The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Welcome to ‘Bizarre Hell-World’

Posted on | September 21, 2019 | Comments Off on Welcome to ‘Bizarre Hell-World’

Headline by Ed Driscoll at Instapundit:

WE’VE DESCENDED INTO SOME SORT
OF BIZARRE HELL-WORLD IN WHICH
ANDREW SULLIVAN IS A VOICE OF SANITY

You know, I’ve never forgiven Sully for his anti-Palin obsession, which reeked of gay misogyny and Harvard-educated anti-populist resentment, and the reason I’ve never forgiven him is because he’s never asked for forgiveness. Sully has never attempted to explain why he incited the “Trig Truther” mobs with their obstetric speculations. Even if he were offering such an explanation as a defense of his actions, trying to justify and rationalize his hateful unprofessionalism, I might be inclined to consider his explanation seriously, but he’s never done it. The controversy is now more than a decade old, and Sullivan has simply walked away from it as if nothing happened, apparently expecting everyone to forget it.

Back in the day — during G.W. Bush’s first term — Sully was considered an ally by most conservatives, and why he went berserk in 2008 is something he has never really explained. He attached himself to the very worst elements of the online “progressive” mob and lost all sense of perspective, a remarkable career meltdown for a man who once was editor of The New Republic back in the day when TNR was important. Sully seems to have regained his equilibrium, but his Trig Truther past cannot be forgotten by those of us old enough to remember it.

At any rate, what causes Driscoll to describe Sully as a “voice of sanity” is a column (quoted by John Sexton at Hot Air) in which Sully bemoans the weird identity politics curriculum in New York City schools:

Children, in other words, are being taught to think constantly about race, and to feel guilty if they are the wrong one. And, of course, if they resist, that merely proves the point. A boy who doesn’t think he is personally responsible for racism is merely reflecting “white fragility” which is a function of “white supremacy.” QED. No one seems to have thought through the implications of telling white boys that their core identity is their “whiteness,” or worried that indoctrinating kids into white identity might lead quite a few to, yes, become “white identitarians” of the far right. . . .
One of the key aspects about social-justice theory is that it’s completely unfalsifiable (as well as unreadable); it’s a closed circle that refers only to itself and its own categories. . . . The forces involved — “white supremacy,” “patriarchy,” “heterosexism” — are all invisible to the naked eye, like the Holy Spirit. Their philosophical origins — an attempt by structuralist French philosophers to rescue what was left of Marxism in the 1960s and 1970s — are generally obscured in any practical context. Like religion, you cannot prove any of its doctrines empirically, but children are being forced into believing them anyway.

Wow, that’s so dead on-target it’s like a GPS-guided missile. First, the white guilt-trip approach to teaching about race is a spectacularly bad idea, and its consequences will likely be catastrophic. Parents who think they can trust the public education system are fools. Second, yes, current “progressive” ideology originated with French philosophers (e.g., Michel Foucault) attempting to create a unifying belief system for the Left in a world where the bankruptcy of Marxism had become blindingly apparent.

I’ve written about Judith Butler as an important force in mainstreaming this postmodernist gibberish among “Third Wave” feminists. If you take the time to examine Butler’s key sources — Foucault, Monique Wittig, Gayle Rubin, et al. — you recognize that she was relying on ideas from the extremist fringe of academic intellectuals. Foucault was a madman, obsessed with interpreting everything in terms of power, and the fact that he did so with the skillful articulation of a philosophy professor does not make his madness less self-evident. When you then add that Foucault signed a petition advocating that France abolish the age of consent, you have reason to suspect his motives quite generally.

Let me add something: The age of consent in France is 15.

It is one thing, obviously, to criticize a witch-hunt climate such as prevailed in the 1980s (e.g., McMartin Preschool), where hysterical fears inspire false accusations and unjust prosecution. It is another thing entirely to argue, as Foucault did at some length in 1978, that it is wrong to expect adults to refrain from having sex with 14-year-olds.

