This is republished with permission from the author. The original can be read at Racket News, &#8220;On Escaping This Horrible Era,&#8221; <a href="https://www.racket.news/p/on-escaping-this-horrible-era">here</a>.
***
&#8220;Racket&#8221; readers may have noticed it’s quiet in here. There are three reasons, two temporary. I’ve been working on a book for two years and am in a home stretch. The second involves a breaking-type story that is a document-heavy slog, but coming.
The third is more complicated. Call it an existential pileup. When I entered journalism I filed as unimportant the fact that many of my heroes left warnings to avoid the profession. The most famous are known, like Hunter Thompson calling his profession a place where “thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs,” or Oscar Wilde saying, “journalism is unreadable, and literature is not read.” Balzac said journalism was a “bottomless pit of iniquity and treachery and lies,” while Flaubert, whose “Dictionary of Received Ideas” was one of a handful of books I lugged around the world throughout my twenties, wrote in a letter to George Sand that the press is a “school of demoralization” that “dispenses with thinking.” H.L. Mencken, whom I idolized, said the newspaper was a “public organ for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.”
&nbsp;
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1177023" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/0801896e-9b68-4ffb-a678-277c2c39e051_1114x342.jpg" alt="" width="1114" height="342" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/0801896e-9b68-4ffb-a678-277c2c39e051_1114x342.jpg 1114w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/0801896e-9b68-4ffb-a678-277c2c39e051_1114x342-300x92.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/0801896e-9b68-4ffb-a678-277c2c39e051_1114x342-1024x314.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/0801896e-9b68-4ffb-a678-277c2c39e051_1114x342-768x236.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1114px) 100vw, 1114px" /></div>
I laughed all this off once, and ignored a professor (one who’d been good to me and deserved my attention) who implored me to listen. Journalism is an easy target. Many of its harshest critics were cheerful practitioners, and even the most savage satires, like Evelyn Waugh’s “Scoop,” were lovingly rendered. The best American writers revered the job, Mencken being the most obvious example. He talked of living the “life of kings,” even as he denounced newspapers as factories for mass-producing the opinions of Babbitts, jobholders, and other assorted Boobi Americani. When Thompson teed off on journalism, it was usually in the same breath as an admission there was no other life that allowed a person, in a snap, to go from being broke to abusing drugs in the Nevada desert on a stranger’s tab.
Now, I wonder.
A writer’s most unforgivable sin is being boring, which makes saying anything in this time period tough. Whether you’re reporting or commenting, the game is up once audiences are able to classify according to current political taxonomy. You can publish 50 words or 5,000, but what you’re producing for most audiences is a compass heading, showing where you reside on a map in relation to Donald Trump. Maybe you wanted to say something else, but the compass reading is the only thing most people care about, so that’s how the thing will be compressed, summarized, and circulated.
It’s fine if you find talking about Donald Trump interesting, or if it’s important to you that neighbors and family receive an unambiguous signal about where you’d like to place yourself on the TrumpScape. You can put out a strong “against” signal in legacy media — that’s allowed — while almost any other strong statement is interpreted in the other direction.
For instance, we’ll soon come up on the 10-year anniversary of Peter Beinart’s 2017 “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/the-anti-anti-trump-right/516474/">The Anti-anti Trump Right</a>” column in The Atlantic, which defined most anything that isn’t explicit opposition to Trump as “evading the reality” and “opposing the people who oppose Trump.” Under that logic, just about anything could be dismissed as throat-clearing on the way to a refusal to Say The Required Things about Trump. This half-clever formulation arrived in sync with a large chunk of American academia electing to purge the social sciences of “objective” pursuit of knowledge, or what one Literature professor derided as the act of “<a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/comparative-literature/article-abstract/75/3/237/381959/Decolonizing-US-Comparative-Literature-The-2022?redirectedFrom=fulltext">intentionally [dissociating] their work from the political and ideological exigencies of the time</a>.”
If the challenge is to allow people to have identities independent of this scheme, then the task becomes creating work that resists taxonomy. If neither Norm Eisen nor Stephen Miller can classify a thing, and people still enjoy reading it, you’re on to something. The original thinking behind discussions about old books with Walter Kirn was to remind myself (and, hopefully, others) that we once read all sorts of things that were smart, funny, and provocative that had little to do with politics. Some things are timeless, which is why we loved them. In his recent essay, “<a href="https://www.vanderbilt.edu/principles/state-of-scholarship-report/literary-studies/gary-saul-morson/">Advocacy in Literary Studies</a>,” Northwestern Professor Gary Saul Morson wrote:
<blockquote>
As William Hazlitt pointed out in his essay “Why the Arts Are Not Progressive?” literature, unlike the hard sciences, does not progress. Aristotle’s Poetics is still relevant in a way that his physics is not. Any first-year physics student knows more physics than Aristotle, but no dramatist has surpassed Shakespeare. Novelists of the present have not created works as significant as War and Peace and Anna Karenina.
</blockquote>
The good professor’s essay was part of a “<a href="https://www.vanderbilt.edu/principles/state-of-scholarship-report/">State of Scholarship</a>” report formulated and promoted by the chancellors of Vanderbilt University and Washington University of St. Louis. Naturally, that report has already been denounced as a “<a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty/research/2026/06/10/professors-say-vanderbilt-report-misrepresents-their-work">diabolical</a>” attack on academics who are “critical of configurations of power in the Trump years.” Call it anti-anti-Trump academia; even the simple observation that “Anna Karenina” will probably always be a great book offends someone’s current politics.
This is not to say that journalism is dead or that there isn’t a point to doing interviews and leaving a record of what this weird and unhappy time was about. However, I’m beginning to appreciate those old warnings.
You know you’re operating in a dysfunctional landscape when the most influential stories of a period are set in the distant past (“Julius Caesar,” “The Crucible”) or in a fantastical other-world (“Gulliver’s Travels,” “Minority Report”). Take “The Master and Margarita.” Mikhail Bulgakov knew by the mid-1930s he’d never see his characters in print, not in Stalin’s world. He wrote partly for a hypothetical future, and partly for his sanity. In a severe totalitarian landscape, he created a story about mortality, art, love, bravery, and other timeless questions, laughing all the way. People reading that book 50 years from now won’t have a clue he wrote it in the middle of the purges, which seems like the ultimate triumph over those purges.
Of course, that’s different. I bring it up only to ask for patience as I try to find new ways to do more prosaic traditional reporting or research on this site without being dull. I have ideas, including a project where I’m looking for academic escapees who might be interested in helping dig for a thing or two. Until then, please hang in, and don’t be shy about offering suggestions. If you want me to visit an event, I’m now more able to do that. I just don’t want to play the binary game. The whole country can’t be the same desert. Can’t we find new worlds to explore?
***
Matt Taibbi is a journalist, New York Times bestselling author, and creator of <a href="https://www.racket.news/">Racket News</a> on Substack.

Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital

Anti-Anti-Trump Politics Swallowed The World

academia

donald trump

journalism

media

opinion

peter beinart

Family members are blaming &#8220;misinformation&#8221; and a &#8220;campaign of harassment&#8221; for the death ex-Cambridge professor Jason Arday.
&#8220;Jason was subjected to a campaign of sustained abuse for more than three years since he accepted the role of professor at Cambridge University by those who would leave no stone unturned in their quest to undermine him,&#8221; <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/08/14/world-news/family-of-dead-ex-cambridge-professor-jason-arday-says-he-was-victim-of-misinformation-campaign-despite-plagiarism-allegations/">Arday&#8217;s family</a> said in a statement first published by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/aug/14/jason-arday-found-dead-after-resigning-from-cambridge-over-plagiarism-claims">The Guardian</a>.
&#8220;The campaign of misinformation was too much for Jason, who was a gentle man and who always wanted to see the best in everyone. We are in shock to have lost this amazing father, partner, brother, uncle and son,&#8221; they wrote, adding, &#8220;We won’t comment further at this point beyond asking the press to leave us alone now, and to stop the campaign of harassment which has been waged against Jason and his family for too long.&#8221;
Arday, 41, was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/professor-recently-outed-for-fraudulent-biography-found-dead">found unresponsive</a> in his South London home on Friday — just over a week after he left his position at the prestigious university. Prior to leaving his post, he&#8217;d been accused of plagiarism and of embellishing his life story ahead of the release of his memoir, &#8220;Great and Unfortunate Things.&#8221;
Cambridge initially backed Arday, the youngest black professor to ever teach there, saying in a statement that Arday was &#8220;the victim of a vile campaign to undermine his credibility.&#8221;
In the days that followed, however, Arday filed a &#8220;harassment&#8221; claim against a journalist who was investigating his work — and Cambridge University launched an investigation as well.
&#8220;The University of Cambridge has begun an investigation following new information about Professor Arday’s academic qualifications and honorary appointments. In order to ensure a fair process, we will not comment further until this has concluded,&#8221; the university&#8217;s statement read.
Arday&#8217;s death, according to local authorities, is being treated as &#8220;unexpected&#8221; but not &#8220;suspicious.&#8221;

Cambridge sign

Family Of Ex-Cambridge Professor Blames ‘Campaign Of Misinformation’ For His Death

Family Of Ex-Cambridge Professor Blames 'Campaign Of Misinformation' For His Death

death

jason arday

plagiarism

university of cambridge

world

A troubling trend is emerging as medical schools place higher value on producing politicized research over academic excellence, a watchdog report found. 
Do No Harm, an organization focused on getting politics out of medicine, discovered that as medical school students have produced more research, they have increasingly focused on leftist-driven research at the same time. This occurred as schools moved away from the traditional letter grade system to pass/fail standards, according to a <a href="https://donoharmmedicine.org/wp-content/uploads/Why-Johnny-Cant-Stop-Writing-Paper.pdf">study</a> from Do No Harm first obtained by The Daily Wire. 
Jay Greene, the director of research at Do No Harm, told The Daily Wire the shift away from traditional grading as institutions placed higher emphasis on research production triggered an “arms race” that has significantly lowered the quality of the nation’s future doctors. 
“Without the use of the letter-grade system, students are searching for other ways to stand out for fellowships and residency programs, which has inevitably led to an arms race in publications authored by medical students,” Greene told The Daily Wire. 
Greene found in his study that fewer than a dozen student-authored or co-authored papers were published per year in the early 2000s, but grew to over 700 per year by the 2020s. 
“The increase in medical-student research was driven in large part by their desire to pad résumés and compete for residency positions as other signals of quality,” the study found. 
<div id="attachment_1134423" style="width: 1585px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1134423" class="size-full wp-image-1134423" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-13-at-11.05.28-AM.png" alt="" width="1575" height="774" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-13-at-11.05.28-AM.png 1575w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-13-at-11.05.28-AM-300x147.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-13-at-11.05.28-AM-1024x503.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-13-at-11.05.28-AM-768x377.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-13-at-11.05.28-AM-1536x755.png 1536w" sizes=" (max-width: 1575px) 100vw, 1575px" />Do No Harm.</div>
Greene noted that most medical students are not trained in scientific research techniques. 
“Medical students are generally very smart and motivated, but they are no better able to conduct scientific research without adequate preparation than they would be to conduct open-heart surgery without formal training,” the study found. 
While production has increased, quality has not kept up as more research has focused on political topics emphasizing racial or sexual identity. 
“To compound the problem, quantity is incentivized over quality — leading to shoddy research and focus on politicized topics,” Greene told The Daily Wire. 
Greene measured this by analyzing publications by student-authors cataloged in PubMed that had descriptions featuring terms like “equity,” “disparities,” “social,” &#8220;justice,&#8221; “diversity,” or “racism,” among others. He found that just 6% of publications between 2000 and 2013 fell into the woke category before the number ballooned to 11% in 2014 to 2020 and 21% between 2021 and 2025. 
<div id="attachment_1134425" style="width: 1741px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1134425" class="size-full wp-image-1134425" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-13-at-11.06.48-AM.png" alt="" width="1731" height="949" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-13-at-11.06.48-AM.png 1731w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-13-at-11.06.48-AM-300x164.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-13-at-11.06.48-AM-1024x561.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-13-at-11.06.48-AM-768x421.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-13-at-11.06.48-AM-1536x842.png 1536w" sizes=" (max-width: 1731px) 100vw, 1731px" />Do No Harm.</div>
Greene examined competing academic studies on student research output. One <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12928410/">study</a> from the Wayne State University School of Medicine argued that research quality had improved while a study <a href="https://www.rjmedicine.org/publications/e00002">published</a> in the Researchers&#8217; Journal of Internal Medicine demonstrated that quality had not improved as production increased. 
Do No Harm argued that the problem could be addressed by returning to letter grading and capping the number of student publications medical school students can list on applications to residency placement. 
“By returning to objective letter grading, schools would incentivize students to focus on mastering their skill set in the clinical space rather than fluffing their résumés with baseless research endeavors,” Greene said.

