln had locked up any northern antiwar voices without any due process, FDR imprisoned those opposed to his war. In 1945, his successor Harry Truman had antiwar poet Ezra Pound arrested, and he spent a decade in a mental institution.

  We must consider today’s “Woke” authoritarianism in its historical context. The precedents are all there.

  

  Cancel culture was born when Lincoln “canceled” his critics in the press, and threw thousands of uncharged citizens into makeshift prisons. Wilson followed this precedent, but FDR expanded it into a totalitarian art form. His administration “canceled” its critics in a variety of ways. FDR used J. Edgar Hoover to target some of them. His administration confiscated millions of telegrams to and from Roosevelt opponents. Long before Richard Nixon’s laughable efforts to use the IRS to monitor his critics, FDR had the fledgling agency audit almost everyone who opposed him. Indeed, FDR led a veritable crusade against free speech.

  The Social Justice Warriors might look different. Tattooed. Pink or purple hair. Transitioned into countless new “genders.” Utterly addicted to name-calling. But they are the logical descendants of those who supported the Alien and Sedition Acts. Who threw citizens into jail that objected to our involvement in faraway wars. Who wanted to use the IRS, and the FBI, to “cancel” critics of the political elite. Not enough tried to stop this onerous censorship in 1860. Or 1918. Or 1939. And too few are trying to stop it now. The January 6 political prisoners are a testament to that, subjected to the cruel and unjust punishment explicitly prohibited by the Constitution, which was inflicted on northern “Copperheads” during the Civil War, and anarchists and “Reds” during World War I, and “Nazi sympathizers” during World War II.

  The crazed adherents of Identity Politics are hardly the first to want to silence their critics. Get them fired from their job, and rendered unemployable. And increasingly, prosecuted for their Thought Crimes. Those opposing Lincoln’s mad war and suppression of civil liberties were the Thought Criminals of their time, long before Orwell gave a name to them. Everyone reading this little missive is a modern day Thought Criminal. There are millions of us. Is there room in their overcrowded prisons for all of us? As Lord Acton, the great lover of liberty who was friends with Robert E. Lee, not Ulysses S. Grant, reminded us; power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Those in power in America 2.0 are absolutely corrupt.

  How many of us truly believe in free speech? Almost everyone has a big “but,” to quote the late Pee Wee Herman. Sure, I’m for free speech but…not for “Holocaust denial.” Disbelievers in the Apollo moon landings. Or their even more extreme bedfellows, the flat earthers. Those who think mass shootings were a hoax, or “fake news.” White people outraged by the Great Replacement. Just referring to the Great Replacement can get you canceled, unless you’re supporting such a thing. Which all of our horrific leaders do. Try mentioning how the average American woman today weighs what the average American man did sixty years ago, and see what happens. There are a lot of caveats to the mainstream ideal of “free speech.”

  The symbolic prosecutions, these figurative “fire in a crowded theater” abridgements of free speech, are in full swing. Alex Jones supposedly owes nearly a billion dollars to selective Sandy Hook parents. And now any mention of Sandy Hook is even more anathema to public discourse than the Great Replacement is. Jones also apologized for “Pizzagate.” Which was ridiculous; look at those disturbing pictures on Instagram, and the Podesta emails published by Wikileaks. If Donald Trump had paintings of children with freshly spanked bottoms on the walls of Mar-a-Lago, do you think it might be reacted to differently than it was in the case of Podesta’s brother? Now Rudy Giuliani owes almost $150 million to two particular “offended” election poll workers?

  The only acknowledged exceptions to free speech at one point were overtly slanderous or libelous comments. This is understandable; people do have a right to protect their reputation. But it’s a slippery slope, and obviously applied in a wildly unfair manner. There’s a fine line between libel and justified criticism. Donald Trump, think whatever you want to think of him, has been the object of slander from numerous national figures. This includes physical and even death threats. But if Trump ever brought a slander suit against the Fake Media he rages against, it would be laughed out of every courtroom. Because it’s Trump, not because it isn’t slander. Obama, Clinton, Biden- they’d all be treated much more respectfully by this hopelessly corrupt, Tik Tok “justice” system of ours. Some slander is more equal than others.

  But slander and libel have been supplanted now by the Orwellian term “hate speech.” Which has been accepted by almost everyone, even though the very term immediately destroys any concept of free speech. And now “disinformation” and “misinformation,” entirely subjective terms (like “hate speech”), are being bandied about as potential “crimes.” This is essentially what Jones and Trump are being prosecuted for; the notion that they are misleading others with speech that the State finds “offensive,” or “racist,” or “disinformation/misinformation.” Trump is being tried in court for contesting the results of an election. And for exaggerating the value of his assets. That doesn’t seem to worry most Americans. They need to remember that whole, “First they came for the Communists” thing. Don’t think they won’t come after you.

  If we were really protected by the First Amendment, then there would be no possibility of being prosecuted for our views on an election. Or a virus. Or a vaccine. Or any historical event. Every opinion is protected under the First Amendment. Well, theoretically. If you say something “offensive” to any of the groups and individuals that are allowed to be perpetually “offended,” then you are now subject to a politicized prosecution. No one should want to go anywhere near one of our Orwellian courtrooms. They’re nearly as dangerous as hospitals. Thought Criminals, by definition, are not being pursued for their actions. They aren’t robbers. Or rapists. Or murderers. It’s a difficult task to prosecute the thoughts of others. But our authoritarian leaders are up to that task. And millions are complicit by their silence.

  Today, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube ban, suspend and “cancel” those users who have unwelcome views. First Amendment be damned. As the “conservative” defenders of the cancel culture remind us, “They’re private companies! They have a right to ban people!” As I would respond, you mean like restaurants, for instance? So did business owners in the segregated south have a right to deny service to certain people? They don’t need a reason, right? After all, they’re private companies! What exactly is the difference between denying admission to a restaurant, or a store, or a neighborhood, on the basis of skin color, or on the basis of political philosophy? Or even simply wearing a MAGA hat? It’s a selective discrimination thing, you wouldn’t understand.

  It isn’t easy being a true supporter of free speech, in a society that doesn’t value it. Where more people than not are fine with stipulations on it. “The First Amendment doesn’t protect hate speech,” their nauseating mouthpieces in our state controlled media will bleat, as effortlessly as they will bleat “Oswald killed Kennedy” or “Diversity is our Strength.” The word “hate” doesn’t appear anywhere in the Bill of Rights, or the Constitution itself. But there is no one there to counter them when they make these statements, which are disinformation if anything is. I’ll be waiting for someone, perhaps a member of the loyal “opposition,” to point that out. But fewer people have probably read the Constitution than have read the Bible.

  I thought the internet was beyond their control. They let us have unfettered access to true diversity of thought for a few decades. But the social media conglomerates gave them their opening. FDR “canceled” the editors and radio commentators of his day. Now, the “Woke” leftists can get big tech to deny access to crucial internet platforms to those who write or say discouraging words. Many in the alt media cheered the de-platforming of Alex Jones. YouTube and Facebook are shells of their former selves. Many like me are “shadow banned.” They restrict our access to a larger audience. That’s one way to control the competition. FDR and Lincoln would have loved it. What they ideally want is an FCC to control internet content. Millions of Americans don’t believe in God. So they don’t value rights that the Founders said come from God.

  The Right, though victimized by politicized prosecutions in America 2.0, hardly believe in true free speech. Witness their reaction to the mostly nonwhite students on college campuses, protesting Israel’s brutal retaliation against the Palestinians. At Harvard, these students were “doxxed,” just like so many right-wingers have been. Their names were published, and powerful Jewish businessmen tried to blacklist them from employment. Most conservatives, being Zionist defenders of Israel, applauded this particular “canceling” on campus. It was educational to watch the Ben Shapiros and Meghan Kellys of the world display such obvious hypocrisy. Everyone seems fine with suppressing some speech. Who supports all speech?

  We are at war. I’m not referring to the continuous interventionism in other, smaller sovereign nations, which is the foundation of our disastrous “bipartisan” foreign policy. Our leaders are at odds with the concept of free speech. They hate it more than they supposedly hated any foreign bogeyman. I don’t know why they just don’t treat the Bill of Rights like a troublesome Confederate memorial, and remove it from the Constitution. All they’d have to do is declare it’s “racist,” and the majority of White people would start cucking and jiving. If sleep, and birds, and proper grammar, are “racist,” why not free speech? If you don’t have free speech, you don’t have a free country. No one to “hate us for our freedom.” Democracy isn’t threatened by any speech.

  But we are threatened by those who don’t believe in freedom of speech.

  

  Maybe we can start up a new American Civil Liberties Union. One that is, you know, actually concerned about the protection of civil liberties. Civil liberties begins with free speech. If you can’t say what you want, it’s obvious you can’t do what you want. The mass arrests after the truly mostly peaceful January 6 protest demonstrated that we don’t have the right to peacefully assemble, as is guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Well, some do. BLM, for instance. It’s not about protest, or speech, itself. It’s about what the speakers and protesters are speaking or protesting.

