It is a sign of our times. It used to be that the key criterion for college roommates was whether you are a “partier v. non-partier.” Now, it is just your party.
A new NBC and Generation Lab study of the class of 2025 showed that roughly half of college students refuse to live with someone who voted for a member of a different political party. That percentage is notably much higher with Democrats rather than Republicans.
Recently, I wrote about the disclosure of an alleged backchannel between the CDC and Twitter on censoring critics of the agency and its recommendations. Now, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussed how the FBI warned Facebook about “Russian propaganda” before the Hunter Biden laptop story dropped in 2020. This follows reports that the FBI told agents not to pursue the laptop and to slow walk any investigation into Hunter Biden’s alleged influence peddling schemes.
We have been following conflicts over official statements or acknowledgements on diversity, colonialism, or privilege at universities. These conflicts often involve concerns over free speech or academic freedom. The most recent controversy has arisen at Cornell University and involves a challenge to an official declaration that the university perpetuates “settler colonialism, indigenous dispossession, slavery, racism, classism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, antisemitism, and ableism.” The statement was posted on its School of Integrative Plant Science’s website and, according to the site College Fix, one academic has objected: Randy Wayne, associate professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Continue reading “Cornell Declaration States School Perpetuates “Colonialism, Indigenous Dispossession, Slavery, Racism, Classism, Sexism, Transphobia, Homophobia, Antisemitism, and Ableism.””
Below is my column in the New York Post on the opposition of the Justice Department to release of even a redaction affidavit in the ongoing controversy over the raid at Mar-a-Lago. As this litigation unfolds (including a key filing today), the Justice Department has been reportedly leaking some of the very same information to the press. In addition, National Archives and Records Administration released a letter contradicting claims of the Trump team, including refuting claims of cooperation or transparency by the former president. There has never been a more important time for Attorney General Merrick Garland to show leadership in plugging his leaky ship while ordering the release of a redacted affidavit. As discussed below, the release of substantive portions of an affidavit can ordinarily be made without compromising confidential informants or undermining the investigation. It could well support criminal allegations or contradict the former president as being claimed by unnamed sources. However, he has waived objections to the release and there is a clear public interest in greater transparency.
Here is the column: Continue reading “Garland’s Leaky Ship: the Justice Continues an All-Too-Familiar Pattern of Demanding Secrecy While Leaking Information”
Below is my column on the increasing condemnations of “constitutionalism” as the root of our problems as a nation. The latest such attack came from two professors in the New York Times in a column titled The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed. It is part of a crisis of faith sweeping the nation. There are good-faith objections to such institutions as the electoral college, but the growing attacks on the Constitution reflects a more significant break with our constitutional values and traditions.
Here is the column: Continue reading ““Reclaim America from Constitutionalism”: Law Professors Now Call to “Pack the States” Rather than “Pack the Court””
There is a controversy at the University of Wisconsin this week after the Dane County District Attorney’s Office in Wisconsin filed misdemeanor battery charges against three teens suspected in the brutal assault of a UW-Madison Chinese PhD student. The Asian community denounced the crime as race related (which the University denies). Asian students protested the treatment of the case at the university. Many objected to not only the rejection of hate crime charges but the use of misdemeanor rather than felony charges. The reason, however, appears a key distinction in the Wisconsin criminal code. Continue reading “Protests Arise at UW-Madison After Alleged Assailants of Chinese Student are Charged with Misdemeanors in Brutal Attack”
“Tricky.” Over the course of 110 pages in a federal complaint, that one descriptive word seemed to stand out among the exchanges between social media executives and public health officials on censoring public viewpoints. The exchange reveals long-suspected coordination between the government and these social media companies to manage a burgeoning censorship system. Twitter just reportedly suspended another doctor who sought to raise concerns over Pfizer Covid records. Former New York Times science reporter Alex Berenson is also suing Twitter over his suspension after raising dissenting views to the CDC. In the meantime, Twitter is rolling out new procedures to combat “misinformation” in the upcoming elections — a move that has some of us skeptical. Continue reading “Twitter’s “Tricky” Timing Problem: Lawsuit Reveals Back Channel with CDC to Coordinate Censorship” 
One of the most glaring contradictions in the Mar-a-Lago controversy has been the Justice Department demanding absolute and unwavering secrecy over the FBI raid while officials have been leaking details on the raid. The latest example is a report in the New York Times that the Justice Department recovered more than 300 documents with classified markings, citing multiple sources connected to the investigation. Most judges would be a tad annoyed by the contradiction as the government continues to frame the public debate with its own selective leaks while using secrecy to bar other disclosures. That includes sections of the affidavit that detail the communications with the Trump team, information that is already known to the target. Continue reading “Litigation by Leak: Government Officials Leak New Details on the Mar-a-Lago Raid While Continuing to Oppose Disclosures in Court”
Below is my column in the Hill on the upcoming filing of the Justice Department on proposed redactions to the affidavit that led to the Mar-a-Lago raid. It will be the fifth chance for Attorney General Merrick Garland to take a modest step to assure concerned citizens over the basis or motivation for the raid.
