Geno Segers was a widely acclaimed actor who starred in the Broadway production Hadestown. That came to an end this month when Segers expressed the view of the vast majority of Americans: women’s sports should be confined to biological women. He has now been fired, even after an attempt to apologize for expressing his own views on the subject. Other actors have expressed support for transgender players without any response other than praise in the latest example of the rising McCarthyism on the left. Continue reading “Thrown out of Hadestown: Actor Fired for Opposing Transgender Athletes in Women’s Sports”
Author: jonathanturley
Former Biden White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha this weekend became the latest denier of the lab theory to do a 180-degree turn. During the interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Jha admitted that he now believes that the most likely explanation is a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. As pundits and politicians quietly admit that the natural mutation theory is not as credible, the courageous scientists who were blacklisted for years remain persona non grata in higher education. Continue reading ““This is Going to Surprise Some People”: Leading Biden COVID-19 Figure Embraces the Lab Leak Theory”
According to a new survey, roughly 40 percent of college faculty would “oppose hiring a Trump supporter.” The results of the study are not surprising to many in the field of teaching. Indeed, it may be low given faculty reluctance to admit political bias or the delusion of others that they are without it. Yet, the virtual purging of Republicans from most departments reveals a long-standing ideological exclusion in higher education. While far-left hires are common, even a moderate Republican is a rarity on faculties in a country with a majority of conservative and libertarian voters. Continue reading “The New McCarthyism: Forty Percent of Professors Would Vote Against Hiring a Trump Voter”
Below is my column in The Hill on the release of the tapes from former President Joe Biden’s interview with his biographer. The Biden team fought for years to keep the public from hearing the tapes. We now know why.
Here is the column:
Hunter Biden is no Van Gogh. In addition to having both ears, Hunter’s work has generally been panned beyond an enabling media following. However, he claims he is also a starving artist. The problem appears to be that, as predicted years ago, his sales dried up with the influence-peddling market once his father left office. Now, his lawyers want him to cough up $17 million that he owes them. Hunter says that not only is he broke, but so is his family. Continue reading “From Influence Peddler to Starving Artist: Hunter Biden Claims Family is Broke in Defaulting on $17 Million Bill”
Recently, I wrote about the bizarre investigation of Hofstra University Professor Richard Himelfarb, who had referred to a colleague’s comments in a faculty meeting as “word salad.” The investigation was launched after a formal complaint from his colleague, Professor Santiago Slabodsky, chair of the Jewish studies program. While some of us called for the “word salad” complaint to be tossed, Slabodsky has now filed another complaint stemming from Himelfarb’s public campaign to clear his name, according to a letter from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). Continue reading “Hofstra Professor Files Complaint Against Colleague for Calling His Comments “Word Salad” . . . Then Files Second Complaint When That Colleague Defends Himself”
There is an important lawsuit being litigated in the Southern District of New York over the limits of free speech and academic freedom for faculty at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Professor Tim Bakken, West Point’s longest-serving civilian law professor, is challenging new Trump Administration regulations that allegedly constitute unconstitutional prior restraints on academic publications and limit academic freedom and free speech. Continue reading “West Point Professor Challenges Ban on “Un-American, Divisive…Radical, Extremist, and Irrational Theories.””
As I wrote yesterday, Dr. Anthony Fauci was not the only one taking the Fifth yesterday on his record during the pandemic. The media effectively invoked the same privilege to avoid self-incrimination for their years of deifying the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Across the cable networks, hosts and guests were going into vapors as Republican senators pummelled Fauci over his COVID policies and the glaring contradictions found in his diary entries. Some, like Dr. Scott Ratzan, echoed Fauci’s own prior claim that any questioning of his judgment was an attack on science. Continue reading “The Media Takes the Fifth and Denounces Those Questioning Fauci as an “Assault on Science””
I recently debated Todd Wolfson, President of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), over the loss of institutional neutrality in higher education. In the debate, I raised AAUP’s own abandonment of neutrality principles, which Wolfson acknowledged. While the viewers overwhelmingly supported a return to neutrality principles, Wolfson was undeterred. Indeed, this week Inside Higher Ed reported that the AAUP had moved forward with its first political endorsement in its history and would make more endorsements going forward. The first endorsement captured the radical agenda of the AAUP: Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.
Below is my column on Fox.com on yesterday’s “testimony” from Dr. Anthony Fauci. Americans deserve answers to the questions raised by his diary and other remarks. The most likely course to gain such answers would be through an immunity grant. The impact of a pardon on invocations is a bit murky but, as I stated yesterday, the odds favor Fauci in a court finding that he can still invoke the privilege. In any challenge, a court would likely find that there remains a risk of self-incrimination. What is clear is that many in Washington would prefer Fauci to remain silent on the questions raised by his diary.
Here is the column: Continue reading “The Sound of Silence: Fauci Takes the Fifth and the Heat Over his Diary Disclosures”
Below is an expanded version of my column in the New York Post on Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s press conference this week on his planned state-run grocery stores. The plan is a multimillion-dollar version of the $5 gold watch grift. The chumps are New York taxpayers who believe that Mamdani can sell them produce at a discount of 30 percent below the market rate and not lose money. Indeed, this could end up the most expensive produce in the Big Apple.
Here is the column: Continue reading “The Mamdani Grocery Grift: The New York Mayor Sells Taxpayers a Bill of Goods on City-Run Stores”
Nothing says commitment to reform like heads on pikes. Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has attracted national attention with his violent rhetoric about “choking out” opponents and his campaigning with virulent anti-Semites like Hasan Piker. However, his comment about hoisting opponents’ heads like an “ogre on a pike” was raised during last night’s debate with Rep. Haley Stevens (D., MI.). He assured voters that he was really referring to the head of Sen. John Fetterman (D., PA.) in defending his remark. Somehow, alluding to the beheading of a staunch defender of Israel was presented as far more reasonable than mass beheadings. That is what passes for a moderate in this age of rage. Continue reading “Abdul El-Sayed: Fear Not … I Was Only Talking About Putting Fetterman’s Head on a Pike”
We have followed the evisceration of free speech values in the United Kingdom and other Western nations. Australia has been one of the most chilling examples of how a population can be conditioned over time to view free speech as a threat. The country now criminalizes and regulates an ever-expanding range of speech, including political and religious viewpoints. The most recent example is the Supreme Court of New South Wales upholding a conviction for ‘vilification’ after women’s rights campaigner Kirralie Smith and the publication Binary Australia referred to two transgender individuals as men due to their biological sex. That led not only to $95,000 in fines but also to a sentence of compelled speech. Continue reading “Criminal “Villification”: Australia Court Upholds Fine and Compelled Speech in Transgender Case”
Below is my column in the Hill on New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s “Fair Share Myth” and other fables being spread on the left to sell the public on the “warmth of collectivism.” It is storytime for socialists. These fictitious claims make Aesop look like Adam Smith.
Here is the column:
Continue reading “The Fair Share Myth and Other Socialist Fables”
An over-30-point primary loss would ordinarily produce a degree of introspection and self-reflection in a politician. Indeed, even such a humiliating defeat can produce a sense of liberation in some members who finish their terms free of pandering to extreme groups or blindly touting the party lines. Those people, however, are not Rep. Dan Goldman (D., N.Y.). Continue reading “Goldman Demands Proof of “One Case” of Immigration Obstruction…DHS Offers 7,000 in New York Alone”