While delivering a quick jab at French philosophers as the actual authors of 21st-century identity politics, Sullivan recommends Douglas Murray’s new book, The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity, and the summary indicates this to be a worthwhile read:

In his devastating new book The Madness of Crowds, Douglas Murray examines the twenty-first century’s most divisive issues: sexuality, gender, technology and race. He reveals the astonishing new culture wars playing out in our workplaces, universities, schools and homes in the names of social justice, identity politics and intersectionality.
We are living through a postmodern era in which the grand narratives of religion and political ideology have collapsed. In their place have emerged a crusading desire to right perceived wrongs and a weaponization of identity, both accelerated by the new forms of social and news media. Narrow sets of interests now dominate the agenda as society becomes more and more tribal–and, as Murray shows, the casualties are mounting.
Readers of all political persuasions cannot afford to ignore Murray’s masterfully argued and fiercely provocative book, in which he seeks to inject some sense into the discussion around this generation’s most complicated issues. He ends with an impassioned call for free speech, shared common values and sanity in an age of mass hysteria.

Click here to buy it from Amazon.



 

Category: Andrew Sullivan, Education, Intellectuals

In The Mailbox: 09.20.19 (Late Night Edition)

Posted on | September 21, 2019 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
Bacon Time: Vegetarian Dinner Party
EBL: Reviews – Ad Astra and Rambo – Last Blood
Twitchy: This Chris Hayes Tweet On Joe Biden & Ukraine Is The Funniest Thing We’ve Ever Read
Louder With Crowder: Andrew Yang Wants To Tax Cow Farts To Control Your Diet, also, He Wants To Take Away Your Cars Too
According To Hoyt: Do It For The Humans
Monster Hunter Nation: September Update Post
Vox Popoli: A Publisher, Not A Platform, also, Conservatives Never Learn

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Greatness: Shamelessness & Ignorance Unlimited
American Power: Climate Strike
American Thinker: Red Flag Laws – Too Good To Be True
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Campaign Speech Friday
Babalu Blog: Castro Dictatorship In Communist Cuba Goes “Back To The Future” To Deal With Economic Crisis
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For September 20
Cafe Hayek: Identifying What Is Really Arbitrary
CDR Salamander: The Quandary of Aircraft Age vs. Mission Capability Rate, also, Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: “I’m The MSM I Am, I’m Going To Get Trump, Yes I Am”
Don Surber: We Spy On Our President?
First Street Journal: Don’t Mealy-Mouth The Truth!
The Geller Report: Alabama Muslim Arrested In Terrorism Probe, also, Facebook Created Over 100 Pro-ISIS Pages While Censoring Conservatives
Hogewash: Math Is Hard, also, Team Kimberlin Post of The Day
Hollywood In Toto: Why Ad Astra Is Brad Pitt At His Creative Peak
Joe For America: CA Governor Begs Trump For $$$ To Save Him From His Homeless Problem, also, CNN Reports Rural Minnesota Voters Walking Away From The Democrats
JustOneMinute: Taking Down Trump AND Biden!
Legal Insurrection: Hillary’s Voter Suppression Claims Earn “Pants On Fire” Politifact Rating, also, NYC Mayor DeBlasio Ends His Almost Nonexistent Presidential Campaign
The PanAm Post: Maduro Insults Alberto Fernandez, Gives Him Helping Hand In Campaign, also, Venezuelan Exodus Increases Cases Of Exploitation In Latin America
Power Line: Climate Confessions & Liberal Voodoo, also, Thoughts From The Ammo Line
Shark Tank: Dem Rep Ted Deutch Calls Trump A “Coward” For Not Addressing Gun Violence
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday – The Equal Rights Amendment
This Ain’t Hell: “Alaska Bob” Glaves  – NOT A Vietnam Vet, also, VA Fraud – It’s A Family Affair
Victory Girls: Taylor Swift Goes Over-Woke
Volokh Conspiracy: Imagining A World Without Qualified Immunity, Part V, also, Short Circuit – A Roundup Of Recent Federal Court Decisions
Weasel Zippers: Union Theological Seminary Students Confess Climate Sins To Plants, also, Doomsdays That Didn’t Happen
Megan McArdle: GM & UAW Are Destroying Each Other Again
Mark Steyn: Elites In Robes

