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The National Science Foundation has released its sixth installment of records about government use of indigenous knowledge from Native Americans, in response to the Freedom of Information Act request of Liberty Unyielding and the Bader Family Foundation. It’s available at this link. It reveals that federal policies are shaped by people whose identity is kept […]

The post National Science Foundation conceals identity of people shaping government policy appeared first on Liberty Unyielding.

YOU DON’T GET RICH BY GOING COMMIE: The China (Degrowth) Syndrome: The Beijing communists can’t command growth from either their economy or population.

Communism can enrich the top leaders, and a few collaborators in other countries, but it impoverishes everyone else.

Why represent the people when you can insider trade instead??

Reporting on the news that Harvard's President Gay is resigning over her numerous plagiarism issues, this CNN anchor, Matt Egan, tried to paint a rosy picture of Claudine Gay and it was totally awkward.

BRYAN CAPLAN: Resolve to be a Nonconformist. “Stop worrying about what’s popular. Stop worrying about what strangers think. Live your life the way you think best.”

Let me add that — as we saw during the Covid madness — nonconformists help protect freedom by raising the cost of enforcing conformity. And they provide that particular benefit, even when they’re wrong about the particular issue. Though things being as they are, they’re often right.

WORD IS GETTING AROUND!:  “Making Discrimination OK Again:  The Losers in a 2020 California Referendum Are Back Again with a Sneakier Version” by the WSJ’s Bill McGurn.

If you haven’t signed the petition, please consider doing so.  You don’t need to be a Californian.

And if you have a X/Twitter account, this one in tagged to Senate leaders and Gavin Newsom.  By liking and/or retweeting, you’re giving them your opinion.

They can’t vote, but they can dream. And you can bet their parents can and will vote.

Don’t divide us.#NoACA7photoparade #KeepDiscriminationIllegal #NoACA7 pic.twitter.com/KUyn3vAp2N

— Gail Heriot (@GailHeriot) December 27, 2023

Cheers!

ELISE STEFANIK AS BOND SUPERVILLAIN:

Flashback:

No, Dr. Gay.

You were given an opportunity to speak your truth. And you did.

Not once.
Not twice
Not 5x.
Not 10x

I asked you 17x(!!!) in the hearing about whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates @Harvard code of conduct.

You spoke your truth under oath 17x. And…

— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) December 8, 2023

And then — I know this will be shocking to a New York Times staffer — journalism began to occur:

The President of Harvard has resigned after being exposed as a serial plagiarist and unethical charlatan by @realChrisBrunet, @realchrisrufo, and @aaronsibarium among others.

Job well done!

— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.today (@JordanSchachtel) January 2, 2024

Exit quote:

Republicans claim victory for Harvard president's resignation https://t.co/uGLveRKhwf

— POLITICO (@politico) January 2, 2024

Their source was the New York Times, to coin a phrase.

UPDATE:

New York Times thinks asking university leaders to condemn calls for genocide against Jews is a "prosecutorial trap" pic.twitter.com/gXeUSsZMRT

— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) January 2, 2024

Mitchell and Webb should update their “Are we the baddies?” sketch, with the other Nazi replying, “Well Fritz, to be honest, it depends on the context.”

(Updated and bumped.)

MICROBIOME NEWS: Microbes May Be The Secret Behind Keto Diet’s Protection Against Epileptic Seizures.

TAR. FEATHERS. Ex-CIA analyst says intel agencies to be politically active again in 2024 election: ‘Significant problem.’

I think we’re well past the point at which the Intelligence Community has become a net negative.

JUST AS THEY ARE ABOUT WHO ORDERED THE RESEARCH:  More Evidence Emerges Confirming Covid Lab-Leak Theory, But Corporate Media Stay Silent.

