I get a bit tired of starting posts by saying something like “It comes as no surprise … “. But indeed, it comes as no surprise that Columbia’s president Nemak “Minouche” Shafik, who recently testified in front of Congress and who has been AWOL in dealing with the vicious anti-Semitic “demonstrations” at the school, is now suspected of having taken false sole credit for a highly-cited academic paper:
Shafik got a B.A. in economics and politics from UMASS-Amherst, an M.S. in economics from the London School of Economics, and a PhD in economics from Oxford.
Nemat Shafik – @Columbia Prez only has 1 well-cited publication in her life, in Oxford Econ Papers 1994. This paper is lifted almost entirely from a 1992 report coauthored with consultant not credited in the publication. This is wholesale intellectual theft, not subtle plagiarism pic.twitter.com/ttqN3C7hFm
This is not a close call. Table 1s are the same. Fig 1s are the same. Massive overlap in text. She stole the junior author's intellectual property and simply removed his name from published version. If he contributed enough to be an author in 1992, how can she delete him in 94? pic.twitter.com/eAnURB0qXK
I'm an academic, and this is NOT okay to do. You cannot remove an author and claim intellectual property for yourself. When a grad student tried this, we referred him to Dean for disciplinary hearings. And this is worse because of power imbalance – she removed a *junior* person pic.twitter.com/E3RMDhbccY
The stolen paper has been cited 2395 times. Her next most cited paper: 115 cites – not very presidential. This is the *only* publication of note in her portfolio.
You'll find both the coauthored report and the OEP pub at this link – check for yourselfhttps://t.co/is5msh9yMe
Unbelievable. Has plagiarism now become a prerequisite for those applying for the position of President of elite US universities?
So far, the academics involved have also all been seeming DEI hires: women, and also some are minority women.
One of the commenters says this, however:
You might want to go slow here; in research jobs it is not uncommon to credit the research director despite what is often a very minor role in the product.
I assume we’ll hear more. She might get canned in the meantime for other reasons – and get replaced by another leftist apparatchik.
In response to recent minimum wage increases in California, fast food restaurants across the state are shifting to automation to get rid of wage-earning humans.
The move to making customers place orders at digital kiosks alleviates what owners say is the financial strain of rising labor costs after the minimum wage for the state’s fast food workers increased on April 1 from $16 to $20 per hour.
Harsh Ghai, a Burger King franchise owner who manages 140 outlets along the West Coast, is leading the transition to automation. He plans to introduce digital kiosks across all his restaurants within months — a drastic acceleration from his original timeline of five to 10 years.
Note that it was going to be happening anyway, just on a slower schedule.
How could anyone not realize that this was coming as a result of the law? Minimum wage law hikes tend to ignore economics but make those who support them feel good – at the workers’ expense.
I’m surprised this took as long as it did – which was not very long, actually. The black perp, who had been athletic director at the school, combined race hoaxing with workplace revenge in order to frame his white principal:
A high school athletic director in Maryland has been accused of using artificial intelligence to impersonate a principal on an audio recording that included racist and antisemitic comments, authorities said Thursday.
Authorities said the case appears to be among the first of its kind in the country and called for new laws to guard against the technology. Experts also warned that artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly powerful, while the ability to detect it may lag behind without more resources.
Dazhon Darien faked the voice of Pikesville High School’s principal in response to conversations the men had about Darien’s poor work performance and whether his contract would be renewed, Baltimore County police said. …
The audio clip quickly spread on social media and had “profound repercussions,” the court documents stated, with the principal being placed on leave. The recording put the principal and his family at “significant risk,” while police officers provided security at his house, according to authorities.
The recording also triggered a wave of hate-filled messages on social media and an inundation of phone calls to the school, police said. Activities were disrupted for a time, and some staff felt unsafe.
Darien apparently used Large Language Models to create his fake, and fortunately the police got some experts to analyze it. Darien was about to be arrested, but was boarding a flight to Houston and was stopped because of “how he had packaged his firearm for the flight.”