Close Up Of Student Dentist Taking Notes Using Laptop

The ‘Arms Race’ Making America’s Future Doctors Dumber

medical research

medical school

medicine

Wokeness

The third <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cew7wez72vxo">assassination attempt</a> on the president’s life, this time by left-wing extremist Cole Allen, has once again exposed the blind spot among academics and journalists when it comes to left-wing violence.
I’ve experienced this in academia. When Portuguese professor Pedro Zuquete was trying to publish his <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-30897-0">Handbook of Left-Wing Extremism</a>, to which I am a contributor, he repeatedly hit brick walls. One reviewer for a publisher grudgingly admitted that the volume filled a gap and that there were no handbooks on left-wing extremism in existence, but focused mainly on ideology: “Chapter 15 … equates BLM and Antifa as a ‘destructive’ force of extremism, but shows no indication that a balanced investigation of the context and causes of these movements will be provided.”
Needless to say, there is no such equivocation or calls for “context” and understanding when it comes to interrogating right-wing extremism. Jeffrey Bale and Tamir Bar-On <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/fighting-the-last-war-9781978792296/">convincingly argue </a>that a moral panic around fascism has been consistently manufactured since 1945 by Western intellectuals. Lazy and nebulous definitions of terms such as “fascism,” “racism,” and “far-right” go unchallenged by their peers, reinforcing a continuous “fascist scare.”
While a staple of left-wing discourse is that words lead to violence – think ‘hate speech’ or <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17539153.2024.2305742#abstract">‘stochastic terrorism’</a> — and that this justifies censorship and cancel culture, such reasoning falls away when it comes to expressing hatred toward conservatives. In fact, left-wing assassins like Luigi Mangione, or those who condone political violence such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/22/opinion/shoplifting-political-protest-microlooting-whole-foods.html">Hasan Piker</a>, are viewed by many progressive elites as chic radicals.
The media practices a blatant double standard in its treatment of Left and Right violence, exhibiting the classic features of what psychologist Keith Stanovich terms <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/5183/The-Bias-That-Divides-UsThe-Science-and-Politics">myside bias</a>. The pattern has accelerated in the past decade. For instance, a big data <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/11/4/167">study </a>of content from major American and British newspapers by David Rozado and me revealed that superlative adjectives like “extreme,” “far,” and “radical” were used far more often to describe the Right than the Left, with this lopsided rhetoric taking off in the mid-2010s.
Mainstream institutions and outlets continue to have a log in their eye when it comes to leftist extremism. After the latest attempt on President Donald Trump’s life, the Economist ran a <a href="https://x.com/TheEconomist/status/1967966886320050373">story</a> arguing that most political violence comes from the political right. Batya Ungar-Sargon <a href="https://www.batya-us.com/p/debunking-the-data-that-claims-to">tore</a> the analysis apart, showing that the source material used by the Economist comes from progressive organizations whose coding decisions memory-hole leftist violence while manufacturing right-wing incidents. This cooks the results to serve up the right conclusion. For instance, the source data failed to record two previous assassination attempts on Trump or the murder of Charlie Kirk. It omitted the dozens killed and over $2 billion in property damage due to George Floyd rioting, but somehow saw fit to record 10 drug-related crimes committed by the Aryan Nations. Pro-Palestinian violence is not coded as leftist but as ethnonationalist.
Hating conservatives does not appear to fall under the definition of “hate” recorded by self-styled “anti-hate” expert groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) or their fellow-travelers in Britain (Hope Not Hate) and Canada (Canadian Anti-Hate Network, or CAHN). These well-funded activist groups have repeatedly laundered partisan radicalism as dispassionate analysis.
The SPLC, currently <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-grand-jury-charges-southern-poverty-law-center-wire-fraud-false-statements-and">under investigation</a> by the Department of Justice, was successfully <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/maajid-nawaz-v-splc/562646/">sued </a>for $3.4 million by British Muslim writer Maajid Nawaz, whom the SPLC smeared as an “anti-Muslim extremist.” The SPLC learned nothing, continuing to routinely label mainstream conservatives like Chris Rufo, Dinesh D’Souza, or the late David Horowitz as extremists. This is a stock-in-trade of these organizations. In Britain, Hope Not Hate <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/05/nick-lowles-hope-not-hate-apologise-tweet-acid-attack/">claimed </a>that a Muslim woman was the victim of a far-right “acid attack” during the 2024 Southport riots, with over 100,000 retweets, which it was later forced to retract. In the febrile atmosphere of the riots, this could have stoked Muslim attacks against whites. In Canada, CAHN, which regularly smears conservatives, <a href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jonathan-kay-if-there-really-are-300-neo-nazi-groups-in-canada-why-cant-anyone-name-them">failed to name</a> the 300 phantom far-right “hate groups” they claimed existed in Canada. Meanwhile, the organization has been <a href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jon-kays-legal-victory-exposes-canadian-anti-hate-networks-anti-conservative-agenda">exposed </a>as having Antifa ties.
These organizations ignore anti-conservative leftist extremism while stretching the definition of “hate” to include mainstream conservatives. Yet due to progressive bias and elite credulity, they can hide behind the “expert” label and are regularly cited as a credible source by journalists, courts, and governments.
Despite this, there is growing evidence that the left is becoming more violent. YouGov <a href="https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/52960-charlie-kirk-americans-political-violence-poll">found </a>that 25% of “very liberal” Americans say violence can be justified to achieve political goals compared to 3% of “very conservative” Americans. After the first Trump assassination attempt, I <a href="https://manhattan.institute/article/third-of-democrats-wish-donald-trump-had-been-killed">discovered </a>using a <a href="https://dimewiki.worldbank.org/List_Experiments">list experiment</a> survey that one-in-three Democrats wished he had been killed. Young leftists are especially prone to such thinking. Increasingly, young educated progressives do not believe that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00031224211041094">morality is absolute</a>, but rather relative. They are <a href="https://noahcarl.medium.com/who-doesnt-want-to-hear-the-other-side-s-view-9a7cdf3ad702">much more likely </a>to cut ties to friends and family who do not share their political views. In a recent survey, <a href="https://research.skeptic.com/violence-is-often-necessary-to-create-social-change-agreement-by-generation-and-political-orientation/#:~:text=Follow%2520us:-,%25E2%2580%259CViolence%2520is%2520often%2520necessary%2520to%2520create%2520social%2520change.%25E2%2580%259D%2520%255B,the%2520use%2520of%2520political%2520violence.">nearly half</a> of Gen-Z liberals agreed with the statement, “Violence is often necessary to create political change.”
While men and gun owners are more likely to be violent and on the Right, this is counterbalanced by the fact that leftist young men support political violence at greater rates than conservative young men. The <a href="https://rankings.fire.org/">Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)&#8217;s </a>massive annual college student surveys show that ‘very liberal’ and ‘democratic socialist’ male students are significantly more likely to agree that violence is an acceptable form of protest than conservative or moderate male students. Minority and LGBT students are also significantly more likely to endorse political violence.
Though our institutions are blind to it, a new intolerant strain of the Left is on the rise, and with it support for vandalism, looting, and violent groups like <a href="https://www.littlebrown.co.uk/titles/andy-ngo/unmasked/9781546059585/">Antifa </a>or Black Lives Matter.
***
Eric Kaufmann is a professor of politics at the University of Buckingham.

