EDUCATION Comments turned off

Is Claudine Gay a Plagiarist? The embattled Harvard president’s dissertation raises troubling questions. Christopher Rufo & Christopher Brunet

Posted By on December 11th, 2023

https://christopherrufo.com/subscribe?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=email-subscribe&r=8t06w&next=https%3A%2F%2Fchristopherrufo.com%2Fp%2Fis-claudine-gay-a-plagiarist&utm_medium=email

Harvard president Claudine Gay has problems. Touted as the first black woman to run the nation’s most prestigious university, she assumed leadership with high expectations, but her tenure, which began this summer, has been mired in scandal. As dean and then president, Gay has been accused of bullying colleagues, suppressing free speech, overseeing a racist admissions program, and, following the Hamas terror campaign against Israel, failing to stand up to rampant anti-Semitism on campus.

We have obtained exclusive documentation demonstrating that President Gay may face yet another problem: plagiarism of sections of her Ph.D. dissertation, which would violate Harvard’s own stated policies on academic integrity. (We reached out to President Gay for comment, but received no response.)

Gay published her dissertation, “Taking Charge: Black Electoral Success and the Redefinition of American Policies,” in 1997, as part of her doctorate in political science from Harvard. The paper deals with white-black political representation and racial attitudes. As evaluated under the university’s plagiarism policy, the paper contains at least three problematic patterns of usage and citation.

First, Gay lifts an entire paragraph nearly verbatim from Lawrence Bobo and Franklin Gilliam’s paper, “Race, Sociopolitical Participation, and Black Empowerment,” while passing it off as her own paraphrase and language. Here is the original, from Bobo and Gilliam:

Using 1987 national sample survey data . . . the results show that blacks in high-black-empowerment areas—as indicated by control of the mayor’s office—are more active than either blacks living in low-empowerment areas or their white counterparts of comparable socioeconomic status. Furthermore, the results show that empowerment influences black participation by contributing to a more trusting and efficacious orientation to politics and by greatly increasing black attentiveness to political affairs.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

A Symphonic Version of Terror by Amir Taheri

Posted By on December 10th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20208/symphonic-version-of-terror

Using terror operations on a small scale is an effective means of making life difficult for a much stronger opponent and may even force it to offer some concessions. But grand dramatic attacks such as 9/11 against the US, the Mumbai campaign and the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel raise the stakes to symphonic level that those targeted cannot simply grin and bear it.
9/11 forced the US to invade Afghanistan and destroy al-Qaeda, something it had not contemplated doing even after the massacre of 241 US military personnel in Lebanon. After the Mumbai attacks, India made sure something like that could never happen again.
In those cases, an initial victory for the attacker proved to be a prelude to his annihilation.

The history of terrorism in pursuit of political aims is as long as history itself.

However, the past two decades have witnessed important, and needless to say worrying, developments in what could be seen as a zoological version of political activism.

The old versions saw disgruntled individuals assassinating powerful enemies. Julius Caesar was stabbed to death by 53 Senators led by his closest friends, Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus. Nizam al-Mulk, he powerful Grand Vizir of Seljuks in Iran, suffered the same fate at the hands of 18 Nizari hashasheen (assassins) including a Russian slave. The Qajar Nasseredin Shah was dispatched with a single bullet while mumbling “Son of a Donkey!”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

How to End Hamas’s War on Israel This Week by Lawrence Kadish

Posted By on December 10th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20209/how-to-end-hamas-war-on-israel-this-week

Iran’s militia groups have initiated more than 82 attacks — just since October 17 — on US forces and assets in Syria and Iraq. The latest, on the US Embassy in Baghdad, is an attack on US sovereign territory. During Biden’s presidency, Iran has initiated 151 attacks against the US. Forty-six US service members have so far been wounded, 19 seriously, with traumatic brain injury.

These strikes do not include Iran’s having largely funded and helped plan a savage invasion of Israel by an estimated 3,000 Gazans under the direction of Iran’s proxy, the terrorist group Hamas, on October 7. Once there, they murdered 1,200 people; raped and tortured an untold number, and kidnapped around 240, about 100 of whom — women and children — have been released. Several hostages have reportedly been murdered (here, here and here).