The article I linked, which is from Fox but was originally from AP, never mentions that Darien is black and the principal white. I only know that fact because earlier I had read another article that mentioned it, but I can’t locate that one at the moment. Interesting omission by AP.
Just to check on the rest of the MSM, I read this CBS coverage of the story. No mention of the race of either man. I also watched a video there, which did have a photo of the principal. But nothing of the sort about the perp, and no mention of his race. These omissions are highly highly unlikely to be accidental.
You can find the details here. The gist of it is this:
There’s a rule that you can’t put on evidence of prior “bad acts” to prove that a defendant committed the specific bad acts he’s being tried for in the present case.
It’s not that such evidence is completely irrelevant; it’s that it’s unduly prejudicial to the defendant. Such evidence tends to poison the jury against the defendant well out of proportion to the actual light it sheds on the current crime being judged at trial.
But that’s what the state of New York did to get their conviction. …
Another exception, which seems to be the one used in this case, is to claim you’re not putting on these witnesses to prove his prior bad acts, but to shed light on his state-of-mind he had when committing the acts he’s on trial for.
The prosecution put on three witnesses to accuse Weinstein of prior rape, and claimed they weren’t presenting this evidence just to show he’s generally a rapist, but to prove that his state in mind in the current case was one of intent to commit a sexual assault. That is, it wasn’t just a mistake where he misread the woman’s level of interest in him.
But I mean, come on: You can’t tell the jury “don’t consider this testimony as evidence that he committed the current crime, just consider it as far as his state-of-mind.” That’s telling people to put the information in a special vault in their brain that they cannot access except to answer one particular question. No one’s brain works like that, not even the brain of Noted “Compartmentalizer” Bill Clinton.
And speaking of Bill Clinton – a somewhat similar approach was used in the Paula Jones case to query him in a deposition about none other than the extent of his sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, and that’s what led to the entire Lewinsky story coming out in public and leading to his impeachment. I was against such questions then, and I’m against them now. To refresh your memory in the Jones case [emphasis mine]:
Jones’s lawyers decided to show to the court a pattern of behavior by Clinton that involved his allegedly repeatedly becoming sexually involved with state or government employees. Jones’s lawyers therefore subpoenaed women they suspected Clinton had had affairs with, including Arkansas Appeal Tribunal employee Gennifer Flowers, as well as White House employee Monica Lewinsky. In his deposition for the Jones lawsuit, Clinton denied having “sexual relations” with Monica Lewinsky. Based on testimony provided by Linda Tripp, which identified the existence of a blue dress with Clinton’s semen on it, Kenneth Starr concluded that Clinton’s sworn testimony was false and perjurious.
During the deposition in the Jones case, Clinton was asked, “Have you ever had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, as that term is defined in Deposition Exhibit 1, as modified by the Court?” The judge ordered that Clinton be given an opportunity to review the definition. It said that “a person engages in sexual relations when the person knowingly engages in or causes contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of any person with an intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person”. Clinton flatly denied having sexual relations with Lewinsky. Later, at the Starr Grand Jury, Clinton stated that he believed the definition of sexual relations agreed upon for the Jones deposition excluded his receiving oral sex.
It was upon the basis of this statement that the House of Representatives voted to impeach Clinton on December 19, 1998, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. Clinton was subsequently tried before the Senate, where votes on either charge both fell far short of the 2/3 supermajority required for conviction.
Also, please see this post of mine about the cases against Weinstein:
Of course, the fact that one woman may have lied—or been mistaken, because perhaps she was drunk—about the nature of their sexual contact does not mean they all have lied or been mistaken. As I’ve said before, each accusation must be taken on its own merits (although few people seem to do that): even assuming that the weight of accusation indicates that Weinstein is guilty of some violations “does not mean that all his accusers are telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” …
With Weinstein, there are so many stories that it is easy to think that most of them must be true. But that temptation must be resisted. The trouble is that truth and falsehood can be fiendishly difficult to ascertain in cases such as this. …
Are people usually that clearly in touch with their own behavior, thoughts, and feeling around complicated situations of a sexual nature, in which fear mixes with desire to advance one’s career, and in which all of it is mixed with the liberal consumption of alcohol or other substances? The vagaries of memory are part of the problem as well, and revisionism can occur either much later or very shortly after the act in question. Regret, confusion, trauma, forgetfulness, defensiveness, rationalization—all can play into it in various ways for the alleged victim.