Web Summit Qatar 2026 – Day Three

The Left Is Swimming In Radical Chic Violence, Blind To Their Extremism

DW Opinion

Hate-Group

Radical Left

Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)

Scopes trial DW

Best Of 2025: A Century Ago, The ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’ Shook The Nation. The Stakes Are Still High.

Best Of 2025: A Century Ago, The 'Scopes Monkey Trial' Shook The Nation. The Stakes Are Still High.

aclu

American History

bible

Charles Darwin

christianity

education

science

tennessee

A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, widely respected for his work in plasma physics and fusion energy, was <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/mit-professor-shot-killed-home-boston-suburbs-officials/story?id=128460718">fatally shot</a> in his home in the Boston suburb of Brookline, Massachusetts, authorities said this week, in a killing that has stunned the academic community and remains under investigation.
The professor, Nuno F. G. Loureiro, 47, was found late Monday night at his residence with gunshot wounds. He was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead early Tuesday, according to the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office. No arrests have been announced, and prosecutors said the homicide investigation was ongoing.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
At the MIT Alumni Forum, Professor Nuno F. G. Loureiro shared groundbreaking research from the <a href="https://twitter.com/MIT?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MIT</a> Plasma Science and Fusion Center: <a href="https://t.co/qa95fCcM37">https://t.co/qa95fCcM37</a> <a href="https://t.co/aaESXlt9F7">pic.twitter.com/aaESXlt9F7</a>
— MIT Alumni (@MIT_alumni) <a href="https://twitter.com/MIT_alumni/status/1869440559514816718?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 18, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Law enforcement officials said they had examined whether the killing could be connected to a separate mass shooting at Brown University over the weekend, but a senior official briefed on both cases said there was no indication the incidents were related. The FBI echoed that assessment.
Dr. Loureiro, a native of Portugal, joined the MIT faculty in 2016 and rose quickly through the ranks, <a href="https://nse.mit.edu/people/nuno-f-loureiro/#section-bio">becoming director</a> of the university’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center in 2024. The center, one of MIT’s largest research laboratories, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/mit-professor-shooting-massachusetts-portugal-3ab1e3e7e369de5cef90c7c911995dbb?utm_source=chatgpt.com">employs</a> more than 250 scientists, engineers, and students working on the development of fusion energy and related technologies.
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In a statement, MIT’s president Sally Kornbluth described Dr. Loureiro as an “imaginative scholar, gifted administrator, and enthusiastic mentor,” calling his death a “shocking loss” for the university. “Our hearts go out to his wife and family, and to his many devoted students, friends, and colleagues,” she said.
Dr. Loureiro grew up in central Portugal and studied physics in Lisbon before earning a doctorate at Imperial College London. He conducted research at leading fusion laboratories in the United States, Britain, and Portugal before arriving at MIT. His work focused on magnetic reconnection and plasma turbulence, and he published widely in scientific journals. In January 2025, he received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.
Students and colleagues gathered quietly near his home on Tuesday to pay their respects, local news outlets reported. The U.S. ambassador to Portugal, John J. Arrigo, also issued a statement honoring Dr. Loureiro’s leadership and contributions to science.
“It’s not hyperbole to say MIT is where you go to find solutions to humanity’s biggest problems,” Dr. Loureiro said last year when he was named to lead the plasma science center. “Fusion energy will change the course of human history.”

OTHER: OCT 21 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Mysterious Murder Of MIT Nuclear Physicist Leaves Community Shaken

crime

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

murder

U.S.