  Abridged speech is not free speech. If you don’t support speech you disagree with, you don’t support free speech. Some speech is not more equal than others.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 23:40

• Cyberattack Hits Second Largest US-Non Bank Mortgage Lender
  Cyberattack Hits Second Largest US-Non Bank Mortgage Lender

  US mortgage lender loanDepot confirmed in an 8k filing on Monday that it is the latest victim of a cyberattack that has brought critical systems offline. 

  

  California-based loanDepot, which is the second-largest non-bank mortgage lender behind Rocket Mortgage, wrote in a filing that it “recently identified a cybersecurity incident affecting certain of the Company’s systems.” 

  “Upon detecting unauthorized activity, the Company promptly took steps to contain and respond to the incident, including launching an investigation with assistance from leading cybersecurity experts, and began the process of notifying applicable regulators and law enforcement.

  “Though our investigation is ongoing, at this time, the Company has determined that the unauthorized third party activity included access to certain Company systems and the encryption of data. In response, the Company shut down certain systems and continues to implement measures to secure its business operations, bring systems back online and respond to the incident.” 

  Shares of loanDepot are down 5% in premarket trading in New York. 

  

  The lender noted it will “continue to assess the impact of the incident and whether the incident may have a material impact on the Company.” 

   

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 23:20

• Plastic Chemicals Causing Infertility, Diabetes Found 'Widespread' In Common Food Items: Report
  Plastic Chemicals Causing Infertility, Diabetes Found ‘Widespread’ In Common Food Items: Report

  Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Many of the foods consumed by Americans are contaminated with harmful plastic chemicals that contribute to health complications like diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, and infertility, said a recent report by the nonprofit group Consumer Reports (CR).

  

  CR tested 85 food items from 11 categories—beverages, canned beans, condiments, dairy, fast food, grains, infant food, meat and poultry, packaged fruits and vegetables, prepared meals, and seafood, according to the Jan. 4 report. Researchers examined the presence of plasticizers—a chemical used to boost the durability of plastics. The group analyzed two to three samples from each food item, looking for two types of common plasticizers—bisphenols and phthalates—as well as some of their substitutes.

  They found that these chemicals remained “widespread” in our food products despite “growing evidence” of health risks. CR discovered that 79 percent of tested samples had bisphenols while 84 out of 85 items had phthalates.

  Exposure to such plasticizers can cause severe health issues, like for example in children, bisphenol A (BPA) exposure can negatively affect the brain and prostate glands as well as their behavior. BPA has also been linked with type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and high blood pressure.

  Phthalates have been associated with obesity, type 2 diabetes, lower sperm motility and concentration, early puberty in girls, and cancer.

  Both bisphenols and phthalates have been shown to be endocrine disruptors, meaning they can interfere with the generation and regulation of hormones. Disruptions to hormone levels can lead to cardiovascular disease, infertility, diabetes, and neurodevelopmental disorders.

  Exposure to these chemicals can come from the environment, food, and packaging, right from dust in the house to the printed receipt from a grocery store.

  CR found that the levels of BPA and other bisphenols were “notably lower” compared to when the group last tested for BPA in 2009. This suggested that “we are at least moving in the right direction on bisphenols,” said James E. Rogers, who oversees product safety testing at the organization.

  However, there wasn’t “any good news” on phthalates. Not only were they present in almost all foods, but their levels were also “much higher” compared to bisphenols.

  Some of the top food items with the highest level of phthalate contamination as discovered by CR’s tests are as follows:

  • Beverages: Brisk Iced Tea Lemon, Coca-Cola Original, Lipton Diet Green Tea Citrus, and Poland Spring 100 percent natural spring water.
  • Canned Beans: Hormel Chili with Beans, Bush’s Chili Red Beans Mild Chili Sauce, and Great Value (Walmart) Baked Beans Original.
  • Condiments: Mrs. Butterworth’s Syrup Original and Hunt’s Tomato Ketchup.
  • Dairy: Fairlife Core Power High Protein Milk Shake Chocolate, SlimFast High Protein Meal Replacement Shake Creamy Chocolate, Yoplait Original Low Fat Yogurt, and Tuscan Dairy Farms Whole Milk.
  • Fast Food: Wendy’s Crispy Chicken Nuggets, Moe’s Southwest Grill Chicken Burrito, Chipotle Chicken Burrito, Burger King Whopper With Cheese, Burger King Chicken Nuggets, and Wendy’s Dave’s Single With Cheese.
  • Grains: General Mills Cheerios Original and Success 10 Minute Boil-in-Bag White Rice.
  • Infant Food: Gerber Mealtime for Baby Harvest Turkey Dinner, Similac Advance Infant Milk-Based Powder Formula, Beech-Nut Fruities Pouch Pear, Banana & Raspberries, and Gerber Cereal for Baby Rice.
  • Meat and Poultry: Perdue Ground Chicken Breast, Trader Joe’s Ground Pork 80% Lean 20% Fat, Premio Foods Sweet Italian Sausage, and Libby’s Corned Beef.
  • Packaged Fruits and Vegetables: Del Monte Sliced Peaches in 100% Fruit Juice, Green Giant Cream Style Sweet Corn, and Del Monte Fresh Cut Italian Green Beans.
  • Prepared Meals: Annie’s Organic Cheesy Ravioli, Chef Boyardee Beefaroni Pasta in Tomato and Meat Sauce, Banquet Chicken Pot Pie, Campbell’s Chunky Classic Chicken Noodle Soup, and Chef Boyardee Big Bowl Beefaroni Pasta in Meat Sauce.
  • Seafood: Chicken of the Sea Pink Salmon in Water Skinless Boneless, King Oscar Wild Caught Sardines in Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and Snow’s Chopped Clams.

  Some of these foods had far higher levels of phthalates compared to others.

  For instance, Annie’s Organic Cheesy Ravioli had 53,579 nanograms of phthalates per serving, which is more than double what was found in Chicken of the Sea Pink Salmon in Water Skinless Boneless, Moe’s Southwest Grill Chicken Burrito, Burger King Whopper With Cheese, and Fairlife Core Power High Protein Milk Shake Chocolate.

  Dangerous Chemicals, Autism

  CR pointed out that regulators from the European Union and the United States have set a threshold for BPA and some of the phthalates. None of the 85 food items exceeded these limits. However, this doesn’t mean that the tested foods are safe for consumption.

  “Many of these thresholds do not reflect the most current scientific knowledge, and may not protect against all the potential health effects,” said Tunde Akinleye, the CR scientist who oversaw the tests. “We don’t feel comfortable saying these levels are okay. … They’re not.”

  For instance, some studies have associated high blood pressure, insulin resistance, and reproductive issues with phthalates even when the level of the plasticizer was below the thresholds set by European and American authorities, CR noted.

  Because people can be exposed in a wide range of ways, it can be difficult to quantify a safe limit for the chemicals in any single food.

  “The more we learn about these chemicals, including how widespread they are, the more it seems clear that they can harm us even at very low levels,” said Mr. Akinleye.

  A study published in September found that BPA was directly linked to two key disorders during childhood—autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In children with these conditions, the body’s ability to detoxify BPA was found to be reduced.

  Bisphenol-S (BPS), a BPA substitute, was found to potentially increase the risk of cardiovascular disease according to a 2022 study. “Although BPA, BPS, and BPF share similar chemical properties, BPS and BPF are not safe alternatives for BPA,” it warned.

  A study published at the National Library of Medicine in June 2022 found that phthalates in high concentrations in certain medications could raise the risk of childhood cancer.

  Overall, childhood phthalate exposure was associated with a 20 percent higher risk of childhood cancer. The risk of developing lymphoma or blood cancer doubled while the risk of developing osteosarcoma, a bone cancer, rose by almost three times.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 23:00

• UAE President Tells Netanyahu: "Ask Zelensky For Money"
  UAE President Tells Netanyahu: “Ask Zelensky For Money”

  Via The Cradle,

  Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ) refused a request by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pay unemployment stipends to Palestinian workers from the occupied West Bank and instead told his ally to go “ask Zelensky” for money during a recent phone conversation, according to informed officials who spoke with Axios.

  Since the historic attack on southern settlements by Hamas in Gaza on October 7, Tel Aviv imposed a closure on the occupied West Bank and banned about 150,000 Palestinian workers from entering Israel.

  

  As concerns grew that a worsening Palestinian economy would exacerbate the violent escalation in the West Bank, Netanyahu refused calls by the defense ministry and Shin Bet to put the issue of paying unemployment stipends to a vote in the security cabinet. Instead, he turned to his allies in Abu Dhabi.