Amazon Warehouse Deals




Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 09.20.19 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | September 20, 2019 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 09.20.19 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Problems With Wind Turbines
EBL: Minnesota Nice – Did Ilhan Omar Get Her Husband Fired?
Twitchy: Candace Owens Calls Down The Thunder On White Liberals Trying To Explain Racism To Her
Louder With Crowder: CA Senate Tells Religious Leaders To Embrace LGBTQ, Dump Conversion Therapy

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Extorting The West With The Climate Change Scam
American Greatness: Trump Administration Rejects California’s Plea For More $$$ To Combat Homelessness
American Thinker: Contesting The Progressive Takeover Of Vermont
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Assault Weapon News
Babalu Blog: Extrajudicial Killings Increasing In Poor Areas Of Venezuela
BattleSwarm: Leftwing Activists Rage At Heretical Democrat Senators
Camp of the Saints: On Abortion, Complicity In Moral Treason, & Repentance
Cafe Hayek: Life IS Good
CDR Salamander: Slacker Nation Takes The Helm
Da Tech Guy: Impossible Whopper Accidental Review, also, Academia’s To Blame For The Democrat Candidates’ Radicalism
Don Surber: Trump Kept His Promises
First Street Journal: The Bill Of Rights Was Written To Protect Us From Demagogues Like Beto O’Rourke
Fred On Everything: Immigration & Teething Pains
The Geller Report: DOJ IG Horowitz Refers James Comey For Criminal Prosecution, also, It’s Bibi Or Elections Again
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, A Dim Galaxy
Hollywood In Toto: Critics Claim Rambo: Last Blood Is Racist Call For Trump’s Wall
Joe For America: Hillary Donor Ed Buck Finally In Jail After Drug Deaths Of Two Black Men
JustOneMinute: Meanwhile, Back In Israel
Legal Insurrection: Buttigieg Hopes Story Of South Bend Abortionist Who Kept Over 2200 Murdered Babies Doesn’t Become Political, also,  Student Climate Change Activist Wants To Know Why He Has To Study If The World Is Ending
The PanAm Post: Lopez Obrador’s Government Is A Failure
Power Line: Stand By Your Sham – Ilhan Omar’s Squeeze Play, also, What’s The Environmental Crisis?
Shark Tank: Ted Deutch & The Congressional Dog Days Of Summer
Shot In The Dark: The Minneapolis Way
The Political Hat: South Africa – Cops As Criminals, Turn Out The Light, & Buddy, Can You Spare A Rand?
This Ain’t Hell: Sub Officer With Drug Dealing Side Hustle Busted, also, Marine Uses Fake Facebook Profile To Catch Cheating GF
Victory Girls: Yang’s Climate Change Solution? Ban Cars & Cows
Volokh Conspiracy: The First Amendment & Tax Exemptions For “Hate” Groups
Weasel Zippers: Fartacus Promises To Reverse Tax Cuts, Give 150 Million Americans A Tax Hike, also, DHS Head Reports Illegal Crossings In Area Of New Wall Cut 90%
Mark Steyn: A Round Of Wokejitos

Amazon Warehouse Deals




Category: Linkagery

The ‘Whistleblower’ Is the Deep State Interfering in Trump’s Ukraine Policy

Posted on | September 20, 2019 | Comments Off on The ‘Whistleblower’ Is the Deep State Interfering in Trump’s Ukraine Policy

 

When the Washington Post started reporting about a “whistleblower” complaint about President Trump’s conversation with an unspecified “foreign leader,” speculation ran wild as to what it meant. But as Allahpundit at Hot Air figured out, it’s about Trump’s effort to get Ukraine to investigate corruption involving Joe Biden’s son. As part of that effort, apparently, Trump played hardball, conveying that U.S. military aid to Ukraine would be dependent on their cooperation.