The organization that facilitates medical education in the United States promised to fight federal and state efforts to crack down on transgender ideology, leaked footage obtained by The Daily Wire shows.
Top leadership at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) promised to continue backing challenges at a town hall meeting last month, according to footage obtained by Do No Harm. In addition to administering the MCAT, the medical school admissions test, the AAMC sponsors the accrediting body for allopathic medical schools.
In an October 8 virtual town hall, AAMC President David Skorton said he was “very concerned” about the federal and state crackdown on transgender ideology and that the issue was a “high priority” for his organization when asked about so-called “attacks” on the transgender community.
“It&#8217;s easy to say we&#8217;re very concerned, but we are very concerned about this. Not only because of health care issues … but also other issues related to not just health care, but the psychological effect on people who will feel excluded and actually attacked,” Skorton said during the meeting. “We have a lot of work to do in this area, and it&#8217;s definitely, definitely a high priority for us.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
VIDEO: Leaders of the Association of American Medical Colleges double down on their support for transgender procedures and promise to continue challenging state and federal actions to protect kids from the life-altering procedures. The video was obtained by <a href="https://twitter.com/donoharm?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@donoharm</a> <a href="https://t.co/l11PYI0evU">pic.twitter.com/l11PYI0evU</a>
— Leif Le Mahieu (@leif_lemahieu) <a href="https://twitter.com/leif_lemahieu/status/1990796851852030352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 18, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Answering the same question, Frank Trinity, the AAMC’s chief legal officer, noted that the organization is backing a challenge to the Trump administration’s executive action cutting off funding for hospitals that perform transgender procedures on kids.
“Since 2022, the AAMC has been a part of a coalition of more than 20 national medical groups, joining an amicus effort filed in many courts across the country supporting challenges to mostly state laws that would essentially prohibit gender affirming medical care,” Trinity said.
Trinity added that the landmark Supreme Court case that upheld Tennessee’s right to protect kids from transgender procedures was a “setback.”
“There was a setback, as you know, in the Skrmetti case coming out of Tennessee with the Supreme Court dismissing a challenge,” he said, referencing Skrmetti v. United States, which held that states can bar transgender procedures for minors. “But those cases are still going forward. There&#8217;s two different cases challenging the executive order that would effectively ban federal support for gender affirming medical care.”
He noted that the AAMC had joined in a coalition with other professional medical organizations in filing an <a href="https://www.aamc.org/media/86176/download?attachment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">amicus brief</a> at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order that cuts funding for entities that promote child transgender procedures.
“Gender-affirming care supports an individual with gender dysphoria as they explore their gender identity in contrast with efforts to change the individual&#8217;s gender identity to match their sex assigned at birth, which are known to be ineffective and harmful,” the brief claims.
“Empirical evidence indicates that [transgender procedures], including the prescription of puberty blockers and hormone therapy to carefully evaluated patients who meet diagnostic criteria, can alleviate clinically significant distress and lead to significant improvements in the mental health and overall wellbeing of adolescents with gender dysphoria.”
The care advocated for by the AAMC included treatments like puberty blockers and placing young kids on cross-sex hormones, both of which can have permanent impacts on fertility, sexual health, and bone development.
The AAMC has joined numerous other briefs challenging both federal and state laws protecting kids from transgender procedures. This includes an effort at the district court in <a href="https://www.aamc.org/media/81976/download?attachment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Maryland</a> to block Trump’s executive actions and state laws in <a href="https://www.aamc.org/media/83841/download?attachment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ohio</a>, <a href="https://www.aamc.org/media/75636/download?attachment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Montana</a>, <a href="https://www.aamc.org/media/71811/download?attachment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Arkansas</a>, and many others.
“We will continue to be a part of that coalition,” Trinity said after discussing the AAMC’s legal efforts.
Speaking on the issue in broad terms, Malika Fair, the AAMC’s chief community, opportunity, and engagement officer, said that the organization was focused on “supporting the entire patient population as well, which is under attack.”
Skorton then jumped in to say that “our colleagues in the medical profession” were also under attack.
The AAMC works with 171 accredited medical schools in the United States and Canada, over 400 teaching hospitals and health systems, and 70 academic societies.
Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, the chairman of Do No Harm, called the footage from the AAMC town hall troubling.
“It is concerning that the AAMC, which is essentially a political activist organization, has so much influence over medical schools and future doctors,” he told The Daily Wire. “Its support for irreversible pediatric sex-change procedures demonstrates how disconnected the group is from biological reality and evidence-based practices.”
In more of the footage, the AAMC leaders were questioned about their approach to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives.
“I want to be plain about it. I believe as I have for decades that the data show that more diverse teams do a better job of solving problems, especially in complex situations, and there are a few things more complex than medical care,” Skorton said. “So, I believe that working for a more diverse medical workforce is an imperative, and I believe that we&#8217;re doing that, and we&#8217;ll continue to do it with all deference to the law, and, I guess that&#8217;s a straightforward answer to it.”
“We&#8217;re committed to continuing to work for a more broad background in those delivering healthcare, of course, in line with the law,” he added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
LEAKED VIDEO: The president of the Association of American Medical Colleges says that he remains committed to pursuing a &#8220;diverse medical workforce.&#8221; The group has rebranded its DEI efforts in recent weeks. The video was obtained by <a href="https://twitter.com/donoharm?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@donoharm</a>. <a href="https://t.co/DHlPKrwumI">pic.twitter.com/DHlPKrwumI</a>
— Leif Le Mahieu (@leif_lemahieu) <a href="https://twitter.com/leif_lemahieu/status/1990798169039638730?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 18, 2025</a></blockquote>
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This commitment to diversity came after Skorton sent out an email on October 3 to AAMC announcing that it would be rebranding its affinity group on “Diversity and Inclusion” to be called the Group on Collaboration, Engagement, and Community.
“This change is being made in part to align with how programming has evolved for this group and the AAMC, as well as in response to feedback from member institutions who continue to experience external pressures,” the email said
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1001889" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-17-at-11.47.49-AM.png" alt="" width="1207" height="302" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-17-at-11.47.49-AM.png 1207w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-17-at-11.47.49-AM-300x75.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-17-at-11.47.49-AM-1024x256.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-17-at-11.47.49-AM-768x192.png 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1207px) 100vw, 1207px" /></div>
“The AAMC’s mission and vision are not changing,” Skorton wrote. “We remain deeply committed to convening our community and supporting the professional development of our constituents through these affinity groups.”
Reference to the group has already been scrubbed from the AAMC’s page on affinity groups, but archived pages show that the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20250509064034/https://www.aamc.org/learn-network/affinity-groups" target="_blank" rel="noopener">purpose</a> of that group was to “guide the advancement of diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout medicine and biomedical sciences.”
Do No Harm, which released a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/heres-how-much-medical-schools-pay-for-membership-in-woke-academic-association" target="_blank" rel="noopener">comprehensive 80-page report</a> last year highlighting the AAMC’s embrace of DEI and leftist politics, was skeptical of the rebrand.
“The AAMC’s rebranding of DEI doesn’t fool anyone; even the CEO said its ‘mission and vision aren&#8217;t changing.’ If we are to restore integrity to medical education, then schools need to think twice before pledging allegiance to the AAMC,” Goldfarb said.
Do No Harm’s push against politics in medicine has been joined by other doctors who want to get back to focusing on scientific medicine. Dr. Charles Lockwood, the executive vice president and dean of the University of South Florida Health Morsani College of Medicine, recently published a <a href="https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(25)00745-4/fulltext" target="_blank" rel="noopener">viewpoint</a> in the American Journal of Medicine lambasting the inclusion of politics in medicine.
Lockwood told The Daily Wire that he was inspired to write the article because of the AAMC’s embrace of so-called “gender-affirming care” for kids.
“It is shocking to me that this would be embraced, embraced with such passion, when, again, no evidence of benefit, no evidence to reduce the rate of suicide, no evidence of mental health improvements, no evidence that we are actually treating gender dysphoria, and many cases where there&#8217;s tremendous regret and detransitioning, which is difficult to do,” Lockwood said.
He said he thought most rank-and-file doctors opposed gender procedures in schools, but that leadership at the organizations was pushing it for political reasons.
“We need to move medicine out of harm&#8217;s way, and out of the political debate and back to empiricism and the embrace of scientific method of evidence based medicine back to self correction, which it clearly is departed from,” Lockwood said. “When we do that as a profession, we&#8217;ll find that we regain the public trust.”