Here’s the latest in media reporting of Hamas’ tall tales. No need to listen to the whole thing, although it’s interesting. You can get the gist of it in ten or fifteen minutes, or perhaps even less:
Misinformation is circulating regarding a mass grave that was discovered at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis. The grave in question was dug — by Gazans — a few months ago. This fact is corroborated by social media documentation uploaded by Gazans at the time of the burial, as seen… https://t.co/4BruYMILTd
— LTC (S.) Nadav Shoshani (@LTC_Shoshani) April 24, 2024
The Palestinian “narrative” is lies all the way down. But the edifice of lies has become most people’s truth, because the lies have been picked up and amplified by their willing handmaidens in our very own MSM as well as the press in much of the world. I’ve been reporting on this for twenty years, and so have many many other people with far more readers. It’s obvious, and has been for a long long time. And yet the lies have sped round and round the world while the truth keeps laboriously putting its boots on.
One of the many many hallmarks of Palestinian lies is the way they actually reverse the truth. For example, relevant to this story: who is it who respects the dead and who is it who desecrates dead bodies? We know that the Israelis do the former and the Palestinians the latter. So this recent report is an example of the kind of Orwellian reversal we keep seeing in this conflict and so many others.
As I read in one of the YouTubers’ comments to that first video:
Palestinians redefine many words:
• War becomes a Genocide.
• Rape becomes Resistance.
• Borders become Concentration Camp walls.
• Suicide bombing becomes Heroism.
• Moving civilians out of harm’s way, becomes Ethnic Cleansing.
• Hostages become Prisoners of War.
• Keeping citizens separate from the terrorists they want to kill, becomes Apartheid.
• People returning to their ancient homeland become Colonizers.
• Terrorists become Freedom Fighters.
• Palestinian migrants become Natives to the land.
• Children dying in a war as collateral damage becomes Murder.
• Something rightfully obtained that was never theirs, becomes Theft.
• Being on land that you 100% control per LAW, becomes Occupation.
Trump is trapped in New York City for the duration of his show trial there. The Democrats may think they’ve checkmated him – it’s certainly their hope – and perhaps they have. But Trump is nothing if not creative:
“I think we have a good chance of winning here and we’re gonna give it a big plan,” Trump said about New York State. “We’re going to the South Bronx to do a rally.”
“We’re going to be doing a rally at Madison Square Garden, we believe,” Trump added.
The rallies will focus on honoring police, firemen, and teachers. “We’ll be honoring the people that make New York work,” Trump said. “It’ll be very exciting, but we think we have a really good chance of winning.”
I have to say that Trump deserves some sort of award for sustaining his spirit in the face of a degree of persecution that would have felled most people long ago. Whether that translates into having a chance in New York – well, let’s just say it’s a real longshot. Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden both beat him in that state by about 20 points, getting about 60% of the vote. Trump’s way behind there in polls now – but not anywhere near as far behind as that. For example, in a very recent Siena poll (April 15-17):
“The good news for Biden is that he continues to hold a double-digit lead over Trump in solidly blue New York. The bad news for Biden is he only leads by 10 points, 47-37%, after leading 48-36% in February, in a state where enrolled Democrats outnumber Republicans better than two-to-one,” Greenberg said. “While Biden has support from 72% of Democrats, Trump has the support of 81% of Republicans and leads with independents, 46-32%.”
Also notice that Biden’s total is under 50%, and that only 84% of respondents picked either Biden or Trump. I was curious about the rest, and it turns out that 4% said they’d vote for someone else, 7% said they wouldn’t be voting, and 5% haven’t made up their minds yet. Interesting.