REMINDER:

Since "Capitalism" is trending on X this New Year's Eve, it's a perfect time to remind everyone that it is the single best system for reducing poverty and improving the overall human condition that has ever been discovered. pic.twitter.com/J767QxBlZg

— Ezra Wyrick 🗽 (@Ezra4Liberty) December 31, 2023

GOOD NEWS FOR OTTERS: Thriving Otters in North America Linked to Nuclear Weapons Tests. Here’s Why.

My big update is that more and more I’ve been encountering readers in real life as my family and friends discover this newsletter, which is alarming. How did they find this? How much have they seen? This is my private time. Anyway, Happy New Year! This is a shorter one, since there’s not a ton of news, which is good.

→ Biden really doesn’t want to get into a war with Iran: And Iran is testing out how serious that commitment is by lobbing a pitter-patter of attacks on American forces around the world. On Christmas Day, an Iran-backed militia attacked an American air base in Erbil, Iraq. In response, America did small, “necessary and proportionate strikes” on that militia’s facilities in Iraq. The Biden administration is trying to keep this low-key. Remember, Iran is our friend in the Obama-Biden doctrine, which is why we need to unfreeze their assets and probably let them build just a few nukes. That’s the new red line. 

An article from November counts at least 151 attacks on Americans in Iraq and Syria by Iran-backed proxies this year alone. Now Iran is threatening to shut down shipping through the Mediterranean Sea unless America adheres to their demands. This would be a major disruption to global commerce, which no doubt will be met by necessary and proportionate strongly worded letters from the White House. 

→ What Chinese spy balloon? Remember the Chinese spy balloon floating across America? Remember how quickly it fell out of coverage? It was a little weird, sure. Great meme material, but not much else. 

Well, thanks to a new NBC News investigation, we now know that the Biden administration actually tried to keep the balloon secret—from the American public of course (I respect that), but also from Congress. From NBC: “Administration officials at first hoped to conceal the balloon’s existence from the public, and from Congress, according to multiple former and current administration and congressional officials.” The spy balloon was apparently designed to blow up after it finished reconnaissance, so America was even doing China a favor by shooting it down rather than capturing it. I get wanting to avoid unnecessary wars, but I’m not sure if allowing ourselves to be bullied this much by Iran and China is the way. All I can say is if my War Queen Hillary was in office, which I genuinely pine for daily, things wouldn’t be like this (i.e., I’d be drafted to go neutralize the spy balloon and immediately get killed). 

→ Trumpo kicked off another ballot: Maine election officials have banned former president Donald J. Trump from appearing on the Republican primary ballot, joining Colorado in protecting voters from democracy. Both states cite the Fourteenth Amendment, which bans someone who’s engaged in an insurrection from running for office. I guess the debate is just over the definition of insurrection. January 6 was a lot of things. It was terrible and strange. It was a riot. But the idea that it was a formal attempt to gain control of the U.S. government is crazy to me. Anyway, now we wait for the Supreme Court to weigh in. When Trump was president, there was a lot of panicked talk about “unprecedented” things and “norms” being violated. I gotta say, banning the leading opposition candidate from the ballot is pretty norm-breaking and unprecedented. . . 

→ Families stuck at the airport will embrace peace: How can you possibly celebrate Christmas this year when there is a war between Israel and Hamas? Also, maybe if I prevent you from flying home, you’ll like my cause more? Those are the questions asked by the pro-Palestine protesters who blocked Christmas travel at LAX, JFK, and Chicago’s ORD for a few hours this year. They gathered en masse in these cities, marched into the road, and stopped cars on the way to Departures, holding up signs calling for “Peace in Gaza” and “Ceasefire Now” (apropos of nothing, Hamas again rejected a cease-fire deal from Israel this week, since it didn’t include the actual demand here: Israelis self-deporting from the Middle East). Anyway, eventually police pulled the protesters off the roads. But not before a bunch of people dragging their luggage, saddled with tote bags and car seats, had to abandon their Ubers, swat away the banners, and hop the median to try and make it to their flights. Taken at its most generous, these folks want to call attention to the extraordinarily sad situation in Gaza and the toll this war is taking on civilians there. I’m just really not sure how this action gets closer to that. As a woman who just flew with a toddler—really, I’m no hero, I’m just like you, only braver—every second of air travel I am in a heightened, anxious, and yes, warlike state. If you made me miss my flight, you’d need to really #prayforpeace. My clogs are solid wood and I know what to do with them. 

