June 27th, 2022
‘The NPR/PBS NewsHour Marist poll, published on Monday, found that 78 percent of Democrats said they are more likely to vote in this year’s midterms in response to the ruling, which opened the door to state bans on abortion.’ 

When asked the same question, 54 percent of Republican respondents said they are more likely to vote in November.

Getting there.

June 26th, 2022
Know Hope.

Source.

June 26th, 2022
This is …

how we do it.

Trump’s coterie of dishonest legal advisers — John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, Sydney Powell, Jenna Ellis and [Jeffrey] Clark — weren’t careful. In their attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, they said things that were demonstrably false and were personally involved in lies told to government officials. If prosecutors can prove that one or more of them created the false certificates, and knew that doing so was illegal, they may have criminal liability. If they knew about the false statements and advanced the scheme to transmit them to the U.S. Senate, that may also be enough. Clark is facing the same criminal liability for writing false statements in a matter within the jurisdiction of the executive branch…

As attorneys, it will be hard for Eastman, Giuliani and Ellis to claim that they had no idea that they were acting outside the four corners of state law by convening “alternative” electors and submitting them to the Senate even though the state had already submitted official electors. It will also be hard for Clark to argue that he had no idea that what he was doing was illegal, given that his superiors forcefully told him so.

… Any prosecution of Trump would not be easy. But the committee has made DOJ’s job easier by developing evidence of a straightforward, readily provable crime and revealing how careless dishonest lawyers like Giuliani, Eastman and Clark were, making them ripe targets.

June 25th, 2022
No Roe Zones..

… established by UD‘s Montgomery County.

June 25th, 2022
Impeach Clarence Thomas.

“… Congress can impeach and there has to be a basis to do so… Justice Thomas, who is now saying that marriage equality, that birth control, that all these rights suddenly are at risk, should be impeached for his involvement in election-related cases. He has breached the public’s trust. His wife literally was involved in the attempted violent overthrow of the U.S. government.”

— Jena Griswold, Colorado Secretary of State

Sign here.

Discussion. This article was written a week ago and noted that there were 236,000 signatures. There are now 248,205.

… Five minutes later: 248, 337.

… Five minutes later: 248, 437.

***************************

Later, that same day: 251,075.

June 21st, 2022
Rescind John Eastman’s University of Chicago Degree.

This blog has long argued the importance of rescinding honorary degrees from, er, some of their recipients. Examples:

Bernard Madoff

Theodore McCarrick

Bill Cosby

Lance Armstrong

Sepp Blatter

Donald Trump

Sheldon Silver

James Levine

Almost all of these sex and/or money scumsters eventually lost the honor aura conferred upon them by America’s debauched universities (debauched because, in almost every case, a touch of due diligence would have uncovered enough rumors to stay their hand, but these schools apparently didn’t care).

But what about, say, a law degree? An actual degree you work for and pay for? Is there behavior dishonorable enough to justify rescinding a BA or a JD?

What about an MD? UD has argued that Jumana Nagarwala, who put her Hopkins MD to use allegedly slicing off the genitals of little girls all over the midwest, should have that degree rescinded under… call it the Mengele Rule. It’s pretty easy to argue that people who got BAs under false pretenses (as in the Varsity Blues case, where rejects took the place of qualified applicants because their parents faked their applications and paid various well-connected criminals enormous sums of money to help them) should have their degrees revoked. The principle here is that a legitimate university has a reputation to defend, and when it harbors filthy crooks it should formally, publicly, expel them.

And a lawyer? A student who attends your school in order to learn the laws of our land in order to use those same laws to destroy it? This is much like the 9/11 pilots who attended flight school here solely in order to crash their planes into buildings. It would seem to be rather at odds with the purpose of a legal education, a serious education in the rule of law in our democracy. If I were Chicago I’d be pretty fucking embarrassed to be the school that taught John Eastman the law solely in order for him to twist it to destroy the country. I mean, is my face red!

It’s not too early for UD‘s beloved U of C to start considering a process by which they can cleanly disassociate themselves from this piece of shit.

June 21st, 2022
Know …

hope.

June 18th, 2022
An Important Lesson for Joseph Epstein.

Epstein’s famous for a WSJ column pouring contempt on Jill Biden, a Ph.D. holder, for using the title “Dr.” He directly entreated her, an Ed degree grad from a state school, to cut out the pathetic vainglory. He directly entreated his readers also to drop her doodoo, stupo, pseudo, honorific, and admit her degree’s embarrassing worthlessness.

