By Selwyn Duke

“Why is Harvard giving Claudine Gay ‘plagiarism privilege’?” asked the New York Post editorial board Saturday.

It must be a rhetorical question. Professor Carol Swain, who was ripped off by Gay and complains “I feel like her whole research agenda, her whole career, was based on my work,” has some idea.

“A white male would probably already be gone,” Swain, a black woman herself, told journalist Christopher Rufo recently.

(more…)

By Selwyn Duke

Is Santa Claus soon only going to be safe at the North Pole — that is, unless that icy region, too, is strengthened with diversity? One could draw this conclusion after an attack on a middle-aged man dressed as St. Nick, by Muslim youths who, obviously, didn’t care that Santa was making a list and checking it twice. What’s more, the victim states that during the assault the teens shouted “This is our country!”

The kicker: This didn’t happen in Iraq, Bangladesh, Indonesia, or even Nigeria — but in Germany.

Read the rest here.

By Selwyn Duke

Vladimir Lenin, author of the Russian Revolution, once told a colleague that “yes, we are contradicting what we said before” — as The New Criterion paraphrased it in 2019 — “and when it is useful to reverse positions again, we will.” This could come to mind when pondering a complaint from liberal law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz.

“Some of the same hard leftists who have been on the forefront in denying free speech rights to those deemed politically incorrect,” notes the famed octogenarian, “have now begun to champion the First Amendment in defense of those who advocate the killing of Jews.”

In particular, Dershowitz trains his sights on Harvard University and its now-infamous president, Claudine Gay, an affirmative-action hire who’s being retained and defended by her institution despite revelations that she’s guilty of repeated acts of plagiarism. It’s her copying of Lenin, however, that has raised Dershowitz’s ire.

Read the rest here.

By Selwyn Duke

We’ve heard stories about children “canceling” their conservative parents, cutting all ties with them over objections to their politics. But they should actually be thankful for their traditionalist elders because, a new study informs, the typical “rightist” parenting style can keep kids right in the head. In contrast, “leftist” parenting is more associated with youths who’ve left sanity.

Read the rest here.

By Selwyn Duke

We discussed the usual light issues: life, the Universe and everything (hat tip: Douglas Adams). My appearance begins at 36:10. Watch at your own risk.

By Selwyn Duke

First there was the claim that because of the tremendous amount of CO₂ released during an electric vehicle’s (EV’s) production, you’d have to drive one hundreds of thousands of miles to reach CO₂-emissions parity with a gas-powered car. Next came an assertion from a think tank that an EV costs “approximately $48,698 more to own over a 10-year period.” Now there’s another apparent blow to the EV dream:

The true cost of charging such a vehicle, factoring in hidden expenses, is the equivalent of $17.33-per-gallon gasoline, reports the aforementioned think tank, the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF).

There’s a kicker here, too: Since much of this cost is covered by government subsidies, it means that middle-class and other taxpayers are subsidizing wealthy EV owners.

These realities and more are revealed….

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By Selwyn Duke

Politicians are well known, and oft derided, for tailoring their message to suit the crowd. But it turns out, a new study has found, that there’s a little politician inside of many of us — that is, people will often alter their political positions based on social pressure. This is stating the obvious, of course, but the research also indicates something many will find counterintuitive.

While some believe money trumps all in corrupting man’s endeavors, social pressure can have a greater impact than even monetary incentives.

The study, conducted at the University of Bern, Switzerland, was largely inspired by the uniformity in thought and action observed in government officials and citizens alike with the Covid-19 response. And the Bern researchers sought to replicate famed 1950s conformity experiments performed by psychologist Solomon Asch. In these, Asch would ask an individual to match line lengths as part of a group exercise but, unbeknownst to that person, the other members of his group were study confederates instructed to deliberately give incorrect answers. The result?

A striking number of the subjects chose to parrot the obviously wrong answers rather than buck the group consensus.

Read the rest here.

By Selwyn Duke

It’s ironic that while many women are complaining about halfway-demasculinized (“trans”) men seizing their sporting titles, “female-empowerment entertainment” is still being unabashedly thrust upon America. This is, of course, entertainment with macho but still sultry female characters who not only toss gargantuan men around like rag dolls, but whose portrayal suggests that women should have no problem equaling (besting?) men at sports.

Yet, though Hollywood loves its 120-pound, pulchritudinous, man-bashing dynamos, “audiences are not embracing these stories,” film consultant David Gross told The New York Times last month. A case in point is the subject of the Gray Lady’s article: how Disney’s recent film The Marvels flopped. And why the rejection? Here’s a reason:

“Real women like strong men, even fake ones portraying superheroes…."

Read the rest here.

By Selwyn Duke

Van Jones, the ex-Obama official who, while chuckling, once said he was basically “a communist,” has stated that he was “shaking” listening to GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy during Wednesday’s Republican primary debate. What disturbed the former “green czar” so? Did Ramaswamy, a wealthy entrepreneur, throw shade on Karl Marx?

Actually, the candidate talked about Democratic policy — a policy that has two different names.

When critics warn about it, Democrats call it a fringe idea dubbed “Great Replacement theory.”

When Democrats kvell about it, they call it “immigration policy” — when they call it anything at all.

At issue is our immigration regime (as well as illegal migration), which has ensured that 85 to 90 percent of our post-1967 immigrants would come from the Third World, and which has caused America's European-descent population to shrink from being close to 90 percent of the country 55 years ago to barely 60 percent today.

Some believe this is avoidable and, since the immigration pattern is continuing, that there must be some human agency behind it. Others, apparently, believe this immigration is just inevitable, akin to a force of nature or act of God, like the tides, the rising and setting sun, or a lightning strike. Jones is seemingly in the latter camp.

For the record, the video and transcription of Ramaswamy’s remarks about the Great Replacement Fact are below.

Read the rest here.

By Selwyn Duke

This is Bill Martinez's new podcast. He has long had a radio show, on which I've been a guest numerous times.

Today we had a wide-ranging discussion. In particular, however, we talked about America's moral decline and how to reverse it. 

Bill is a good man, and his voice should be heard far and wide.