The Biden administration has thankfully been supportive of Israel defending itself and trying to rescue those hostages who remain. The Biden administration immediately sent naval ships and fighter jets to the region to prevent the war from spreading to Lebanon and other countries nearby; and on December 8, vetoed an attempt by the United Nations Security Council to force Israel to submit prematurely to a ceasefire.

Before October 7, there was a ceasefire. Regrettably, Hamas broke it. A few weeks later, there was another humanitarian ceasefire to which Israel agreed. Hamas broke that one, too. Hamas refused to release the list of people who were to be delivered on the ceasefire’s last day, possibly because Hamas was afraid of what they might say about how they had been treated in captivity. This week, when Israel created a safe zone in the southern Gaza Strip for Gazans, Hamas used that humanitarian zone to fire rockets into Israel.

The US could stop these assaults tomorrow. So far, the Biden administration has appeared unwilling even to entertain the thought of addressing Hamas’s patron, Iran. Here are a few possible ways:

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Things Worth Remembering: September 1, 1939 The poem W. H. Auden wrote in response to the outbreak of World War II achieved a newfound fame in the wake of 9/11. By Douglas Murray

Posted By on December 10th, 2023

https://www.thefp.com/p/douglas-murray-auden-things-worth-remembering?utm_campaign=email-post&r=8t06w&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Welcome back to Douglas Murray’s Sunday column, Things Worth Remembering, where he presents passages from great poets he has committed to memory—and explains why you should, too. To listen to Douglas read from W. H. Auden’s “September 1, 1939,” click below:

I want to turn today to the question of W. H. Auden and what happened to him just as the world was going mad.

Auden was hardly the only one left disoriented—shattered—by the outbreak of World War II, but I think his response to the war—his poem “September 1, 1939”—offers a uniquely powerful illustration of what happens to us when everything we think we know becomes uncertain.

The poem receded for decades—in no small part because Auden didn’t care for it—but after the attacks of 9/11, it achieved a newfound fame. It was especially popular in New York City, where the Twin Towers once stood, and because that’s where Auden wrote it. As he says in the poem’s opening lines:

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street

That is a good opening.

What comes next is even more grabbing:

Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:

It’s a perfectly said, deeply appealing line. Who doesn’t want to feel like the poet—smoking a cigarette in a dive on 52nd street, drink and pen in hand—proclaiming boldly in the face of titanic, historical forces?

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

George Soros funneled more than $50M to Iran-sympathizer groups linked to Robert Malley By Rich Calder and Mary Kay Linge

Posted By on December 10th, 2023

https://nypost.com/2023/12/09/news/iran-apologists-linked-to-robert-malley-got-50m-from-soros/?utm_campaign=iphone_nyp&utm_source=mail_app

Far-left billionaire George Soros has funneled more than $50 million to a network of Iran-sympathizer groups whose members have gained significant sway within the Biden White House — pushing to defang US sanctions on Tehran while advocating for a renewed nuclear deal.

A Post examination of Soros’ Open Society Foundations records shows the progressive kingmaker has given a staggering $46.7 million since 2016 to the International Crisis Group, a lefty think tank tied to an alleged Iranian plot to manipulate US policy.

Robert Malley, the former US special envoy to Iran now under FBI investigation for his alleged mishandling of classified material, was the ICG’s president until he joined the Biden administration in 2021.

“Soros has continually funded organizations that act as apologists for the Iranian regime – downplaying their severe human rights abuses while working to advance Iranian propaganda,” Gabriel Noronha of the Polaris National Security think tank told The Post.

ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

CTV Promotes Fake News Diane Bederman

Posted By on December 10th, 2023

https://dianebederman.com/ctv-promotes-fake-news/

In December 4, 2023 CTV news anchor Omar Sachedina reported that the Rally by Jews in Ottawa was “in support of the war.”

Omar Sachedina is a Canadian television journalist and anchor for Bell Media. He is the Chief News Anchor and Senior Editor for CTV‘s national evening newscast CTV National News since September 5, 2022.

I reached out to CTV to ask about his statement. Not surprised – I did not hear back.

Sachedina calls himself a journalist. Is he? What facts did he have that led him to state that the rally was in support of the war? Or maybe he was just trying to put the war in “context,” the Jew hating context, as we recently saw from the Presidents of the Poison Ivy league Universities in America.