Here is the column: Continue reading “How Merrick Garland Missed Four Chances to Earn the Public Trust on Mar-a-Lago”
Peter Strzok is back in the news this week. Career colleagues at the Justice Department previously referred Strzok for possible criminal charges and he was fired for his bias and unprofessional conduct. However, Strzok was immediately embraced by many in the media and establishment for his anti-Trump sentiments. After he was fired, the former special agent was given a lucrative book deal, lionized on the left, featured prominently as an expert by CNN, and given a teaching job at Georgetown. It was an extraordinary recovery from a scandal where he showed flagrant bias, engaged in an affair with another married colleague at the FBI, and fought to continue to investigate Russian collusion claims despite early warnings over the questionable basis of the allegations pushed by the Clinton campaign. (Strzok’s colleague and former paramour, Lisa Page, was given a contract as a legal analyst with NBC and MSNBC). Now, Strzok appears liberated in showing precisely the bias and unhinged hostility alleged by his critics. He has been in the news lashing out at Trump and trolling his objections to the raid on Mar-a-Lago.
A researcher at Leeds University, Salma al-Shehab, has been sentenced to 34 years in prison for spreading “rumors” and retweeting dissidents on social media. Saudi Arabia is known for its harsh punishments under Islamic Sharia law, but this sentence has shocked even those familiar with the kingdom’s draconian laws. It appears that the Saudi Sharia-based system has moved into the Internet age with grotesque sentences applied to retweets. Al-Shehab was originally given six years but, when she appealed, a national security court increased her punishment to 34 years.
Yesterday, Res Ipsa passed the 61,000,000 mark in views on the blog. We have used these moments to give thanks for our many regular readers around the world and share our traffic data to give you an idea of the current profile of readers around the world.
As always, I want to offer special thanks for Darren Smith, who has continued to help manage the blog and help out folks who encounter posting problems. I also want to thank Kristin Oren who continues her amazing work proofing posts on a daily basis to remove my embarrassing typos. Finally, I would like to thank our regular readers who alert me to typos or any violations of the civility or copyright policies on the blog. Continue reading “Res Ipsa Hits 61,000,000”
Defense Department Inspector General has released its long-awaited report on what the Biden Administration left behind in Afghanistan. It is an unbelievable list of equipment left to one of the most violent groups in the world with a history of supporting terrorist organizations. I opposed the long war in Afghanistan, so I was not among those critical of Trump or Biden in pushing to leave the conflict. However, no one has ever explained why the Biden Administration left this equipment in Afghanistan as opposed to removing it or destroying it. Continue reading “Inspector General: The U.S. Government Left More Than $7 Billion in Military Equipment to the Taliban”
In past columns, we have discussed the litany of “slam dunk” crimes that Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe has declared as established against former President Donald Trump, none of which have been actually charged. Indeed, Tribe appears intent upon running through the entire criminal code. Just for the purposes of keeping score, Tribe declared evidence supporting criminal charges of witness tampering, obstruction of justice, criminal election violations, Logan Act violations, extortion, espionage, attempted murder, and treason by Trump or his family. This week, Tribe insisted on MSNBC that Trump yet again is facing a “slam dunk” criminal conviction over the raid on Mar-a-Lago. While some of us have suggested that we wait to see the actual evidence before evaluating the risk in the case, Tribe again is confident that the still uncharged case has already been made.
Continue reading “Tribe: The Criminal Case Against Trump is Another “Slam Dunk””
The addition of 87,000 new IRS agents has been celebrated by many as a way to capture billions in revenue to pay for the new bill on climate change and other programs. The claim is that increasing audits of people making over $400,000 will capture additional billions in revenue. That math has been challenged as wildly overestimated unless these new agents turn (as expected) to middle income taxpayers. The respected Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has also directly contradicted claims made by President Biden and the sponsors on increasing the tax burden for middle income families. What is interesting, however, are reports that the government believes that as much as $160 billion in Covid relief fraud exists and the government does not have the personnel or ability to recover most of those funds (or to prosecute most of the culprits). A fraction of those 87,000 new IRS agents would transform this effort, but documenting and prosecuting Covid relief fraud does not seem as much of a priority in Washington. Continue reading “Congress Adds 87,000 new IRS Agents to Pursue $204 Billion in Tax Fraud While 500 IG Agents Struggle to Investigate $160 Billion in Covid Fraud?”