Actually, I don’t really think Trump has a chance of winning New York. But wouldn’t it be fabulous if the trial ended up backfiring and he won the state in 2024? Such poetic justice. He’s certainly highly unlikely to get actual justice in his trial there.
The Hamas terror group has published a new propaganda video showing signs of life from 23-year-old Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin.
In the nearly three-minute-long video, Goldberg-Polin, who is seen missing one of his hands, identifies himself and asks the Israeli government to return them home.
The video is not dated, but Goldberg-Polin says he has been held captive for “nearly 200 days,” indicating it was filmed recently.
It indicates it but it doesn’t prove it. Goldberg-Polin would understandably say anything he was told to say, although I’m going to assume this was indeed filmed recently. But why not use the time-honored technique of showing him next to a current newspaper?
If in fact it is a recent video, it supports my oft-stated point that although many hostages are dead there are still a significant number left alive. Hamas isn’t dumb, and the living ones have many uses for them, including for propaganda purposes as well as bargaining chips of great value:
In it, Hersh Goldberg-Polin is seen reading a pre-prepared script blaming Israel for October 7th and everything that has transpired since.
Golberg-Polin was taken captive at the Nova Music festival that Hamas attacked, slaughtering hundreds of people in the process. He can be seen missing his arm in the video, an injury he sustained that day at the hands of the terrorists after they threw grenades into a shelter he was in.
I don’t blame him one iota for anything he is made to say in the video. He is under their total control and has suffered greatly.
I wonder if Biden will have anything to say about this. I think it’s no accident that Hamas chose to feature an American, as a tease and a test.
For quite some time, the Babylon Bee has been writing such sharp and relevant satire that it is almost painful to read. It skirts that thin line between humor and sad truth.
In the wake of ongoing anti-Israel protests that have engulfed the school’s campus, Columbia University announced it has switched to online classes so Jewish students can participate from the attics where they are hiding.
The school’s leadership met earlier in the week to discuss options that would ease tensions on campus and allow Jewish students to continue their education without leaving the safety of the attics where they have been forced to take refuge from rampant antisemitism among large pockets of the student body.
“I’m glad I can still do my coursework,” one Jewish student said after the announcement was made. “After being relegated to hiding here in this attic, I was afraid that I’d start missing too many classes and my grades would suffer. Thankfully, the administration has been kind enough to give me online access to my classes right here in this attic while they allow violent antisemitic protests to sweep across campus. Thanks!”
Academia, particularly at the level of Columbia and the Ivy League, is completely broken. I don’t think it can be repaired internally. They have created over 20 to 30 years a unified monoculture which is hostile to western values, which is hostile to capitalism, and which exploits and singles out Israel as the object of their ire as a mobilizing tactic…. People need to understand that there is no internal opposition left.
In other words, these universities are completely and utterly dominated by the left. Professor Jacobson knows whereof he speaks; he’s a law professor at Cornell, and the left tried to drive him out of his job recently but so far has failed.
And make no mistake about it, these anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and leftist developments in academia are led by faculty. Here’s Jacobson again:
I’d say you have to go back really 10, 20 years. There has been a gross dehumanization of Israeli Jews and of Israel on campuses led mostly by faculty.
There is no diversity of viewpoint among faculty on campuses, not just on domestic issues. We often talk about Republican versus Democrat and how there are no Republican professors left pretty much.The same is true for Israel.
There are almost no openly pro-Israel professors left because they don’t get hired.
I’ve written about some of the origins of the takeover by the left in many posts, most recently in this post from yesterday. But I’m planning another one, this time on one of the most influential figures within the campus movement that has borne such bitter fruit today: Edward Said, professor of literature at Columbia and influential political and philosophical activist for “Palestine” from the early 1960s till his death in 2003.
A book could be written about this, and several have; I won’t be writing a book. But it’s a huge topic, and I plan to at least touch on it in a post or posts.