Read more

IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA: Sam Bankman-Fried spared from second trial.

U.S. prosecutors dropped plans for a second trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange.

In a letter filed in a Manhattan federal court Friday, prosecutors said “strong public interest” in a prompt resolution of their case against Bankman-Fried outweighed the benefits of a second trial.

Bankman-Fried was accused of looting $8 billion from FTX customers out of sheer greed.

Last month, he was convicted of fraud and conspiracy.

And would have faced a second set of six charges including campaign finance violations, conspiracy to commit bribery, and others.

Those six charges were severed from his first trial.

Flashback: FTX Founder Spent $40 Million As Democrat Midterm Megadonor.

Leading up to Sam Bankman-Fried’s spectacular implosion – in which his firm FTX evaporated billions in wealth after the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange allegedly commingled client assets with his trading firm into a liquidity crunch – he became the sixth-largest donor in this year’s midterm election cycle, giving some $40 million to mostly Democratic candidates and causes.

According to Forbes, Bankman-Fried was second only to George Soros among billionaire donors to Democratic groups during the 2022 midterm election cycle.

FTX allegedly loaned Alameda Research – a trading firm founded by Bankman-Fried – roughly $10 billion in client assets, which has landed him under federal investigation by the SEC, CTFC, and the Justice Department – the latter of which already had been working on a months-long investigation, according to the Wall Street Journal. The CTFC, meanwhile, is tasked with regulating certain elements of the crypto markets – including digital assets that are as commodities, and crypto exchanges and clearinghouses.

In late September, Bankman-Fried admitted that his political donations were mostly to Democrats, and Republican recipients were ‘targeted’.

Sealed with a kiss, you might say:

Francis Collins, NIH Director in 2020 when Covid came onto the scene, spent a lot of time convincing church leaders that shutting down everything was Christ-like and those who disagreed were basically evil.

YOU KNOW WHEN ISRAEL SHOULD TALK CEASE FIRE? AFTER HAM-ASS UTTERLY SURRENDERS AND CRUCIFIES THEIR EVIL LEADERS THEMSELVES:  “The Times viewed photographs of one woman’s corpse … with dozens of nails driven into her thighs and groin”.

I NEED MORE HELP TO STOP THE CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE’S POWER GRAB:  Last week, I asked Instapundit readers for “X/Twitter” help in opposing the California legislature’s new effort to gut Prop 209.  And you came through!  Thank you to all who helped!  You are terrific!

I have another request.  Mercifully, it still won’t cost you a nickel.  (If this turkey of a bill makes it to the ballot, I will start asking for money then, but we stand a decent chance of stopping it in the California Senate on a shoestring budget.)

Our “NO on ACA7” PETITION needs at least 25,000 signatures to get noticed.  And we’re probably going to need a lot more.  Fortunately, we have a while. Today is our first earnest day of collecting them.  You don’t need to be a Californian to sign.  (But if you are a Californian, please be sure to include your zip code.  In the past, some legislators have asked us for the number of signers from their district’s zip codes.)

If you can also share the petition with your friends or via social media that would be terrific.

For those of you you haven’t been following this, Prop 209 amended the state constitution in 1996 with these words:  “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin ….”  California’s deep-blue legislature has been gunning for it since.  They tried to get the voters to repeal it three years ago with Prop 16.  But Californians stunned them by overwhelmingly voting to keep it.  It was a real David and Goliath moment; we won despite being outspent more than 14 to 1.