MixCollage-17-Nov-2025-01-55-PM-6920

LEAKED FOOTAGE: Medical Org Vows To Fight Trump’s Crackdown On Transgender Ideology

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

transgender

A Tennessee university on Thursday approved the creation of a Turning Point USA chapter on campus after the conservative group faced opposition from the school’s student government.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC)’s Student Government Association on Wednesday voted against approving the Charlie Kirk-inspired club, sparking backlash from conservative lawmakers. Less than 24 hours after that vote, the university announced that it had approved the application in accordance with school guidelines. 
“The Dean of Students Office has determined that Turning Point USA is approved as a Registered Student Organization,” the university <a href="https://x.com/UTChattanooga/status/1976295599986122883">announced</a> Thursday morning. “While the Student Government Association may voice opinions, recognition of student organizations is determined by the UTC Dean of Students and Chancellor. Turning Point USA has been authorized in accordance with university policy and the law.”  
Calls to approve the club poured in after Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet said that UTC’s student government had denied the request to approve the formation of the club. 
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“This decision effectively blocks our students from gaining official recognition on campus. As a result, the students will be forced to restart the process, reapplying and once again facing the same SGA that has already demonstrated clear bias against them. Tennessee, are these the values of your state? Your tax dollars are propping this garbage up,” Kolvet <a href="https://x.com/AndrewKolvet/status/1976125274065690716">posted</a> on X.
After the vote, the university stated that final approval for the club went through school officials, not the student government. 
Shortly before the university announced its decision to approve the club, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) urged school officials to “do the right thing.” 
“The Student Government Association at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga just voted to recommend that a [TPUSA] chapter not be approved,” Blackburn <a href="https://x.com/VoteMarsha/status/1976284203068293217">wrote</a> on X. “Do the right thing and approve the Turning Point chapter immediately.”
Several state Republican representatives also commented on the student government’s vote, saying that the university would approve the application. 
Rep. Jason Zachary, a Republican who represents part of Knoxville, <a href="https://x.com/JasonZacharyTN/status/1976255673911427512">said</a> Thursday that he had spoken with Randy Boyd, the president of the University of Tennessee system, about the student government association’s vote. Zachary urged Turning Point USA to reach out to him if they had any other problems. 
After UTC announced the approval of the club, Tennessee House Majority Leader William Lamberth, a Republican, praised the school. 
“Glad to see [TPUSA] approved at [UTC]. Looks like some of these young conservatives need to run against the liberal SGA who didn&#8217;t even want their voices heard on campus,” he <a href="https://x.com/WilliamLamberth/status/1976297054151315518">said</a>. “Appreciate the Dean standing for free speech.”
Following the assassination of Kirk last month in Utah, Turning Point USA has reported a massive surge in requests to form new chapters on both high school and college campuses. The organization said last week that it has launched 1,500 new high school chapters nationwide, up from roughly 1,200 total before Kirk’s death.

Former President Trump Addresses The Turning Points Action Conference In West Palm Beach, California

After Student Government Clash, Tennessee Turning Point USA Chapter Gets Green Light

charlie kirk

free speech

marsha blackburn

turning point usa

John Thomas Scopes On Trial

A Century Ago, The ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’ Shook The Nation. The Stakes Are Just As High Today.