The column went over like a lead balloon. A really big, international, lead balloon. The WSJ was forced to issue – not a retraction, no sir. An editor there felt compelled, given all the hoohah, to double defensively down, endorsing Epstein’s titular rigor. (Here are all my Epstein/Biden posts.)

But Joe. Have you watched any of the January 6 hearings? Have you noticed how scrupulous the committee is in referring to John Eastman as Dr. Eastman? He is, like Jill, a Ph.D. holder. He is, unlike Jill, a traitor. But in this generous country, we not only refer to graduates of the University of Delaware grad school, like Jill Biden, as Dr. We even extend the courtesy to traitors. Here in the US, if you have a doctorate, even if you have conspired to destroy the country, we will respect your title. Think about that, Joe.

June 12th, 2022
Amid the Jan 6 hearings, don’t lose sight of Dominion Voting’s ongoing lawsuits against…

… the insane clown posse. Update here.

June 10th, 2022
Yes, shocking. But also, for me at least, a source of shame.

[O]fficial organs of the Republican Party [see] their job as covering for Trump, even as evidence [has] emerged that he literally suggested that a Republican vice president should be lynched. The lessons of the interwar period, and indeed the long history of mainstream conservative parties’ dalliances with radicals, seem entirely lost on the Republican leadership.

And this, in the end, is why using fascism as a framework for understanding January 6 is worthwhile. This explicit alliance of political violence to an effort to seize power through force is shocking — so shocking that it deserves comparisons to what’s universally seen as the darkest moment in the history of Western democracy.

******************

The more details emerge, the more ashamed I am as an American. At some point, faced with our nation having made DT president, evasion, irony, and humor all fail, and what one feels – what I feel – is shame.

******************

The sheer scale of Donald Trump’s’ depravity is unmatched in the history of the American presidency, and the Republican party made it possible.

June 10th, 2022
Know Your Enemy

Pence’s attempt to salvage the Republican Party won’t succeed. It will fail not because of any intrinsic problem with the party itself—political parties are merely vessels for the will of the people—but because the problem with the Republican Party is Republican voters. They’re the ones who wanted Trump. They’re the ones who approve of January 6. They’re the ones who insist that Trump actually won in 2020. They’re the ones who are clamoring to nominate him again in 2024.

Republican voters view all of the terrible outcomes from the first Trump administration—the political violence, the white nationalism, the fiscal irresponsibility, the COVID death tolls—not as bugs but as features.This is what they want.

May 11th, 2022
‘Fukuyama argues that liberalism is threatened not by a rival ideology, but by “absolutized” versions of its own principles. On the right, the promoters of neoliberal economics have turned the ideal of individual autonomy and the free market into a religion, warping the economy and leading to dangerous systemic instability. And on the left, he argues, progressives have abandoned individual autonomy and free speech in favor of claims of group rights that threaten national cohesion.’

Oh. And here’s where UD gets all excited:

He’s more scathing about the “postliberal” intellectuals of the American right, with their admiration for Hungary’s Viktor Orban, like the legal scholar Adrian Vermeule (whom he describes as having “flirted with the idea of overtly authoritarian government”) and the political scientist Patrick Deneen.

The more high-profile outing of our enemies, the better. Bravo, and keep bashing.

May 5th, 2022
Sam Alito Song

Sam, Sam

The No-Roe man

Writes his big opinion

Now he’s on the lam.

Fences up at SCOTUS

Catch us if you can!

Clerks are put on notice

Sam the No-Roe man

May 3rd, 2022
Time to invest in abortifacient stocks. Also time to stock up on your favorite form of birth control.

My representative, Jamie Raskin:

The leaked Alito draft opinion “would apply also to the right to privacy in contraception… [It’s] an invitation to a Handmaid’s Tale-type legislation all over the country… [It] makes us in the image of Hungarian illiberal democracy… [It will] carve out and destroy the rights and freedoms of the people.”

April 26th, 2022
Orban Decay

Mr. Orban found support from Mr. Trump, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, and from the Italian populist leader and former Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini. But they are all gone, as Mr. Jansa is expected to be…

For UD’s completely bored take on Hungary, go here.

Oh, and note to Vermeule and the brethren: Reserve your Budapest Baptismal Blowout today! While you still can.

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UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub

You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal

Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway

From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association

The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog

I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes

As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls

Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical

University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life

[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada

If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte

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