… the compleat criminal, Philip Esformes, whose pardon by fellow fraudster D. Trump lacked full coverage (given that Esformes had around five thousand charges against him). SOOO the feds just picked and chose among the leftover charges and went after Esformes again WHICH has pissed this ultra-pious ultraorthodox person off no end and he’s been appealing up the wazoo.

But every court – now including the Supremes – has ignored him or laughed him out of the building … Cuz you know when you’re committing the largest health care fraud in American history and you get caught doing it, judges prob aren’t going to bend over backward for you.

… against Harvard’s already-embattled president.

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UPDATE: She will stay in her job.

Poland’s new PM represents an inspiring victory for democracy against the tyranny of the now-deposed Law and Justice party, whose bitter senile leader rushed the podium at the conclusion of the vote in favor of Tusk. “YOU ARE A GERMAN AGENT!” he shouted at the PM.

Narges Mohammadi’s Nobel Peace Prize address.

You don’t gotta be on the right, babe.

“The same administrators now cloaking themselves in the mantle of free speech have been all too willing to censor all kinds of unpopular stuff on their campuses,” said [one observer]. “It is such utter hypocrisy.”

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UD‘s favorite example.

Christmas in Oklahoma.

… has resigned.

NYT.

From the U Penn newspaper:

The announcement also comes two months after Wharton Board of Advisors Chair Marc Rowan called for Magill and Board of Trustees Chair Scott Bok’s resignation — alleging that the two leaders tolerated “antisemitism” on campus. In addition, Bok allegedly pressured Rowan and at least three trustees to step down after they publicly criticized the University’s response to the Palestine Writes festival. 

So there has been major internecine battle, and one side has definitely won. (Bok has also resigned.)

What’s his dick got that mine ain’t got?

U Penn’s president is probably about to announce her resignation, and Harvard’s doesn’t look too secure either, after what everyone’s calling their “disastrous” congressional testimony. What’d they do wrong?

Same thing that sank Dukakis: Lack of emotion when emotion is clearly called for. A reporter asked Dukakis, a death penalty opponent, about whether he thought his wife being raped and murdered would affect his thinking on the penalty.

“No, I don’t, and I think you know that I’ve opposed the death penalty during all of my life.” Perhaps there is validity in the criticism many directed toward [the questioner,] accusing him of injecting an unfair scenario into a policy discussion. Regardless, all I know is that when I heard Dukasis’ words, my brain red flagged, and my heart sank. For the candidate, in his response, came across as robotic, uncaring, and devoid of emotion. That night Dukakis’ poll numbers dropped from 49% to 42%.

On that fateful evening the candidate spoke only with his brain, and he completely disregarded his heart. This catastrophe would have been avoided had he said something like: “Barnard, I would want to murder, to torture, to rip from limb to limb anyone who even dared to hurt my wife or child. But, you see, with all of my heart, I want laws to protect me from the worst of me.”

The presidents need not have said something so vehement; but they needed to communicate their fundamental humanity, their capacity as sensitive human beings to be appalled by the cruelty of (in this instance) anti-semitism, and for whatever reason they didn’t go there. They waxed bureaucratic. Terrible mistake.

— Karl-Heinz Stockhausen.

[In a recent coaching session with the team, Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott] cited the [9/11] hijackers as a group of people who were all able to get on the same page to orchestrate attacks to perfection. One by one, McDermott started asking specific players in the room questions: …“What tactics do you think they used to come together? … What do you think their biggest obstacle was?” 

While Las Vegas is no stranger to gun shows, staging one in the same city as a highly visible shooting that occurred just days earlier is heartless and prioritizes the opportunity to profit from the sale of deadly weapons above the basic decency and respect of honoring those lost and those who continue to recover from the tragedy. 

Every day, 120 Americans die at the end of a gun, including suicides and homicides, an average of 43,375 per year. According to the latest available analysis of data from 2015 to 2019, the US gun homicide rate was 26 times that of other high-income countries; its gun suicide rate was nearly 12 times higher. Mass shootings, defined as attacks in which at least four people are injured or killed excluding the shooter, have been on the rise since 2015, peaking at 686 incidents in 2021. There have been 632 mass shootings in the US in 2023 as of early December, including the Las Vegas shooting, and at the current pace, the US is set to eclipse the 2021 record this year.

Yesterday’s crazy person with a PhD targeted students. But same deal: Both professors were pissed off with the school, and, this being the United States, both had zero trouble getting guns. And so it goes.

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Actually, no. Our most recent maniac with a gun also targeted professors.

“Mrs. Ziegler has not made Florida a better place. She is the face of the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ revolution … and has caused untold harm in our classrooms and in our communities. [Bridget Ziegler’s] role in demonizing members of the LGBTQ community is hurting the state, while she has apparently been a part of the letter B in that group. Bridget, you need to do what is best for the greater good. We live in a free Florida, not an autocratic pseudo-Christian dictatorship.”

Just down the street from the Harvest music festival massacre.