“What is clear is in this case, Trump is right,” Turley told Fox News. “I mean, this is an embarrassment. I mean, the fact that we are actually talking about this case being presented in a New York courtroom leaves me in utter disbelief. I mean, the arguments today did in fact capture all the problems here. You know, you had this misdemeanor under state law that had run out. This is going back to the 2016 election. And they zapped it back into life by alleging that there was a campaign finance under federal laws that doesn’t exist.”
The word “embarrassment” is interesting, because it implies that the prosecutors are susceptible to shame about what they’re doing. They’re not. Nor are most Democrat spokespeople, as far as I can see. It’s a sobering fact and it bodes very very ill for the future of this country.
But we already knew that. And outrage is the proper emotion to feel about what is being done to Trump, to the country, and to the law.
[Trump] is charged with filing corporate records that included a false statement; namely, that payments to Michael Cohen that were described as being for legal services were, in fact, to reimburse Cohen for making one or more payments to Stormy Daniels in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement. But those payments to Daniels were perfectly legal, and filing a false corporate document is a misdemeanor on which the statute of limitation has passed.
So in order to charge Trump, District Attorney Alvin Bragg had to allege that the false documents were filed in order to cover up another crime. That would make it a felony. But what is that other crime? Bragg has been coy about it. In truth, there was no other crime, and Bragg’s prosecution is election interference on behalf of the Democratic Party, plain and simple.
In other words, doing what all candidates do all the time? That’s an “illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of a presidential election”? Trying to keep skeletons – or even allegations of skeletons, whether true or not – in the closet? That crime? Like what the entire MSM, social media, the intelligence community, and the Democrats did regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop in 2020? Or changing the election rules so that fraud couldn’t be proven even if it occurred? Those sorts of crimes?
Or the crime of Bragg’s prosecution itself, which also is a conspiracy to undermine the integrity of a political election? As though the left cares about the integrity of elections.
Netanyahu is standing trial for bribery and breach of trust. The “breach of trust” charge is a subjective catch-all concept that the prosecutors admit wouldn’t have sufficed on its own to bring Netanyahu to trial. The bribery charge was the key to Netanyahu’s political downfall. …
To achieve their political goal, the police descended on Netanyahu’s advisers one by one, and gave them the treatment generally reserved for terrorists and violent criminals. They were dragged from their beds at dawn, in front of their families, and carted off to investigation rooms and flea-ridden jail cells. They were denied food. They were subjected to public humiliation in the media. Their electronic communications were illegally tapped. Their families were threatened. Their livelihoods were destroyed.
And the police didn’t let them go until they gave them something—anything—to incriminate the prime minister of Israel.
Since Netanyahu had committed no crime, then-Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and State Attorney Shai Nitzan reinvented the bribery statute to claim that lawful actions Netanyahu did undertake were criminal.
Like every politician on the face of the planet, Netanyahu sought positive coverage from news organizations. The prosecution decided that this effort amounted to a solicitation of a bribe. Netanyahu signed regulatory decisions that affected a telecommunications firm owned by his friend. The prosecution decided this was a favor—a payment for positive coverage from his friend’s news website. Unfortunately for the prosecution, Netanyahu received terrible coverage from the website. But no matter, the prosecutors simply updated the definition of bribery. They said Netanyahu received “undo responsiveness” from the website’s management to his requests for better coverage, and that was now the definition of a bribe.
Does that not sound familiar?
I’ve noticed over and over again that most people have little to no understanding of law, and that includes most intelligent people. That’s why prosecutors can get away with this horse manure in friendly (in this case, anti-Trump) venues – that, and the fact that emotion often overrides logic for the vast majority of people, who tend to see a prosecution as an excellent way to hurt a person they dislike, which makes any method okay. The ends justify the means, and all that.
Is it time for that Man For All Seasons clip again? I guess so:
And in addition, neither Trump nor Netanyahu is the devil; far from it.
ADDENDUM:
More here, including quotes from Andrew C. McCarthy’s article at NR (the article itself is behind a paywall).