  During a phone call with MbZ a few weeks ago, Netanyahu “broadly asked for help in regards to the Palestinians,” the sources tell Axios. However, the conversation turned sour once the Israeli premier “specifically asked if the UAE would be willing to pay the Palestinian workers,” leaving the UAE leader “stunned.”

  “MbZ told Netanyahu he couldn’t do it, and then sarcastically suggested the Israeli prime minister turn to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky instead,” the sources said, adding that the Emirati leader remarked that “Zelensky gets a lot of money from many countries, so maybe he would be able to help.”

  “The notion that Arab countries will come in to rebuild and pay the bill for what’s currently happening is wishful thinking,” an Emirati official told Axios.

  In mid-December, Netanyahu reportedly told Knesset officials that Saudi Arabia and the UAE would foot the bill to rebuild Gaza.

  “The first step in Gaza will be to defeat Hamas. After that, I believe that the UAE and Saudi Arabia will support the rehabilitation of the Strip,” Netanyahu said during a closed-door testimony to the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

  Remarkable.

  UAE normalized relations with Israel. Netanyahu asked UAE to pay Palestinian workers Israel kicked out > Oct 7.

  MBZ, leader of UAE said ‘Ask Zelensky.’

  # of ME countries friendly to Israel dwindling.

  Blinken can’t see ‘forest for trees.’

  https://t.co/rhVQYpjMHK

  — Dr Nazreen Kadir (@lettywho1) January 8, 2024

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  On Tuesday, Israeli media repeated these claims, reporting that US officials seeking to revive a Saudi-Israel normalization deal believe this would secure Saudi funding to “rebuild Gaza.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 22:40

• Mega-Rich Are Forcing Out Millionaires On 'Billionaires Bunker" Island
  Mega-Rich Are Forcing Out Millionaires On ‘Billionaires Bunker” Island

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news,

  The mega rich are forcing out millionaires as ‘billionaire bunker’ island, Indian Creek in Miami, Florida, increasingly becomes a private enclave of the uber elite.

  

  A local historian told Bloomberg that even wealthy people can no longer afford to live on the island because they are being priced out by people like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.

  “Only the very wealthy, the billionaires can afford to live in Indian Creek now. Hundreds of millions aren’t gonna cut it anymore,” said Paul George.

  Bezos already owns multiple properties on the island and is looking to buy three more, having bought two neighboring homes on the island for a total of nearly $150 million last year.

  Inside Florida’s ‘billionaires bunker’ where the ultra-rich like Jeff Bezos is pushing out millionaire locals – as the Amazon tycoon looks to snag three more properties

  Billionaires on the island of Indian Creek in Miami, Florida, are said to be forcing out previous owners… pic.twitter.com/BTUvEyfhk7

  — News News News (@NewsNew97351204) January 5, 2024

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Why anyone would need five or more properties on one single small island is up for debate, is it just so Bezos can avoid people or is he trying to construct something similar to Mark Zuckerberg, who keeps expanding his secretive Koolau Ranch hideout in Hawaii?

  Zuckerberg is building a 5,000-square-foot underground doomsday shelter, something that Bezos is almost certainly trying to emulate.

  The privacy of Indian Creek is a big draw for the ultra high net worth, as is the private police force, which “patrols the community around-the-clock by foot, sky, and land.”

  The island can only be accessed via a single, guarded bridge and its famous residents have included Ivanka Trump, Carl Icahn, Colombian banker Jaime Gilinski, Jay-Z and Beyoncé.

  The waterfront properties are ironically owned by many of the same people who push the narrative that man-made climate change is going to cause apocalyptic sea level rises.

  Apparently, they’re going to be just fine though.

  As we document in the video above, billionaires are busy buying up private islands in places like Hawaii, Fiji and New Zealand to prepare for what they call ‘the event’.

  ‘The event’, whatever it ultimately ends up being, will likely be driven by mass resentment towards the very world they created.

  When this earth-shattering ‘event’ happens, the billionaires will scurry away into their underground doomsday bunkers which they have been carefully preparing for years.

  *  *  *

  Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 22:20

• China Dominates The Supply Of US Critical Minerals List
  China Dominates The Supply Of US Critical Minerals List

  Most countries have, for many decades, kept a record of their own critical minerals list.

  For example, the U.S., drew up a list of “war minerals” during World War I, containing important minerals which could not be found and produced in abundance domestically. They included: tin, nickel, platinum, nitrates and potash.

  Since then, as the economy has grown and innovated, critical mineral lists have expanded considerably. The Energy Act of 2020 defines a critical mineral as:

  “A non-fuel mineral or mineral material essential to the economic or national security of the U.S., whose supply chains are vulnerable to disruption.”

  – ENERGY ACT, 2020.

  Currently there are 50 entries on this list and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that China is the leading producer for 30 of them. From USGS data, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualizes China’s share of U.S. imports for 10 critical minerals.

  

  What Key Critical Minerals Does the U.S. Import From China?

  The U.S. is 100% import-reliant for its supply of yttrium, with China responsible for 94% of U.S. imports of the metal from 2018 to 2021.

  A soft silvery metal, yttrium is used as an additive for alloys, making microwave filters for radars, and as a catalyst in ethylene polymerization—a key process in making certain kinds of plastic.

  China is a major supplier of the following listed critical minerals to the U.S.

  

  Note: China’s share of U.S. critical minerals imports is based on average imports from 2018 to 2021.

  Meanwhile, the U.S. also imports nearly three-quarters of its rare earth compounds and metals demand from China. Rare earth elements—so called since they are not found in easily-mined, concentrated clusters—are a collection of 15 elements on the periodic table, known as the lanthanide series.

  ℹ️ Yttrium and scandium exhibit similar rare-earth properties, and are found in the same ore bodies. They are often grouped together with the lanthanide series.

  Rare earths are used in smartphones, cameras, hard disks, and LEDs but also, crucially, in the clean energy and defense industries.

  Does China’s Dominance of U.S. Critical Minerals Supply Matter?

  The USGS estimates that China could potentially disrupt the global rare earth oxide supply by cutting off 40–50% production, impacting suppliers of advanced components used in U.S. defense systems.

  A version of this sort of trade warfare is already playing out. Earlier this year, China implemented export controls on germanium and gallium. The U.S. relies on China for around 54% of its demand for both minerals, used for producing chips, solar panels, and fiber optics.

  China’s controls were seen as a retaliation against the U.S. which has restricted the supply of chips, chip design software, and lithography machines to Chinese companies.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 22:00

• Trump Allies Demand Accountability From Fauci, Not The Former President
  Trump Allies Demand Accountability From Fauci, Not The Former President

  Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClear Wire,

  House Republicans were eager to cross-examine Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former chief White House medical adviser, about his response to the COVID-19 pandemic. They remained silent, however, about Donald Trump, the former president who stood by the architect of the lockdown strategy.

  “It is time for Dr. Fauci to confront the facts and address the numerous controversies that have arisen during and after the pandemic,” said Ohio Republican Rep. Brad Wenstrup, who chairs the select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic that will grill the doctor behind closed doors.

  

  Nine Republicans sit on the subcommittee. All of them love to loathe Fauci. Four of them have already endorsed Trump as he seeks the presidency a third time, including Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has said publicly that the doctor “should be in jail.”

  Fauci was the face of the White House COVID task force, prescribing masking and school closures and lockdown measures during the pandemic, often as Trump stood at his side. The relationship was fraught. Trump frequently contradicted the doctor he deputized, occasionally even grousing about him publicly on Twitter. But in the end, Trump still awarded Fauci a presidential commendation for his work.

  The focus on the decisions Fauci made, and not on the president who empowered him, has exasperated Trump rivals like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. “Are we going to have some type of accountability?” DeSantis asked during a recent interview with RealClearPolitics. “Are we going to have a reckoning for this, or are we just going to act like everyone did such a great job?”

  Reps. Debbie Lesko of Arizona, John Joyce of Pennsylvania, and Ronny Jackson of Texas will also get a chance to cross-examine Fauci. Each has criticized the doctor. All of them still endorsed the former president who presided during his tenure. None returned RCP’s request for comment.

  “He will, once again, put America and Americans first,” Lesko said in a statement two days after Christmas to announce her endorsement of the Republican president who oversaw Fauci as he prescribed lockdowns and mask mandates from the White House podium.

  Ahead of Fauci’s testimony Monday, the Arizona Republican retweeted a post from the subcommittee calling for “serious answers” from the now-retired doctor. “It’s time,” she wrote.

  At issue is whether in 2020 Trump delegated far too much authority to Fauci, who pushed hard for extensive pandemic lockdowns. “For an executive widely known for being able to fire people,” wrote Dr. Scott Atlas, who joined the White House COVID task force that summer, “it was shocking that this president allowed the incompetence of the nation’s Task Force advisors to continue.”

  Trump has given different accounts for why he deferred to Fauci’s judgment. During remarks last summer, the former president insisted that he once listened to Fauci, but “whatever he said, I did the opposite.”