And the correct response is, “So?” Is it the position of Democrats and their media allies that the apparently corrupt dealings of Joe Biden’s son in Ukraine should not be investigated? And as has been noted, Russia wasn’t the only foreign government “meddling” in the 2016 election — Ukraine did it, too. So if the Biden-Ukraine scandal is connected to that “meddling,” isn’t it logical that Trump would want Ukraine to investigate it? He’s the President of the United States, after all, and this investigation involves American interests, which he is sworn to protect.

This is not a scandal:

Both The Washington Post and The New York Times report that an intelligence official who worked in the White House filed the complaint Aug. 12 after growing alarmed about the details of a phone call that President Donald Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, citing two people familiar with the matter.
Trump and Zelensky, who took office in May, spoke by phone July 25. The Ukrainian government released a read-out of the phone call that said the two leaders spoke about corruption investigations “that have hampered interaction between Ukraine and the USA.” . . .
Details of the complaint have spilled into public view following a tense battle between House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence.
Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community inspector general (ICIG), sent Schiff letters this month making it clear that he disagreed with Maguire’s decision not to turn the whistleblower complaint over to Congress. Atkinson said he found the complaint credible and “urgent,” a threshold that requires the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to sent an intelligence community whistleblower complaint to Congress.
But Maguire, with guidance from the Justice Department, declined to turn over the complaint, saying it involved privileged communications.

Rudy Giuliani has admitted that he acted as Trump’s representative in discussions with Ukrainian officials. Again, the question is, “So?”

Only in the minds of Democrats, for whom everything Trump does is scandalous, is this considered a scandal. And it is apparent that this “whistleblower” is a Democrat operative embedded in our intelligence bureaucracy, a perfect example of the “Deep State” problem that Trump’s supporters have been talking about for three years. The bureaucrats seem to believe that they should have more influence on U.S. policy than the President himself, if the President doesn’t share their worldview.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

Question: Will this boomerang back on Trump-haters? Will their latest “get Trump” trick instead result in increased scrutiny of Biden’s corrupt Ukraine dealings? Because I suspect it will.



 

Category: Donald Trump, Ukraine

Hillary Clinton Blames Her Defeat on ‘Voter Suppression’ Conspiracy Theory

Posted on | September 19, 2019 | 1 Comment

The belief that Republicans engage in “voter suppression” has been widespread among Democrats since 2000, because of the contested Florida result in the Bush-Gore election. It resurfaced in 2004, when John Kerry lost to Bush, but then rather mysteriously disappeared in 2006, when Democrats won control of Congress, and did not return for another decade, during which Barack Obama was elected president twice. It is only when Democrats lose elections that the “voter suppression” conspiracy theory emerges from the fever swamps of the Left.

Last year, Stacey Abrams lost the Georgia gubernatorial election by more than 50,000 votes and yet contends, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, that she was the victim of “voter suppression.”

See, those Georgia Republicans are white and Abrams is black and therefore “voter suppression” is RAAAAACIST! And the people who give money to Democrats believe this because you must be intensely stupid to give money to Democrats. Anyone who believed Stacey Abrams could win Georgia was a special kind of stupid, and speaking of which, let’s talk about Hillary and Wisconsin:

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday said that voter suppression aimed at keeping women and people of color from the polls has brought the U.S. to a “crisis in democracy.”
Speaking at George Washington University, Clinton accused Republicans of rolling back voter protections and employing tactics aimed at keeping racial minorities from the polls. . . .
“We are witnessing a deliberate and ongoing effort to undermine the integrity of our elections and silence millions of Americans … particularly women, the elderly and people of color,” Clinton said.
“It’s no accident,” she continued. “It’s in service to their larger goals of obtaining and keeping power.”
Clinton said that in 2016, 200,000 people in Wisconsin were turned away from the polls.
Clinton has often faced criticism for not visiting Wisconsin during the 2016 campaign.
President Trump narrowly won the state, becoming the first Republican candidate in decades to carry The Badger State.
“Officials [in Wisconsin] made every excuse in the books to prevent people from voting,” Clinton said.
“You can run the best campaign and have the best plans and get the nomination and win the popular vote and you can lose the Electoral College and therefore the election,” she added.