religion

The intelligentsia is always telling us to “follow the science.” But what happens when “the science” starts undermining academia’s deeply-held beliefs? Suddenly, the definition of science changes — or we’re told we misunderstood it all along.
If you’ve followed the debates over climate change or gender ideology, this story might sound familiar. But what may surprise you is that the same tactics are now at work in elite physics departments around the world. Even the most brilliant minds aren’t immune to bias — or to pushing a philosophical agenda under the guise of objectivity.
So, how is this playing out in the world of advanced physics?
Atheist scientists hold one belief above all: God is fiction. Why? Because God isn’t science. And only scientific claims can be true. Science, they say, explains the universe through natural, blind forces. This picture of reality is supposed to be testable and falsifiable.
But are they still living up to that standard?
In recent decades, physicists uncovered something remarkable. Nature’s laws contain fundamental constants, specific numbers that determine how particles like electrons behave. For years, no one knew where these mysterious numbers came from. Then came the scientific discovery that many of them are finely tuned. Change them even slightly, and the universe as we know it wouldn’t exist. No atoms. No stars. No life.
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The implication was hard to miss. An intelligent cause had <a href="https://www.physicstogod.com/fine-tuning-argument-for-god" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fine-tuned</a> the constants to produce a complex, structured universe. That conclusion sounded uncomfortably like God. And many atheist physicists wanted nothing to do with that.
Stanford physicist Leonard Susskind, himself an atheist, explained the fear:
Physicists dislike mixing religion into physics. I think they were somewhat afraid that if it was admitted that the reason the world is the way it is has to do with our own existence, that that could be hijacked by the creationists, by the intelligent designers. And of course, what they would say is, “Yes, we always told you so. There is a benevolent somebody way up high in the universe who created the universe exactly so that we could live.” I think physicists shrank at the idea of getting involved in such things.
But if the evidence pointed to God, scientists had a choice: follow it, or explain it away.
Enter the multiverse: an infinite set of unobservable universes, each with different laws. If the multiverse exists, then finding ourselves in a fine-tuned universe isn’t all that surprising. With infinite tries, some universes are bound to support life. And naturally, we’d only ever find ourselves in one of those.
Sounds clever, but here’s the problem: science requires observation and testability. One of the most renowned physicists of the prior generation, Richard Feynman, stated clearly: “All scientists will agree that a question — any question, philosophical or other — which cannot be put into the form that can be tested by experiment…is not a scientific question.”
By definition, an infinite number of unobservable universes can’t be tested by experiment. By Feynman’s standard, and that of virtually all scientists for the past 300 years, the multiverse is not science.
So, what does academia do when faced with this problem? It tries to change the rules.
Physicist Bernard Carr openly argues for redefining science: “It is surely dangerous to impose a philosophical prescription that prevents scientists from changing the border of their field. As Susskind cautions, it would be a pity to miss out on some fundamental truth because of an over-restrictive definition of science.”
In other words: if the multiverse doesn’t fit the definition of science that’s guided discovery since the Enlightenment, no problem — just redefine science.
As if redefining science weren’t bad enough, some scientists go further. Johns Hopkins physicist Sean Carroll boldly claims that falsifiability was never a requirement of science:
The ways in which we evaluate the multiverse as a scientific hypothesis are precisely the ways in which hypotheses have always been judged. The point is not that we are changing the nature of science by allowing unfalsifiable hypotheses into our purview. The point is that “falsifiability” was never the primary criterion by which scientific theories were judged (although scientists have often presented it as such).
So, Feynman got it wrong. Einstein too. Generations of scientists? All mistaken. Or so we’re now told.
How long before textbooks are rewritten to teach students that science doesn’t require testing, observation, or falsifiability? We’ve seen this play before, and it doesn’t end well.
This isn’t just semantics. Redefining science erodes public trust in real, tested science. If untestable multiverse theory now falls under the esteemed banner of science, how is anyone supposed to tell the difference between the real thing and its impostor version?
Fortunately, some scientists have sounded the alarm about these shifts. George Ellis, a leading physicist, has warned bluntly:
The foundations must be respected if one is to preserve the core features of science that have led to its phenomenal success: that is, the feedback from reality to theory provided by experiment and observational testing. One abandons that at one’s peril&#8230;it is dangerous to weaken the grounds of scientific proof in order to include multiverses under the mantle of “tested science”.
Ellis is right. If science is to remain credible, scientists need to stop playing word games. Fine-tuning in our one, ordered universe is a real scientific discovery. But it most certainly doesn’t point to an infinite, chaotic multiverse.
The bottom line? The <a href="https://www.physicstogod.com/is-the-multiverse-real" target="_blank" rel="noopener">multiverse isn’t science</a>. It’s a speculative philosophical idea — and not even a good one. Passing it off as science is dishonest. These scientists are hijacking the credibility of science to promote a weak philosophical theory that can’t stand on its own.
We’re not saying God is a scientific theory. That would be dishonest. What we are saying is that science<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-modern-physics-points-to-god" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> points to God</a>. Because when you follow the evidence, the most straightforward explanation for fine-tuning is an intelligent designer.
And if academics really believe in “following the science,” then maybe it’s time they followed it themselves — all the way to God.
Rabbi Elie Feder, PhD, and Rabbi Aaron Zimmer, host the “Physics to God” podcast.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Space warp travel trough universe

The Multiverse Scandal: How Academia Is Redefining Science To Avoid God

Physics

universe

Seattle University has been hit with a federal civil rights complaint over scholarships and programs that select students on the basis of race and sex, including one that’s administered in partnership with Costco.
In its complaint, the Equal Protection Project cites three different scholarships and programs that advance the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) agenda, including one sponsored by the retail giant. The complaint, first viewed by The Daily Wire, calls on the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to investigate the university and enforce civil rights law.
The Costco Scholarship Fund, which both Seattle University and the University of Washington participate in, is intended for “underrepresented students of color.”
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class=" wp-image-929909 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/Screen-Shot-2025-06-05-at-1.01.07-PM-300x193.png" alt="" width="719" height="463" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/Screen-Shot-2025-06-05-at-1.01.07-PM-300x193.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/Screen-Shot-2025-06-05-at-1.01.07-PM-897x576.png 897w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/Screen-Shot-2025-06-05-at-1.01.07-PM-768x493.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/Screen-Shot-2025-06-05-at-1.01.07-PM.png 1124w" sizes=" (max-width: 719px) 100vw, 719px" /></div>
William A. Jacobson, the founder of the Equal Protection Project, told The Daily Wire that the Costco program doesn’t outline specific racial or ethnic requirements, but that it could foster exclusionary practices.
“Costco has created a program for &#8216;underrepresented students of color&#8217; but allows others to participate,&#8221; Jacobson said. “We call on Costco to make clear both in its program and in its partnerships with schools like SU that discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin is prohibited.&#8221;
Costco told The Daily Wire that the scholarship fund takes into account several factors when selecting recipients, including academic record, community service history, and whether or not the applicant is &#8220;part of an underserved group, such as youth in foster care, historically underrepresented minority students, and students who are the first in their family to pursue a college degree.&#8221; Costco added that &#8220;the program is legally compliant.&#8221;
Seattle University offers other programs explicitly designed for people of specific demographic backgrounds.
The Sinegal Fellowship, open to students who graduated from Seattle University’s undergraduate program and are going on to pursue an advanced degree at the school, is specifically designed for students who participated in the Costco Fund Scholarship. Seattle University states that the fellowship “provides support for underrepresented minority Costco scholars.”
&#8220;Creating educational opportunities based on race, color, national origin, or sex violates Titles VI and IX of the Civil Rights Act, as well as Washington State law and SU&#8217;s own non-discrimination policies,” Jacobson explained. “We are asking SU to live up to the law and its own rules, and to remove the discriminatory eligibility barriers it has erected.&#8221;
The university also offers the Justice Mary I. Yu Endowed Scholarship, which offers financial assistance to “underrepresented students at Seattle University School of Law, especially women of color.”
The Women of Seattle University Endowed Scholarship, available to current students who meet a certain GPA threshold, is targeted at “underrepresented student populations, especially women.”
Jacobson told The Daily Wire that Seattle University’s programs are in violation of the Civil Rights Act.
“Aggressive DEI programming must never be permitted to cross the line into unlawful discrimination in violation of the Civil Rights Act. This line, unfortunately, appears to have been breached at SU,” Jacobson said. “It is time for higher education everywhere to focus on the inherent worth and dignity of every student rather than categorizing students based on identity groups.”
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&#8220;The Equal Protection Project calls on the Department of Education to require the senior administration of SU to uphold nondiscrimination standards throughout the institution,” he added.
Seattle University did not respond to a request for comment.
Seattle University isn’t the first institution that the Equal Protection Project has hit with a federal civil rights complaint. It also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/university-of-rhode-island-hit-with-civil-rights-complaint-over-discriminatory-scholarships">reported</a> the University of Rhode Island’s 51 DEI-focused scholarship offerings, which discriminated against white and male students. The complaint <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/education-department-to-investigate-university-of-rhode-islands-discriminatory-scholarships">prompted</a> a federal investigation from the Department of Education.