  When conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt later asked why he never removed Fauci, Trump replied that he was “not allowed to fire him” and claimed that Fauci “wasn’t a big player in my administration.”

  Pressed by Megyn Kelly on why he awarded Fauci a presidential commendation, Trump pled ignorance, saying during a September interview on Sirius XM, “I don’t know who gave him the commendation. I really don’t know who gave him the commendation. Someone probably handed him a commendation.”

  Multiple former Trump officials found that answer far-fetched and said publicly that any type of commendation would require a signature from the president. Regarding the suggestion that Fauci be fired, however, several former officials told RCP that is easier said than done. They note that the other members of the COVID task force had a “resignation pact”: If one person was fired, all would resign.

  Atlas was the single dissenting voice from that group. A neuro-radiologist and senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, he publicly railed against lockdowns and called for a different strategy that was eventually adopted in large part in Florida.

  DeSantis rose to national prominence largely because of how he handled the pandemic in that state, and the governor regularly rails against “Faucism” on the campaign trail. Nonetheless, he’s lagging behind Trump by double digits in each of the early primary states, according to the RealClearPolitics Average.

  “The 21st century. The three biggest events: 9/11 and the wars that followed, the Great Recession, and then COVID,” DeSantis told RCP. The virus, he continued, “had a broader impact than the other two events combined. And yet, here we are. We’re not even discussing that.”

  Polling suggests that the Republican electorate is more concerned with current issues, such as inflation, than a pandemic that began nearly four years ago. Trump’s compounding legal trouble and his vow to deliver “retribution” upon his enemies also seem to overshadow any questions of accountability concerning his handling of the pandemic.

  The Trump campaign did not return a request for comment about Fauci’s testimony. A spokesman for the campaign previously told RCP, however, that anyone criticizing Trump’s handling of COVID “couldn’t manage a Little League baseball team let alone manage a global pandemic crisis caused by China.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 21:40

• Blinken To Israel: Number Of Civilians Killed, 'Particularly Children,' Is 'Far Too High'
  Blinken To Israel: Number Of Civilians Killed, ‘Particularly Children,’ Is ‘Far Too High’

  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave a press briefing from Israel on Tuesday, after meeting with Israeli leaders including PM Netanyahu and President Herzog, reportedly delivering a message urging restraint. 

  He issued the following blunt but bizarrely understated words: the “daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly children, is far too high,” Blinken said.

  

  It’s the year 2024 and the top US diplomat just asked America’s closest ally in the Middle East politely to… stop killing so many children.

  “The situation for men, women, and children in Gaza remains dire. Far too many Palestinians have been killed, especially children. Far too many remain incredibly challenged in terms of…access to food, water, medicine, the essentials of life,” the top diplomat described while in Israel.

  He did add this which seemed somewhat in justification of Israeli military actions: “We know that the enemy who hides and fires from schools and hospitals bases is an incredible challenge.”

  “As Israel’s campaign moves to a lower intensity phase in northern Gaza and as the IDF scales down its forces there, we agreed today on a plan for the U.N, to carry out an assessment mission,” Blinken said during his visit

  “It will determine what needs to be done to allow displaced Palestinians to return safely to the north,” he added, indirectly addressing growing calls from within Israel’s government to encourage a mass migration into other countries.

  According to regional media:

  Blinken said the United States rejected any proposals advocating a resettlement of Palestinians outside Gaza and stressed that the Palestinian Authority has the responsibility to reform itself.

  He said that many countries in the Middle East are ready to invest in the future of Gaza, but only with a clear pathway to a Palestinian state.

  Meanwhile, the top U.S. diplomat also said Washington believes South Africa’s genocide submission against Israel is “meritless.”

  His comments addressing the Hamas ‘day after’ – which has been subject of disagreement between Tel Aviv and Washington of late, included the following: “Many countries in the region are prepared to invest when the conflict is over in [Gaza’s] reconstruction and security,” Blinken said. “But it is essential to them that there also be a clear pathway to the realization of a Palestinian political state.”

  

  This week the Gaza Health Ministry has estimated over 23,000 deaths, mostly civilians, as a result of the IDF air and ground operation to eradicate Hamas. International reports, citing Palestinian sources, have said that some two-thirds of these are women and children.

  Blinken highlighting the plight of Palestinian children in such an unusually frank fashion signals a change in White House messaging. After all, the reality is that children in the Gaza Strip were dying and being wounded at a high rate even from the opening week of the conflict in the wake of the Oct.7 Hamas terror attack. Thus Blinken’s words clearly represent growing albeit very belated pressure from the Biden administration. But it’s too little, too late given the astounding and tragic death toll.

  The White House has also failed to address the real elephant in the room, however: the fact that so many children are dying with American weapons, and this is all being funded by the US taxpayer. Blinken while in Tel Aviv still consistently underscored the long-running administration message, saying the US stands by Israel’s “right to prevent another October 7 from occurring.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 21:20

• FDA Commissioner Promotes Products Off Label, An Illegal Pharma Marketing Scheme Long Criticized By Democrats
  FDA Commissioner Promotes Products Off Label, An Illegal Pharma Marketing Scheme Long Criticized By Democrats

  Authored by Paul Thacker via The Disinformation Chronicle,

  During his first stint as FDA Commissioner during the Obama administration, Dr. Robert Califf proposed allowing companies to advertise their products off-label. This marketing practice is illegal under FDA’s regulations that cover drug advertising, and Dr. Califf received pushback from Senator Ed Markey who sent him a stiff letter demanding that he address off label use of opioids.

  

  “The FDA must not become complicit in the growing prescription fentanyl problem this country is combating,” Senator Markey wrote. Indeed, Pfizer pled guilty to a U.S. criminal charge and paid a record $2.3 billion in 2009 for illegally marketing over a dozen drugs off label. Multiple federal agencies investigated Pfizer at that time, including the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations (OCI).

  “We expect this agreement to increase integrity in the marketing of pharmaceuticals,” the Justice Department claimed in the settlement’s announcement.

  When Biden chose Dr. Califf to run the FDA a second time in 2021, The New York Times reported that Obama officials had actually killed Dr. Califf’s attempt to allow increased off label promotion. “[T]he proposal, which many public health experts considered dangerous, was blocked by others in the Obama administration, according to a person familiar with it.”

  But with his critics now in the rearview mirror, Dr. Califf is speeding forward with his “dangerous” proposal. And this time, the Commissioner himself is promoting products off label. A week before the Christmas break, Commissioner Califf posted a message on X, promoting COVID vaccines off label to allegedly protect children against long COVID.

  

  “The FDA-approved and authorized coronavirus vaccines are indicated for active immunization to prevent COVID-19 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),” an FDA official emailed me. “The vaccines are not approved or authorized as a treatment for long COVID.” In follow up email, FDA clarified that the COVID vaccines are also not approved or authorized to “prevent” long COVID.

  In his promotional post on X, Commissioner Califf linked to a news article in Nature Magazine as proof the vaccines prevent long COVID. And here’s where the story gets even weirder.

  Nature’s news story discusses a small, observational study that had been presented at a conference some months prior and has not been peer reviewed. Even more disturbing, Nature’s reporter supported this slim study with positive quotes sprinkled throughout the article from Dr. Jessica Snowden, a pediatric infectious-disease specialist at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. However, Nature failed to provide readers with one rather important detail: Pfizer has disclosed paying Dr. Snowden to provide marketing talks for their COVID vaccine and she serves on the company’s advisory board. 

  “She clearly should have disclosed her Pfizer funding, especially as her commentary could contribute to increased sales of Pfizer’s vaccines,” said Dr Barbara Mintzes, a professor of evidence-based pharmaceutical policy, at the University of Sydney. “Companies choose who to fund. They don’t fund experts who highlight a product’s limited effectiveness or have serious safety concerns.”

  Science news or pharma advertising?

  The December news article in Nature reported on a presentation given last October at a medical conference and that was led by a medical officer at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The study evaluated mRNA COVID-19 vaccines’ impact on children getting long COVID, but relied on self-reports of long COVID, not a physician’s diagnosis. The results that found a positive correlation with vaccination were based off 28 kids who either self-reported or were reported by a parent to have long COVID.

  “This is really important data,” Dr. Snowden told Nature in one of her many quotes littered throughout the article. “This will demonstrate to families how important it is that we protect our kids, not just from acute COVID, but from the longer-term impacts of COVID as well.”

  In a 2018 report, Nature Magazine editor Richard Monastersky stated that Nature was updating their news section’s conflict-of-interest and ethics policies to make them more comprehensive. Last week, I sent several questions to Monastersky asking why Nature had not included Dr. Snowden’s ties to Pfizer and whether Nature reporters are required to look into an experts’ financial ties before quoting them in news pieces.