Here is some context for CTV. The Muslim view of Jews and war.

Ibn ‘Umar (may Allah be pleased with them both) said: “I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) saying: ‘You (i.e. Muslims) will fight against the Jews and you will gain victory over them. The stones will (betray them) saying: ‘O ‘Abdullah (i.e. slave of Allah)! There is a Jew hiding behind me; so kill him.’ 1 This Hadith was reported by Al-Bukhari.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Stopping the Mullahs vs. Getting Them All Set Up by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on December 9th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20207/stopping-iran-mullahs

Not surprisingly, billions from the West have enabled the Iranian regime to help plan, finance and support, among other aggressions, the invasion of Israel and genocidal massacre of Jews perpetrated by Hamas on October 7. Western money gifted to Iran is also helping the regime advance its nuclear weapons program to near-completion by “a few weeks or less, after which they can make as many bombs as they like.

The Biden administration’s policy towards the expansionist regime of Iran has been anchored in appeasement policies, including handing over billions of dollars in a seeming effort to bribe Iran’s mullahs not to cause even further trouble in the Middle East before the US presidential election on November 5, 2024.

Not surprisingly, billions from the West have enabled the Iranian regime to help plan, finance and support, among other aggressions, the invasion of Israel and genocidal massacre of Jews perpetrated by Hamas on October 7. Western money gifted to Iran is also helping the regime advance its nuclear weapons program to near-completion by “a few weeks or less, after which they can make as many bombs as they like.

The more money the Iranian regime is handed, the more trouble it causes.

Compared to the tens of billion the US delivers to Iran, the US government’s annual $3.8 billion investment in Israel — which invariably inspires extensive howling from some quarters — is proportionately bus fare.

It is high-time for the Biden administration to learn from previous administrations — inconveniently for them, Republican — that only economic and military pressure work on rogue and predatory regimes such as Iran. Appeasement, regrettably…. just ignites conflict.

ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION Comments turned off

IVY LEAGUE ANTISEMITISM: WHO DIDN’T KNOW?Stephen Soukup

Posted By on December 9th, 2023

https://wokecapital.org/ivy-league-antisemitism-who-didnt-know/

Over the past couple of days, we have read a great deal about the presidents of the Ivy League schools who went to Washington and embarrassed themselves and their universities.  Much of what we’ve read has reflected justified incredulity, understandable anger and frustration that the presidents of these highly respected universities would believe that the appropriateness of calls for genocide depends on the “context” in which those calls are made.  Some of the commentary has taken the opposite tack, suggesting that the Ivy presidents were justified in defending free speech while lamenting that they did not do so more consistently.  In both cases – theoretically diametrically opposed – the common denominator is callousness and apathy in the face of antisemitism.  Either the universities in question are tolerating antisemitism when they shouldn’t, or they are tolerating antisemitism when they do not tolerate any other discrimination.  In both cases, the antisemites win.

For our money, the most interesting aspect of the entire episode is how completely unsurprising any of it is.  The presidents of Ivy League schools – Harvard and UPenn, in particular – are unconcerned about antisemitism?  Indeed, they clearly and palpably treat Jews and hatred of them differently and less seriously than they do other people and other hatreds?

Honestly, who didn’t know?

The simple fact of the matter is that much of the Ivy League – and again, Harvard and Penn, in particular – are both historical practitioners of traditional antisemitism and the incubators of the newer, ideologically identitarian antisemitism. That their presidents couldn’t or wouldn’t take a stand one way or another against Jew-hatred should come as a surprise to no one.  To do so would be to disavow their institutional heritage and, more to the point, the ideology around which they’ve built their institutional present and future.

Consider, for example, the following passages from a 2006 review of the book The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton by Jerome Karabel.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

COME AND SEE: THE HORRORS OF THE HOLOCAUST BY Alan G. Futerman and Walter E. Block

Posted By on December 9th, 2023

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2023/12/come-and-see/

Alan G. Futerman and Walter E. Block are the co-authors of The Classical Liberal Case for Israel (published by Springer in 2021, with commentary by Benjamin Netanyahu).

The horrors of the Holocaust, particularly those involving the mass murder process itself, are impossible to conceive. We may read documents, watch documentary films, listen to survivors, learn its history, and visit concentration camps and museums. But we cannot perceive them.