This is at least the third time Clinton has claimed voters were “turned away from the polls” in Wisconsin in 2016, a claim that is demonstrably false — PolitiFact rated it a “pants on fire” lie — and yet she keeps repeating it because this rationalization is necessary to maintain the fraudulent scam of Democrats getting money from stupid people.

Ace has a great story about Jake Tapper, relevant to this topic.



 

Category: Hillary Clinton

NBC Shocked by New Scandal!

Posted on | September 19, 2019 | Comments Off on NBC Shocked by New Scandal!

How absurd:

Before being nominated by President Donald Trump to be attorney general, William Barr strongly endorsed a 2017 book accusing colleges and universities of unfairly punishing male students accused of rape.
Barr’s praise for “Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America’s Universities” by K.C. Johnson and Stuart Taylor, is posted on the book’s Amazon.com page. But during his confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee in January, Barr was not questioned about the blurb, which suggested men are often railroaded by a politically correct campus “mob.”
In the blurb, Barr praises the book for examining multiple cases where, as he described, “Male students are sacrificed to the mob, with academic leaders happily serving as the hangmen.”

You can click here to buy The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America’s Universities, which I highly recommend.

So I guess I’ll never be Attorney General now?



 

Category: NBC

Netanyahu Wins Re-Election UPDATE: Hey, Wait, That Was Completely Wrong!

Posted on | September 19, 2019 | Comments Off on Netanyahu Wins Re-Election UPDATE: Hey, Wait, That Was Completely Wrong!

This is kind of important:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secured a clear path to re-election on Wednesday, with religious-rightist parties set to hand him a parliamentary majority and his main challenger conceding defeat.
With more than 99 percent of votes counted — ballots cast by soldiers at military bases will be tallied over the next two days — Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party looked likely to muster enough support to control 65 of the Knesset’s 120 seats and be named to head the next coalition government.
It would be Netanyahu’s record fifth term as premier. . . .
Trump told reporters at the White House that Netanyahu’s re-election improved the chances of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. “He’s been a great ally and he’s a friend. I’d like to congratulate him on a well-thought-out race.”
A team led by Trump’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner has been working on an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, but it has not disclosed details. . . .
The close and often vitriolic contest was widely seen in Israel as a referendum on Netanyahu’s character and record in the face of corruption allegations. He faces possible indictment in three graft cases, and has denied wrongdoing in all of them.
Despite that, Netanyahu gained four seats compared to his outgoing coalition government, according to a spreadsheet published by the Central Elections Committee of parties that garnered enough votes to enter the next parliament.

So, despite his scandals, Netanyahu still won, and his coalition actually gained seats in the election, with support from Trump. The liberal media in the U.S. would have been celebrating if Netanyahu had lost, and would have considered his defeat a “bellwether” of the 2020 presidential race. Now? Never mind. Doesn’t matter. They’ll ignore it.