  Read the rest here… (including details on payments from Pfizer)

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 21:00

• Illegal Aliens Tried Buying Guns 48,000 Times In 25 Years
  Illegal Aliens Tried Buying Guns 48,000 Times In 25 Years

  Over the past 25 years, illegal aliens have attempted to purchase firearms at gun shops just under 48,000 times – only to be denied, according to a group that monitors border security policy.

  

  The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) reported on Jan. 2 that the FBI has nearly 14 million records of firearms applications that failed a national background check due to “unique prohibiting events.” Of those, 47,930 denials were issued to illegal aliens according to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) between Nov. 1998 and Nov. 2023.

  “While the 13.9 million unique prohibiting events cataloged in the FBI database represent events—not individual illegal aliens—the data point to large numbers of migrants in the market for firearms. Whatever the total may be, one is one too many,” according to FAIR, which added that “the dangers posed by largely unvetted illegal aliens possessing firearms has been vastly exacerbated over the past three years, as the Biden administration has presided over record numbers of new illegal aliens entering our country.”

  “At the same time, federal policies and the proliferation of sanctuary jurisdictions that prohibit the sharing of critical law enforcement information will inevitably result in more Americans falling prey to criminal aliens.”:

  Meanwhile, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported the seizure of 547,610 illegal weapons in 2023 alone, including ammunition, gun parts, scopes, silencers and body armor, the Epoch Times reports. In 2022, there were 1,147,497 weapons seizures.

  “We’ve got plenty of laws; criminals are criminals,” Arizona gun shop owner Charlie Bollenbaugh told the outlet. “They’re going to find ways around them.”

  Mr. Bollenbaugh added that there’s “no real way of telling” who is a U.S. citizen the moment they walk through the door to purchase a gun.

  But there is a legal process to weed out the ineligible buyers, he said.

  In Arizona, as in other states, the gun buyer must first show a valid state driver’s license or government-issued photo ID along with proof of age and residency and have no felony convictions.

  Federal law requires that each buyer fill out and sign a Form 4473 national background check under penalty of perjury. The form is submitted by the gun store electronically through the NICBS, and the results are known within minutes. -Epoch Times

  “If they are legally allowed to purchase a firearm, and they’ve come here correctly, the government tells me to go ahead and proceed,” Bollenbaugh told the Times. “They can’t buy a firearm without going through a valid background check and presenting a government-issued ID.”

  

  More via the Epoch Times;

  In 2019, the Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that mandated federal background checks for all legal firearms sales and transfers.

  Included in the bill was a Republican-sponsored amendment that would have required gun dealers to report to federal immigration when an illegal alien attempted to purchase a firearm.

  The provision failed passage in the Senate in a heavily partisan vote.

  “In rejecting this amendment, the Democrats have shown their true colors,” said U.S. Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.), sponsor of the amendment, in a written statement after the vote.

  “It is clear they are not interested in preventing gun violence or stopping the illegal purchase of firearms, but rather they are only interested in limiting the rights of law-abiding citizens to advance their political agenda.”

  In southern border states such as Texas, crime involving illegal aliens is a serious problem.

  The DHS reported more than 422,000 criminal aliens were booked into Texas jails between June 1, 2011, and Dec. 31, 2023, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety (TDPS).

  

  Nearly 300,000 were classified as illegal aliens by DHS.

  The TDPS added that illegal aliens committed more than 509,000 criminal offenses, including homicide, burglary, drug offenses, theft, sex crimes, and kidnapping.

  In the first few days of 2024, there were 3,104 noncitizen arrests by CBP, 48 involving weapons violations. In 2023, there were 15,267 arrests, with 307 for weapons offenses, according to CBP data.

  Mr. Bollenbaugh said illegal gun purchases by criminals happen “all the time” despite serious efforts by law enforcement to track every firearm transaction and serial number in the United States.

  He said it is illegal for a U.S. citizen to purchase a firearm for a person who is not authorized to own a gun, which includes illegal aliens.

  A gun purchase by proxy is known as “straw purchase,” he said.

  “The definition of a straw purchase is you are knowingly filling out the 4473 and background check because you know the person that wants the gun can’t obtain it legally,” Mr. Bollenbaugh said.

  At MPP Guns in Phoenix, gun manager Henry Escobar said the rules are clear when purchasing a firearm.

  “Our policy here is if you come in with more than one person—two or three people—we’re going to ask everybody for ID,” he said. “Even if they come in with an ID from another state, we’re going to turn them down.”

  He said that many people enter the store simply to inquire about purchasing a gun.

  “We ask if they’re a citizen, from out of state, or a permanent resident,” Mr. Escobar told The Epoch Times.

  While federal background checks work for the most part, he said: “If they come in and lie saying they’re a U.S. citizen, and they fill out the form”—hopefully, “there’s a way for [the ATF] to catch that,” he said.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 20:40

• UMich Now Has Over 500 Jobs Dedicated To DEI, Payroll Exceeds $30 Million
  UMich Now Has Over 500 Jobs Dedicated To DEI, Payroll Exceeds $30 Million

  Authored by Jennifer Karbany via The College Fix,

  The University of Michigan continues to exponentially grow the number of staffers dedicated to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion, with at least 241 paid employees now focused on DEI and payroll costs exceeding $30 million annually, according to an analysis conducted for The College Fix.

  

  The payroll costs are $23.24 million for salaries and $7.44 million for benefits, or $30.68 million, an amount that would cover in-state tuition and fees for 1,781 undergraduate students.

  Thirteen DEI staff members earn more than $200,000 and 66 earn more than $100,000 when factoring in benefits.

  In addition, 76 faculty or staff members work part-time as “DEI Unit Leads” advancing diversity efforts in one of UM’s 51 schools, colleges, and units, bringing UM’s core DEI headcount to 317, said economist Mark Perry, who conducted the analysis.

  The number of positions at Michigan’s flagship university advancing DEI exceeds more than 500 when including those who work full-time or part-time on DEI and factoring in open and unfilled positions, as well as employees who serve as “DEI Unit Leads” and others who serve on dozens of DEI committees, Perry said.

  “That brings the total number of UM employees who advance DEI on either a paid or unpaid basis to well more than 500 and possibly as high as 600,” said Perry, a paid consultant for The Fix who used public salary and website data for the analysis.

  University of Michigan disputes the findings, arguing in a statement to The College Fix they are “flawed and misleading” since they include employees whose primary duties are not solely DEI-related.

  “Diversity, equity and inclusion are core values at the University of Michigan. As such, there is not a specific budget set aside for diversity outreach and recruitment,” said Colleen Mastony, university spokesperson, in an email Monday to The College Fix.

  “Most employees working on DEI are not solely dedicated to DEI efforts but do so in addition to their other roles and responsibilities.”

  “…The university’s DEI efforts are appropriate to the size, scope, and complexity of our university – spanning the university, including 51 units over our three campuses, our academic medical center, and our over 100,000 students and employees. Although some work is done centrally, much of it is done at the unit and department level,” Mastony said.

  Today, the public university employs at least 241 paid staff members whose main duties are to provide DEI programming and services as a primary job responsibility, according to Perry.

  This list of DEI employees at the University of Michigan compiled by @Mark_J_Perry for @CollegeFix is longer than a @BillAckman tweet: https://t.co/l8Etmh3DMC pic.twitter.com/gjNdg6P2hx

  — Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) January 9, 2024

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  As part of UM’s ambitious five-year Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) 2.0 Plan, the university’s 19 academic schools and colleges and its 32 non-academic units must now also implement DEI plans. Non-academic units include the school’s three libraries, art museum, botanical gardens, IT department, athletics, development, audit services and more.

  “UM’s five-year diversity central plans are reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s and Communist China’s five-year central plans to achieve ‘Ideal Communist Societies’ which are examples of top-down oppressive bureaucratic blueprints to socially engineer outcomes decided by the top leadership of the dictatorial regimes,” Perry said.

  “UM has become a DEI ideological complex with a university attached,” he said, referring to Warren Buffett’s comment calling GM is a health and benefits company with an auto company attached.

  The $30.68 million cost to fund the 241 DEI employees does not include indirect costs, such as computers, phones, printers, travel expenses, conference expenses and overtime.

  Perry said the full number of DEI positions likely exceeds 500 when taking into account: full-time or part-time DEI staffers at 241; employees who serve as DEI Unit Leads at 76; DEI positions currently open or unassigned, roughly 130; and employees serving on dozens of DEI committees in various departments, schools, colleges, and units at 150 or more.

  DEI staff is well compensated with salaries as high as $402,800 for the university’s chief diversity administrator, Tabbye Chavous Sellers. She is paid almost two times more than the average full professor, about 2.5 times more than the governor, and about three times more than the average assistant or associate professor.

  Michigan’s Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s salary is $159,300, and the average salaries for assistant, associate, and full professors at UM are $129,500, $148,300, and $206,500, respectively.

  The average DEI salary at UM is $96,400; factoring in fringe benefits, 144 DEI employees at UM receive a total compensation of more than $100,000.