It’s surprising to me that they are trying again so soon after that defeat.  But I guess I should have seen it coming.  The report of the California Task Force on Reparations, which was released earlier this year, called for Prop 209 to be gutted.  It stands in the way of their proposals.  Right on schedule, the Assembly voted for ACA7.

The new effort is trickier.  Instead of attempting an outright repeal, it creates a procedure under the governor can make “exceptions.”  All Gov. Newsom (and future governors) will need is to be able to point to (or create) “research” showing that preferential treatment would be a good thing.  But in a world in which “scholarly” research tells us that men are women and women are men, that limitation is not worth a red cent. (Bumped.)

THE REAL MINIMUM WAGE IS ALWAYS ZERO:  California Pizza Hut Franchises Lay Off Over 1,200 Delivery Drivers Due to State Raising the Minimum Wage.

And also, to quote a friend’s favorite saying, most politics is a cope session to claim that economics doesn’t apply this time.

OH CANADA! OH CASTREAU!  Trudeau government gives medal to trans activist who got Vancouver rape shelter defunded for refusing to house biological men.

HARVARD IS FOR PARIAHS NOW:  Austrian business school cuts ties with Harvard in solidarity with Jewish students.

MAKE THEM PAY: College pays fired conservative professor $185,000 to avoid free speech lawsuit.

There should really be at least one more zero on this amount, though.

FOLLOW THE SCIENCE: Beef can stimulate muscle protein synthesis more effectively than plant-based proteins, says study.

COOL:

Flight 3 Starship completed a full-duration static fire with all six of its Raptor engines pic.twitter.com/Mxn8faKcEv

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 20, 2023

BLUE STATE BLUES: California faces a record $68 billion deficit — here’s what is eating away at the Golden State’s coffers.

California has also lost residents and businesses — and therefore, tax revenue — in recent years.

The Golden State’s population declined for the first time in 2021, as it lost around 281,000 residents, according to the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). In 2022, the population dropped again by around 211,000 residents — with many moving to other states like Texas, Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona.

“Housing costs loom large in this dynamic,” according to the PPIC, which found through a survey that 34% of Californians are considering moving out of the state due to housing costs.

Other factors such as the post-pandemic remote work trend — which has resulted in empty office towers in California’s downtown cores — have also played a role in migration out of the state.

There’s also this: “Total income tax collections were down 25% in 2022-23, according to the LAO — a decline compared to those seen during the Great Recession and dot-com bust.”

Losing 200,000 or so residents wouldn’t hit income tax revenues that hard — so either a lot of Sacramento’s taxpaying whales left the state, the state’s economy is in much worse shape than it appears, or some combination of the two.

Whatever the case, Californians will continue to get it good and hard.

REMINDER THAT OUR RULING CLASS SEES CHINA AS A ROLE MODEL: Jimmy Lai ‘Sedition’ charge upheld after three days of “deliberation.”

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Bloomberg: No One Wants Used EVs, Making New Ones a Tougher Sell Too.

YES: It’s time for universities to share the burden of student loan defaults. “By inducing their students to borrow from the government, higher education institutions collect vastly inflated tuition and fees, which they then spend without worrying about whether the loans will ever be repaid. This in turn incentivizes them to push the tuition and fees, and room and board, ever higher — by an average of 169 percent since 1980, according to a Georgetown University study. In short, in the current system the colleges get and spend billions in borrowed money and put all the loan risk on somebody else — including those student borrowers who responsibly pay off their own debt and those who never borrowed in the first place, not to mention taxpayers, whether they attended a college or not.”

I’ve been saying that for years.

I’D RATHER THEY GRADUATE PEOPLE WHO UNDERSTAND PHARMACOKINETICS: Southern Illinois U. med school hires first poetry professor; dean is her father: Carr describes herself as ‘ecofeminist,’ writes abortion poetry. “There are 5,800 institutions of higher learning across America. What are the odds that Carr landed at the only institution that employs her father as dean and provost?”

Follow the science!