UPDATE: Somehow, I got the wrong news, and followed a link to an article about the April election, rather than the recent vote. So now, here is the actual latest election news from Israel:

Israel’s weakened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saw his offer on Thursday for a coalition with his strongest political rival, Benny Gantz, swiftly rebuffed after failing to secure a governing majority in a tight election.
Netanyahu’s surprise move was an abrupt change of strategy for the right-wing leader. Its rejection could spell weeks of wrangling after Tuesday’s election, which followed an inconclusive national ballot in April.
Gantz’s centrist Blue and White party emerged from the second round of voting this year slightly ahead of Netanyahu’s Likud, but also short of enough supporters in the 120-member parliament for a ruling bloc. . . .
Responding to Netanyahu’s call, Gantz made no mention of the prime minister and said he himself would head a “liberal” coalition, political shorthand for one that excludes the Israeli leader’s long-time ultra-Orthodox allies.
Gantz said Israelis were eager for a unity government to end the political uncertainty.
But he then left it to Moshe Yaalon, a fellow Blue and White leader, to deliver a stinging rejection of a partnership with Netanyahu, citing looming corruption charges against the prime minister, who has denied any wrongdoing.
“We will not enter a coalition led by Netanyahu,” Yaalon said, echoing a position Gantz had taken throughout the election campaign and appearing to suggest that an alliance with Likud would be possible if it dumped its veteran chief.

Unlike the New York Times, which still won’t own up to its failed smear of Brett Kavanaugh, I don’t mind admitting my mistakes.



 

Category: Israel

In Which @LaurenDuca Gets Cancelled

Posted on | September 19, 2019 | 1 Comment

 

The first time I took notice of Lauren Duca was in June 2016, when she wrote a Teen Vogue article about herpes that was simply false. Teen Vogue subsequently ceased print publication after publishing an article about anal sex, and I wrote in November 2017:

In the months leading up to the 2016 election, Teen Vogue (at least in its online version) was taken over by left-wing political operatives.  . . .
So why did the editors of Teen Vogue wish to tutor young girls about anal sex? Perhaps because the magazine’s digital director is a young gay man, Phillip Picardi and, beginning in 2015, the magazine deliberately decided to shift its focus to “activism” and identity politics:

“I am an activist [said the magazine’s editor Elaine Welteroth]. And I think the readers that we reach would all consider themselves activists, too.”
What issues are most important to their young readers? “Identity is big. We want to help make them feel better about themselves, whether that’s giving beauty tips, or empowering them with political information to have smarter conversations and feel they can stand up for themselves.”

That identity-politics activist mentality worked out about as well for Teen Vogue as it did for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

It was a perfect example of the “Get Woke, “Go Broke” syndrome, where companies wreck their brand by pandering to the social-justice mobs.

Of course, because advocates of “social justice” do not believe in personal responsibility, they will never admit error. Those who destroyed Teen Vogue for the sake of “activism” would have us imagine that it was their critics, and not themselves, who are to blame for this destruction. And when people who were insulted by Lauren Duca’s obnoxious “activist” journalism complained, she claimed to be a victim of “harassment.”

In 2016, the same year she became notorious as Teen Vogue‘s designated attack dog, Lauren Duca married Kristopher Fleming, but this was (rather predictably) an ill-fated union.

 

 

 

There was a time when such behavior would be considered scandalous, but among liberals today it is a cause for celebration, and so the newly divorced (and newly “queer”) Lauren Duca was still a member in good standing of the “progressive” community. Thus, she got a book deal from Simon & Schuster and was hired to teach at New York University:

Duca . . . spent this past summer teaching “The Feminist Journalist,” a six-week New York University journalism course for both high school and college students. After Duca agreed to our interview, she also acquiesced to letting me sit in on the final day of the class. She asked her students to come prepared with questions for her for what would be an AMA-style session in Washington Square Park. Her students sat in a circle around her in the wet grass. It was, I imagine, exactly what Tucker Carlson would envision a liberal journalism class might be: a bunch of kids from varied backgrounds, ethnicities, orientations, and gender identities, who could each afford a $6,500 class, wearing T-shirts that said “GenderQueer” or “Kill Patriarchy.”
In the park, Duca praised her students for their ideas and pitches: “You so totally learned what I was trying to teach you.” Nearly four weeks after the course ended, however, her students sent a collective formal complaint to the heads of the NYU journalism school about Duca’s conduct. “We are disappointed at the department and NYU for hiring a professor with more interest in promoting her book than teaching a group of students eager to learn,” they wrote. In the days after the course ended, several of the students also reached out to me to share more of their concerns. “Her ability to exploit the movement is really frustrating,” one former student said. . . .
Out of 10 students, five spoke to me on the record, under the condition of anonymity, specifically due to fear of reprisals from Duca or any of her professional connections. All of them had similar allegations against Duca and the class’s structure: that Duca didn’t follow her own syllabus, that she spoke often and inappropriately about her personal life, that she would belittle and yell at students, and, most pressingly, that she targeted one student in particular. All the students wrote a formal letter of complaint to NYU and signed it, “Sincerely, ‘The Feminist Journalist’ Class – Summer 2019.” When I reached out to Duca for her comment on the complaint, she started by saying, “I guess I’m not a teacher.”
The complaint, filed to NYU journalism school’s institute director, Ted Conover, and associate director, Meredith Broussard, on Sept. 11, details many of the same things the five students told me. “There was a consistent lack of professionalism that persisted throughout every aspect of the course,” the complaint reads. . . .
All five students alleged that Duca’s class was disorganized and “a master class in Lauren Duca’s personal life.” (“The point of it is that I’m oversharing all the time. And I think that, yeah, some people like it, some people don’t. Apparently you fucking hate it, but that’s fine,” Duca told me.) They said that she would vanish for 30 to 45 minutes per class to “meditate.” (“It was a three-hour class and we took a break and I would meditate for 15 minutes and they would be gone getting snacks and stuff,” Duca responded.) And that the class was a “waste of six weeks for all of us, and we don’t want anyone else to make this mistake again.” They claim Duca would snap at them for small problems, accuse them of not having done the readings, and never actually read any of the assignments they submitted to her.
Duca responded that she did read all the assignments, though she added: “It’s okay if I’m not a great teacher because I’m great at lots of other things.”
But most galling is that all the students — both in interviews and in the formal complaint to the college — claim that Duca went out of her way to target one student in particular: an exchange student who was visiting New York for school. “Her English wasn’t perfect but that’s hard,” one student told me. “She came from another country. She was very courageous for taking this class.”
The students claimed that Duca would unfairly admonish this particular individual in class. “We all clocked it two or three classes in,” said a classmate. They claimed that Duca said the student “won’t have a lot to say” during class presentations, that she refused to accept assignments from this student while accepting them from others, that she called her work “basic” and “vague,” and that during one class Duca made the student cry during a one-on-one meeting. To this Duca responded, “I said, ‘You need to do the work’; she cried. Like, come on. Is that targeting? What am I supposed to do? ‘You didn’t do the work; here’s a trophy’?”
“That day was the day that I decided that there’s no way we’re going to let this person teach students again. It was awful. It was absolutely awful,” one of the students told me. “She definitely picked favorites, and she picked people she blatantly didn’t like,” said another. (In the complaint the students wrote to NYU, it says that Duca “consistently targeted this student on the basis of a communication difficulty the student cannot change.”)

You can read the whole thing. The main point seems to be, Lauren Duca is a narcissistic egomaniac who considers “feminism” to be whatever serves her personal interest. Of course, this is true of feminists in general, but perhaps Ms. Duca is just too blatant about her selfishness.

So Lauren Duca is now #cancelled, as the kids say, although her cancellation is probably not going to be permanent. Simon & Schuster invested big money in her book, and is therefore invested in maintaining Ms. Duca’s “brand” value. By the way, have we forgotten this?

 

Notice that Ms. Duca doesn’t make any actual argument here. She just assumes that everyone agrees with her, and thus no argument is necessary to refute the quotes from Billy Graham. Her attitude is astonishingly common among young progressives, as the current culture is so dominated by enthusiastic advocates of homosexuality that they are shocked to encounter anyone who doesn’t share their enthusiasm.



 

Category: Sex Trouble
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