  The 2023-24 totals are a huge increase from last year’s figures, which came in at 142 DEI employees at a payroll cost of $18 million annually, a spike that can in part be traced to UM’s recent and sweeping five-year Diversity 2.0 Plan, which “outlines UM’s diverse, inclusive future” over the next five years from 2023 to 2028.

  UM’s new DEI 2.0 plan comes on the heels of its first $85 million 5-year DEI 1.0 Plan from 2016 to 2021. According to the January 2023 column “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of DEI 1.0” in the Michigan Review, that plan failed miserably.

  The independent student newspaper reported that campus climate surveys conducted in 2016 and 2021 found that UM students became less happy since the beginning of DEI 1.0 on nearly every metric.

  The survey results show “DEI 1.0 has been a failure, and it is not because of a lack of resources. If the largest number of diversicrats in the country cannot improve life on campus, there is something wrong at the heart of the effort,” argued then-student Charles Hilu.

  Hilu, a former contributor to The College Fix, said last week the new figures are even more disheartening.

  “Given the program’s track record, it is unfortunate that the DEI bureaucracy is ballooning even further,” he said via email.

  “As I had pointed out before, nearly every measure of student well-being declined after DEI 1.0, and students became less likely to interact with their peers who had different backgrounds,” he said.

  “The first effort certainly did not have a lack of resources. I hope that the University of Michigan has truly assessed why DEI 1.0 yielded the poor results it did, given the amount of money and staff they are now throwing at their diversity programs.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 20:20

• Analysts See "Uranium's Third Bull Market" Through 2024
  Analysts See “Uranium’s Third Bull Market” Through 2024

  So far this week, spot prices for yellowcake – uranium concentrate used in nuclear power generation – reached a new 16-year high, climbing to $92.45 per pound. Reflecting on our December 2020 note to readers in “Buy Uranium: Is This The Beginning Of The Next ESG Craze,” yellowcake prices have risen 217%. 

  The uranium market is only getting hotter, and continued tightness could push prices over $100, analysts from Bank of America and Berenberg Bank wrote in two separate notes. 

  

  BofA’s metals and mining team said tightness in uranium markets could extend well into 2025, indicating that prices could run higher through this year. The team of analysts has increased their uranium spot price price targets to $105 per pound in 2024 and $115 in 2025. 

  They outlined three near-term catalysts that could propel prices higher:

  1. Higher electricity prices make higher uranium prices more absorbable
  2. Investment fund volumes continue to increase
  3. Inventories are lower than previously thought while production slippages also remain a risk

  

  The analysts pointed out: “Uanium’s third bull market set up for a promising 2024.” 

  On a separate note, Berenberg analysts said the requirement for some uranium users to diversify away from Russian supply could be a major price driver. They said prices will likely normalize around $70 per pound for the long term. 

  Soaring prices have buoyed stocks of mining companies like Cameco up nearly 300% since December 2020. The Sprott Uranium Miners ETF (URNM is also up almost 300%. And supplier Uranium Energy Corp is up 416%. 

  

  According to uranium market data firm UxC, uranium demand is surging as contracts signed by utilities reached 160 million pounds last year – the highest annual volume since 2012. 

  “The uranium market is only getting tighter,” Jonathan Hinze, president of UxC, told The Wall Street Journal. 

  It only took 13 years after the Fukushima disaster to put nuclear energy back into the spotlight as the world races to decarbonize power grids. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 20:00

• US Appeals Court Blocks California From Banning Guns In Most Public Places
  US Appeals Court Blocks California From Banning Guns In Most Public Places

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A U.S. appeals court on Jan. 6 allowed a judge’s ruling that blocked California from enforcing a new gun-control law that bans the carrying of firearms in most public places on the grounds that it was unconstitutional.

  

  The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dissolved an order by a different 9th Circuit panel from a week earlier that suspended an injunction issued by a judge who concluded that the Democrat-led state’s law violated the right of citizens to keep and bear arms under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.

  “The administrative stay previously entered is dissolved,” the court wrote in May v. Bonta. “The emergency motion under Circuit Rule 27-3 for a stay pending appeal and for an interim administrative stay is denied pending further order of the court.”

  Last week’s order temporarily stayed the injunction. It allowed the law to take effect on Jan. 1. Gun rights groups then asked the 9th Circuit to reconsider, and on Jan. 6, a different panel of judges dissolved the order, suspending the injunction.

  “So the politicians’ ploy to get around the Second Amendment has been stopped for now,” C.D. Michel, a lawyer for the gun rights groups, said in a statement.

  California’s appeal of the injunction will now be heard in April. The state’s attorney general, in court papers, had argued that “tens of millions of Californians will face a heightened risk of gun violence” if the law were blocked.

  The law was enacted after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in June 2022 that expanded gun rights nationwide. The high court, in that case, struck down New York’s strict gun permit regime and declared for the first time that the right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment protects a person’s right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense, establishing a legal precedent for future cases.

  In December, U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney handed down a preliminary injunction against the gun law after he found that it would “unconstitutionally deprive” people with carry permits because they would not then have the “constitutional right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense.”

  The judge also said California, with the law, intentionally undermined and ignored the landmark 2022 Supreme Court ruling.

  “The law’s coverage is sweeping, repugnant to the Second Amendment, and openly defiant of the Supreme Court,” Judge Carney, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, wrote in his ruling. “The law designates twenty-six categories of places, such as hospitals, public transportation, places that sell liquor for on-site consumption, playgrounds, parks, casinos, stadiums, libraries, amusement parks, zoos, places of worship, and banks, as ‘sensitive places’ where concealed carry permitholders can’t carry their handguns.

  The law, known as SB2, would make “every public place in California into a ‘sensitive place,’ effectively abolishing the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding and exceptionally qualified citizens to be armed and to defend themselves in public,” he wrote.

  Kostas Moros, a lawyer for one of the plaintiffs in the case—the California Pistol and Rifle Association—told The Reload that the earlier appeals court ruling meant that the “right to carry in California was unconstitutionally eliminated for almost a week.” He hailed the court’s recent decision to block the law.

  “We are relieved the status quo has been restored, and Californians with CCW permits, who are among the most law-abiding people there are, can resume carrying as they have for years,” he said, referring to concealed carry weapon permits.

  In a statement to news outlets on Jan. 6 in response to the court order, a spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the move is “dangerous” and “puts the lives of Californians on the line,” adding, “We won’t stop working to defend our decades of progress on gun safety in our state.”

  The SB2 law was signed by Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, in September of last year. The 9th Circuit will hear arguments for the case in April.

  Responding to the decision, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, wrote on social media: “We’ve ensured California’s common-sense concealed carry weapons law—prohibiting concealed firearms in sensitive places like playgrounds and hospitals—takes effect tomorrow & while we appeal the lower court’s dangerous decision.”

  Reuters contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 19:40

• Office Vacancies Hit Record High Across US Cities As CRE Downturn Worsens
  Office Vacancies Hit Record High Across US Cities As CRE Downturn Worsens

  Courtesy of the Federal Reserve’s most aggressive interest rate hiking cycle in a generation, a surge in remote work in a post-Covid world, and imploding Democrat-run cities with radical progressives in City Halls who fail to enforce common sense ‘law and order,’ the office sector is reeling and faces an accelerated downturn. 

  New data from Moody’s Analytics shows that 19.6% of office space across major US metro areas was not leased as of the fourth quarter of 2023, exceeding the previous high of 19.3% in the commercial real estate downturn between 1986 and 1991. 

  

  “The bulk of the vacant space are buildings that were built in the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s,” Mary Ann Tighe, chief executive of the New York tri-state region at real-estate brokerage CBRE, told The Wall Street Journal. 

  The new record directly reflects the remote and hybrid work trends that have surged since Covid as companies reduce overall corporate footprints.

  

  Kastle Systems, the gold-standard measure of office-occupancy trends via card-swipe data, has yet to recover from pre-Covid levels. 

  

  Another driver of rising office vacancy, but not mentioned in the WSJ report nor other legacy corporate media outlets covering the new Moody’s Analytics data, is that failed social justice reforms in Democrat cities have forced companies to shift operations to safer areas. This is a topic widely ignored by woke journos. 

  

  In a previous report, the Mortgage Bankers Association found that $117 billion in CRE office debt needs to be repaid or refinanced this year. This debt is concentrated in Democrat cities like New York City (Manhattan), San Francisco, Chicago, and Los Angeles. 

  

  Unless the Fed aggressively begins cutting rates in March, building owners’ ability to obtain financing for previous loans will have trouble rolling over that debt. 