Certain films, though, allow us access to the closest kind of experience we could expect. They permit us, in a sense, to see from within. One of these films is Son of Saul (2015). There is another one, set during the Nazi Blitzkrieg on Byelorussia that left 25 per cent of the country’s population killed. This is a Soviet film, released in 1985 and directed by Elem Klimov. Its name is Come and See.

This film, a true masterpiece, not only shows with excruciating detail the unbearable degree of Nazi destruction, but something more, something that is essential to the phenomenon of mass murder. In one scene, we follow Flyora (the main character, superbly interpreted by Aleksei Kravchenko) while he witnesses the extermination of an entire village. In that scene, we can see a hell that is difficult to put into words. The Einsatzgruppen and their collaborators sardonically laugh at the villagers, sadistically mock them and maniacally sneer at them, while they herd them to be burned inside a church. No one is spared, children, elderly, women. There is no escape, no logic, no reason. In an immortal scene, a group of Nazis take a picture with Flyora while one of them points a gun to his head. The surreal scene captures well that this event seems from another dimension, although it is placed on Earth.

So, what is it that the film portrays that is so special? It shows that, although this horror is performed by humans, it does not belong to humanity as such. That is, it consists of a fundamental intent of changing human nature—a departure from humanity. It is a systematic, premeditated intent to inflict the cruellest forms of sadistic destruction under the disguise of a rational system. In the film, this is implied by some of the phrases that are said through the speakers before the Nazi massacre occurs: “Germany is a cultured country.”

What happened on October 7, 2023, in Israel is an instance of this specific phenomenon. Of course, the Holocaust is an event of such scale and horror in history that cannot be compared. But the essential factor, the subversion of humanity mentioned above in conjunction with the most maniacal Jew-hatred, did take place.

According to what captured Hamas assassins themselves have confessed, they were told that they could do with Jews whatever they wanted. They could kill, rape, burn, destroy. Moreover, it was their duty to do just that.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Hunter Biden Tax Indictment Is a Disaster for the White House Andrew McCarthy

Posted By on December 9th, 2023

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/12/the-hunter-biden-tax-indictment-is-a-disaster-for-the-white-house/

If you’ve been following the Biden saga, the indictment has some neon-flashing problems for the president.
There are several astonishing things about the 56-page grand-jury indictment filed with nine counts against the president’s son, Hunter Biden, by federal prosecutor David Weiss.

The first is that it’s dizzying.

The indictment is scathing in describing the younger Biden’s unsavory lifestyle, his deep dishonesty, and his willful decision to evade tax liabilities on millions of dollars in income and instead spend the money on escorts, drugs, luxury goods, and the like. Hunter is portrayed as exactly the kind of tax cheat who should be prosecuted. In fact, he appears to be just the sort of elitist scoundrel abominated in the rhetoric of his father and Democrats — privileged, addicted to consumption, producing little of real value, and greedily unwilling to pay his “fair share.”

But here’s the problem: Just four months ago, the same David Weiss tried to bury the same tax case against the same Hunter Biden — offering him a no-jail plea to two puny misdemeanors, a sweetheart deal so out of the ordinary that Weiss’s minions could not answer a judge’s simple questions about it, and that the ever-entitled Hunter’s defense lawyers foolishly blew up over fear of a hypothetical prosecution on tougher charges that Weiss patently had no intention to bring.

It is impossible to square Weiss’s slamming of Hunter in the new indictment with the blind eye he turned toward Hunter in the failed plea bargain — a submission in which the only narrative was a statement of facts sympathetic to Hunter, the drafting of which was clearly controlled by Hunter’s lawyers, not the agents who investigated the case.

In the indictment, Weiss scoffs that Hunter only filed his taxes in the relevant years because he’d been dragged into court in civil cases, which resulted in judges forcing him to fess up about his finances and produce tax returns. The irony here is rich. After all, why do we (finally) have this indictment? Only because Weiss could not rationalize the plea bargain he tried to give Hunter to make the case go away and, in his humiliation, was forced to go back to his office and act like a real prosecutor — whereupon he has thrown the book at Hunter as he should have in the first place . . . or at least that portion of the book that was still left after Weiss allowed statutes of limitations to run on offenses from earlier years.