  This will only mean regional banks with high exposure to the CRE space could face a tsunami of credit losses over delinquent CRE loans.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 19:20

• "We No Longer Need As Many People": Duolingo Fires 10% Of Contractors, Will Replace Them With AI
  “We No Longer Need As Many People”: Duolingo Fires 10% Of Contractors, Will Replace Them With AI

  It’s what Goldman’s head of TMT trading, Peter Callahan, calls the story of the day: almost a year after IBM said it would stop hiring for roles that can be replaced by AI, with Goldman estimating that some 300 million non-menial, highly paid workers could be made redundant thanks to AI (which will automate up to one-fourth of current work tasks)…

  

  … overnight, Bloomberg reported that Duolingo, maker of language-learning software, is cutting 10% of contracted workers while using generative artificial intelligence to create more content, the latest sign that companies are handing off tasks typically handled by (paid) workers to (largely free) AI tools. It is, according to Callahan, one of the first “efficiency gains on the back of A.I” headlines that he recall seeing (“even if this is small in scope, it is a notable datapoint for the GenAI theme.”)

  “We just no longer need as many people to do the type of work some of these contractors were doing. Part of that could be attributed to AI,” a Duolingo spokesperson said, confirming that 10% of contractors were “offboarded.”

  Chief Executive Officer Luis von Ahn said in a November letter to shareholders that the company is using generative AI to produce “new content dramatically faster,” such as the scripts to shows that help teach languages. The company also uses AI to generate voices within the app and has introduced a premium tier, Duolingo Max, with AI-generated feedback and conversations in other languages.

  Naturally, the market rewarded this announcement, pushing DUOL stock 3% higher after more than tripling in 2023. This, of course, guarantees that most publicly-traded companies will follow suit and fire all non-critical workers in coming months, sparking an avalanche of new layoffs and forcing the Fed to actively consider how the coming Universal Basic Income wave will be funded.

  As Bloomberg notes, the intense interest in generative AI has led employee groups and unions to question whether businesses will use the technology as an excuse to reduce their workforce (spoiler alert: they will). A report published in April by the World Economic Forum estimated that AI would cause “significant labor-market disruption” over the next five years, though the net impact may be positive as employers seek workers with more technical skills to navigate the use of the technology. Actually, the net impact will be catastrophic and will lead to mass riots around the world and certainly in China where labor protests just hit a 7 year high in 2023.

  

  Last month, Microsoft responded to those concerns and announced an alliance with the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, which is made up of 60 unions that represent 12.5 million workers, to train people about AI and look at how the technology may affect employment.

  At an event announcing the partnership, Microsoft President Brad Smith said the goal is to bring industry and labor to the table to “enhance” the way people work.

  “I can’t sit here and say that AI will never displace a job,” Smith said the event. “I don’t think that would be honest. AI is well-designed to accelerate and eliminate some of the parts of people’s jobs that you might consider to be drudgery.”

  Translation: AI will displace millions of jobs… and since the large language models behind AI are trained using such leftist garbage as WaPo, NYT and Business Insider, the results will be nothing short of hilarious.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 19:20

• Biden Admin Vows To Hunt Down 'All' Jan. 6 Suspects – Even Those Who Weren't There That Day
  Biden Admin Vows To Hunt Down ‘All’ Jan. 6 Suspects – Even Those Who Weren’t There That Day

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Biden administration has pledged to continue to pursue and convict all people who broke the law in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol incident, including those who never entered the building or who weren’t even present at the U.S. Capitol that day.

  

  Prosecutors have, to date, charged over 1,250 people with various crimes related to Jan. 6, ranging from being present on Capitol grounds without authorization, to assault of a police officer, to seditious conspiracy.

  Former President Donald Trump has said on several occasions that he thinks Jan. 6 detainees are being mistreated by the Biden administration and has vowed to issue pardons for many of them.

  President Trump rallied his base in Iowa on the eve of the Jan. 6 anniversary.

  “The J6 hostages, I call them. Nobody has been treated ever in history so badly as those people,” President Trump said at a rally in Iowa on the eve of the Jan. 6 anniversary, where he pledged to pardon a “large portion” of imprisoned Jan. 6 defendants.

  President Joe Biden, by contrast, last week celebrated the jailing of Jan. 6 defendants in a speech to mark the third anniversary of the Capitol breach.

  “Collectively, to date, they have been sentenced to more than 840 years in prison,” he said.

  “And what has Trump done? Instead of calling them ‘criminals,’ he’s called these … insurrectionists ‘patriots.’ And he promised to pardon them if he returns to office,” he added.

  ‘All Jan. 6 Perpetrators’ To Be Targeted

  Off the campaign trail, the country’s top prosecutor has made clear that the DOJ under President Biden has no intention of letting Jan. 6 participants off easy—including those who weren’t even there that day.

  “We have initiated prosecutions and secured convictions across a wide range of criminal conduct on January 6, as well as in the days and weeks leading up to the attack,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a speech on Friday.

  Prosecutors have, to date, secured over 890 convictions in connection to the Jan. 6 incident, with Mr. Garland vowing to press ahead to cast the DOJ dragnet widely.

  “Our work continues,” he said. “As I said before, the Justice Department will hold all January 6 perpetrators, at any level, accountable under the law—whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy.”

  “We are following the facts and the law, where they lead,” he added.

  

  ‘Prosecutorial Discretion’

  Nearly two-thirds of the 890-plus convicted Jan. 6 participants have received some time in prison.

  The longest prison sentence—22 years—was handed down to Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys national chairman who was convicted of seditious conspiracy for allegedly plotting with others to forcibly prevent the transfer of power between then-President Trump and then-President-elect Joe Biden.

  

  Dozens of Jan. 6 detainees are still languishing in jail awaiting trial three years after the Capitol incident.

  Matt Graves, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia who is leading the ongoing Jan. 6 prosecutions alongside special counsel Jack Smith, said last week that the DOJ had so far focused its prosecutorial efforts mostly on those who entered the Capitol or took part in violent acts in and around the building.

  “We have used our prosecutorial discretion to primarily focus on those who enter the building or those who engaged in violent or corrupt conduct on Capitol grounds,” Mr. Graves said.

  “But if a person knowingly entered a restricted area without authorization, they have already committed a federal crime,” he continued.

  “Make no mistake, thousands of people occupied an area that they were not authorized to be present in,” he added.

  

  In light of Mr. Garland’s remarks that the DOJ would continue to hunt down “all Jan. 6 perpetrators” whether or not they were at the Capitol that day, Mr. Graves’s statements reinforce the view that prosecutors intend to expand their dragnet to people who never entered the building—or weren’t even there that day.

  ‘Cast Their Net Far Too Broadly’

  But while the Biden administration seems intent on broadening its hunt of Jan. 6 suspects, a former attorney general said he thinks things have already gone too far.

  Bill Barr, who served as attorney general under President Trump, told Fox News in a recent interview that he believes some people involved in the Jan. 6 incident—like those who attacked police and broke into the Capitol building—deserve to be punished.

  However, Mr. Barr said he believes the DOJ has already cast its Jan. 6 prosecutorial net too widely.

  “There were people that should have been prosecuted,” Mr. Barr said. “But I think they cast their net far too broadly.”

  He said the DOJ under President Biden “has been hounding people that really, you know, just walked into open doors in the Capitol and hung around.”

  “I think they just took it too far,” he said. “But that being said, I don’t minimize what happened up there. While I don’t think it was an insurrection, it clearly was a shameful episode and some of the people involved should be prosecuted.”

  

  Meanwhile, on the same day that the interview with Mr. Barr aired, the FBI announced that it had arrested three “January 6 fugitives,” individuals who were indicted for various alleged crimes committed three years ago at the U.S. Capitol, including assault and resisting arrest, but failed to show up at trial.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 19:00

• Another Hezbollah Senior Commander Reportedly Taken Out In Israeli Airstrike
  Another Hezbollah Senior Commander Reportedly Taken Out In Israeli Airstrike

  Another senior Hezbollah official has been killed in a targeted Israeli drone strike, the day following the killing of elite Hezbollah special forces commander Wissam Hassan Al-Tawil. 

  Tuesday’s strike killed Ali Hussein Barji, widely described as the commander of Hezbollah’s aerial forces in southern Lebanon. He reportedly oversaw Hezbollah’s drone forces, which has sent hundreds of explosive-laden UAVs as well as drones for for the collection of surveillance over Northern Israel in the last months.

  While the death was widely reported in international media, Hezbollah later in the evening denied that Barji had been killed. According to Reuters, Hezbollah denies the Israel Defense Forces killed Ali Hussein Barji, the terror group’s drone commander in southern Lebanon, saying in a statement that “the commander was never subjected to any assassination attempt as the enemy claimed.”

  

  The attack reportedly happened in the town of Khirbet Selm, within hours before Al-Tawil’s funeral procession. Israeli media had characterized the hit as direct retaliation for an earlier drone attack on a northern Israeli base:

  Barji was killed hours after an explosives-laden drone launched by Hezbollah blew up in the IDF Northern Command headquarters in Safed. Barji was involved in the attack on the base.

  Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack, which struck a major IDF command center, and said it had launched “a number of explosive attack drones” at the base in response to the alleged Israeli assassinations of al-Tawil on Monday and top Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri in Lebanon last week.

  An Israeli government spokesman has complained that “Hezbollah is dragging Lebanon into a totally unnecessary war.” The spokesman, Eylon Levy, said in a Monday press briefing, “We are now at a fork in the road.”

  Tuesday saw additional IDF airstrikes in various parts of south Lebanon. The rapid and growing pace of the tit-for-tat, with major events and assassinations now occurring daily, suggests an all-out war could be around the corner.

  But by almost all accounts of military observers and regional monitors, Hezbollah is much more formidable that Hamas, having several times the military capability to sustain a fight with the Israeli army in terms of manpower and weaponry.

  #Hezbollah claims it responded to the killing of #Hamas al-Arouri, and the killing of one of Wassim al-Tawil (one of the commanders of the Radwan force), by firing drones at the Israeli military’s northern command HQ in Tsfat.

  One impact has been reported. pic.twitter.com/ARLatCcjIb

  — Michael A. Horowitz (@michaelh992) January 9, 2024

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  A full Israel-Hezbollah war would be a nightmare for the whole region, and would also drag the country of Lebanon into further suffering, amid the severe economic crisis of the last few years. Iran would also likely get more deeply involved.

  If things slide to that point, among Israel’s first targets would likely be Beirut International Airport, which is precisely what happened in the 2006 war.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 18:40

• Trans Professor With 'Be Gay, Do Crimes' Tattoo Appointed To WHO Taskforce
  Trans Professor With ‘Be Gay, Do Crimes’ Tattoo Appointed To WHO Taskforce

  Authored by Micaiah Bilger via The College Fix,

  Law professor will help create health guidelines for ‘trans, gender diverse people’

  A Canadian transgender professor who sports a “be gay, do crimes” tattoo recently was appointed to a World Health Organization group tasked with developing healthcare guidelines for “trans and gender diverse people.”

  Florence Ashley, an assistant law professor at the University of Alberta, is one of 21 individuals on the new taskforce, and about half of them identify as transgender, The Post Millennial reports.

  Ashley uses “they, them, that, bitch” pronouns, according to the report.

  

  Scheduled to meet in February, their goal is to develop international guidelines that will increase “access and utilization of quality and respectful health services by trans and gender diverse people,” according to a Dec. 18 announcement from the WHO.

  The Post Millennial reports more:

  The group includes two former presidents of WPATH, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, which in their latest guidelines stated there should be no age-limit on sex changes for minors.

  Ashley, a criminal law assistant professor at the University of Alberta, is on board with that, believing that “puberty blockers ought to be treated as the default option” for all minors, regardless of gender identity, so that kids can “choose” their gender instead of growing up naturally and without intervention because natural development “strongly favours cis embodiement by raising the psychological and medical toll of transitioning.”

  Ashley also has told children on TikTok to “be gay and do crime,” according to the X account Libs of TikTok.

  After the comments sparked backlash on social media, the law professor got a “be gay, do crimes” tattoo to “be gay and do crime even harder,” The Post Millennial‘s Libby Emmons wrote Sunday.

  In which a criminal law professor from Alberta who was just appointed by the World Health Organization retaliated against mean tweets from Jordan Peterson and Libs of TikTok by getting a tattoo saying “be gay, do crimes.”

  pic.twitter.com/Haj0DcRiy9

  — Libby Emmons (@libbyemmons) January 7, 2024

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The new WHO taskforce that Ashley serves on is a project of the WHO Departments of Gender, Rights and Equity – Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Global HIV, Hepatitis and Sexually Transmitted Infections Programmes, and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research.

  When the group meets, the WHO states that they will work to develop guidelines in five areas, including the “provision of gender-affirming care,” “health workers education and training for the provision of gender-inclusive care,” and “legal recognition of self-determined gender identity.”

  According to The Post Millennial, this means “sex change surgeries for all people, including minors,” “medical staff using pronouns, encouraging sex change drugs and surgeries,” “eliminating sex-segregated domestic violence and rape crisis centers,” and more.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 18:20

• Claudine Gay Is Only Digging Deeper: Victor Davis Hanson
  Claudine Gay Is Only Digging Deeper: Victor Davis Hanson

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via RealClear Wire,

  It is understandable that Claudine Gay is furious over her forced resignation, her calamitous fall from grace, and the public consensus about the great damage done to Harvard by her presidency.

  

  But still, playing the wounded fawn is no excuse or defense.

  Thus Claudine Gay’s recent New York Times disingenuous op-ed alleging racism as the prime cause of her career demise was, to quote Talleyrand, “worse than a crime, it was a blunder.” And her blame-gaming will only hurt her cause and reinforce the public’s weariness with such boilerplate and careerist resorts to racism where it does not exist.

  Gay knows that her meteoric career trajectory through prestigious Phillips Academy, Princeton, Stanford, and Harvard was not symptomatic of systemic racism, but rather just the opposite – in large part through institutional efforts to show special concern, allowances, and deference due to her race and gender.

  And she knows well that her forced resignation was not caused by a conspiracy of conservative activists. It came at the request also of liberal op-ed writers in now embarrassed left-wing megaphones like the New York Times and the Washington Post, black intellectuals, and academics – and donors who usually identify, like the vast majority of Harvard philanthropists, as liberal Democrats.

  Gay knows, too, that in her now notorious congressional testimony, had she just offered an independent assessment of the epidemic of antisemitism on her campus and a Harvard plan to stop it (rather than joining in the finger-in-the-wind groupthink of the other two presidents), and had she not been guilty of long-standing, serial, and flagrant plagiarism, she would still have her job.

  Gay knows that other white university presidents have recently been forced to resign for far less culpable behavior than her own. Pennsylvania president Liz Magill was forced to quit after her Dec. 5 seeming inability or unwillingness to act against blatant antisemitic speech and conduct on her own campus, or Stanford’s president Marc Tessier-Lavigne for co-authoring, some decades earlier, scientific papers whose results were not always based on authenticated data.

  Again, as for Gay’s insinuations of a cabal that took her down, she also knows that such a charge is no more true or false than the public outrage, both liberal and conservative, over Magill’s obtuseness, or the largely left-wing effort to remove the white male Tessier-Lavigne.

  Gay knows that she herself has disciplined and censored lots of Harvard professors, among them preeminent black scholars, such as Roland Fryer and Ronald Sullivan, on speculative allegations far less egregious than her own serial plagiarism and inconsistent policies of addressing “hate speech.” Did anyone suggest she was then a “racist”?

  Gay knows that as president she oversaw a code of behavior that routinely severely disciplined students, staff, and professors for plagiarism of a nature far less serial and systematic than her own.

  Gay indeed knows that her plagiarism was far more serious than suggested by her half-hearted defense of her scholarship (“I have never misrepresented my research findings, nor have I ever claimed credit for the research of others”).

  In fact, when anyone – again and again – copies word-for-word whole paragraphs without attribution or quotation marks, or lifts entire sentences and appropriates the thoughts of another without sufficient footnotes, that is precisely “misrepresentation” and claiming “credit” where credit is not due. If a Harvard president and full professor makes such a defense of intellectual theft, what will it say in the future about Harvard?

  Gay knows that her claim of being proactive in correcting some lifted passages was not proactive at all. It was entirely reactive and came only in response to criticism of her scholarly methods.

  Gay knows that she has done irrevocable damage to Harvard; given the Harvard Corporation, its legal team, its 700 supportive faculty letter-signers, and its satellite freelancers leave to embarrass themselves further; and gravely eroded the institution’s reputation and credibility by going out of their way to defend the indefensible solely on her behalf:

  • By threatening legal action against the New York Post for airing the legitimate charges of plagiarism
  • By creating a new, ad hoc vocabulary to legitimize her plagiarism (“duplicative language”/“missteps”)
  • By also echoing her charges of racism (and in surreal fashion without any self-awareness that if such charges were true, then Harvard would not have forced her to resign or at least would have refused her resignation)
  • By claiming that anonymous complaints of her intellectual theft were somehow illegitimate by virtue of their whistleblower status
  • By absurdly insinuating that plagiarism is not plagiarism if the plagiarized does not complain

  There was one key issue that Gay neither raised nor much less resolved: Given that now Professor Gay has made no effort to explain item by item all the allegations of decades-long and habitual plagiarism, does she feel now exempt from such charges as a Harvard professor of political science?

  And if so, is her faculty exemption of the sort usually accorded other professors and students under similar suspicion of plagiarism?

  In the end, was it really asking too much of a Harvard president just to do two things? 1) Explain to Congress why there was a problem of antisemitism at Harvard, and then outline the concrete steps she would take to stop the spread of growing antisemitic speech and conduct at her campus, and 2) Don’t plagiarize the work of other scholars?

  This article originally appeared on X, formerly Twitter, Jan. 4, 2024.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 17:40

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