Costco

EXCLUSIVE: Seattle University Hit With Federal Complaint Over Costco-Backed DEI Scholarship

Diversity

Over the past decade, the climate change movement has morphed into a social and political juggernaut that has weakened and exploited America’s institutions. Its success stemmed from two strengths: it fused science with ideology, creating a quasi-religious fervor — think Just Stop Oil or Extinction Rebellion.
The climate movement also won over the legacy media, which thrives on fear, sensationalism, and a bias toward statism. This alliance resonated with those favoring bigger government and tapped into a primal fear of looming catastrophe — a narrative amplified by widespread ignorance of energy and climate systems. For power-hungry politicians, climate catastrophism became their golden ticket to more influence and control.
Backed by legacy media cheerleaders and an academia dominated by Left-leaning statists, the movement snowballed, especially among the young.  Recent debates and polling shifts suggest some improvement in public understanding, but the damage has been substantial. 
The climate change story, however, rests on shaky scientific and moral ground. The climate has always fluctuated — warming and cooling in cycles — and always will. CO₂, while a greenhouse gas, is a minor player compared to water vapor and solar activity — not the villain it’s painted to be. History shows species thrive in warmer periods and struggle in colder ones.
As Bjorn Lomborg points out, over the past century, climate-related deaths have <a href="https://x.com/BjornLomborg/status/1885310861264199688" target="_blank" rel="noopener">plummeted by 99%,</a> with cold still claiming more lives than heat. The science simply doesn’t support the panic.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Your risk of dying from climate-related disasters dropped 99% since 1920. 
This is because richer societies are much more resilient to disasters 
Read more in my peer-reviewed article: <a href="https://t.co/CC0h7JKIKv">https://t.co/CC0h7JKIKv</a> <a href="https://t.co/hQPpXF2AS2">pic.twitter.com/hQPpXF2AS2</a>
&mdash; Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) <a href="https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/1885310861264199688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 31, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Morally, it’s worse. Billions of people <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/12-06-2024-progress-on-basic-energy-access-reverses-for-first-time-in-a-decade?utm_source=chatgpt.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lack access to affordable, reliable energy</a> — a right most Americans enjoy as part of the fortunate one billion. Denying them the cheapest energy sources available, all in pursuit of carbon cuts, is the real injustice. The post-election pivot to prioritize energy access and human well-being over obsessive emissions reductions is a welcome return to reason.
This moral blindness is often cloaked in self-righteous virtue. The climate movement preaches sacrifice while demanding subsidies, mandates, and central planning. It calls for collective responsibility while punishing prosperity. It seeks compliance, not progress; narrative control, not truth. In true Orwellian fashion, freedom becomes pollution, and servitude is sold as sustainability.
The damage wrought by this movement was magnified by the erosion of institutional integrity. In the corporate world, where I operate, our duty is clear: maximize value for investors, as Milton Friedman argued. Property rights demand it. Yet leaders have grown lax, allowing political Trojan horses like ESG and DEI to infiltrate and hijack companies — and their shareholder’s property — for ideological ends. Banks and firms fell in line, abandoning their core mission. The pursuit of shareholder value was replaced with pandering to fashionable causes, often disconnected from performance or accountability.
Academia has suffered similar rot, even my alma mater, the University of Texas. Take the lazy use of terms like “green,” “clean,” and “sustainable” to describe solar and wind energy. Dig into the facts: mining rare earths and manufacturing these technologies are dirty processes, often tied to child labor in Africa, and far from sustainable without heavy subsidies. Describing them as ‘green’ or ‘clean’ is more than misleading, it’s a lie. Our institutions should have been bulwarks against this coercion, but they buckled. The guardians of inquiry and meritocracy became mouthpieces for activist orthodoxy.
The 2024 election and its aftermath signal that we’ve weathered the climate movement’s storm. Now what? At Atlas Energy Solutions, our chairman’s “<a href="https://www.atlas.energy/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Chairmans-Letter-on-ESG.pdf">Who We Are</a>” letter laid it out: we stick to the Friedman Doctrine, building a fortress against political fads and focusing solely on value creation. We’ve aimed to lead by example, and it’s heartening to see others doing the same.
Business and politics don’t mix — nor should academia and politics. Universities owe students free inquiry and critical thinking, not indoctrination. It’s time to purge ideological agendas and revive institutional excellence.
Capitalism — real capitalism — requires moral clarity. It is not a tool of oppression, but a system that rewards value creation and voluntary exchange. The climate agenda, as it stands, undermines both. To restore institutional discipline, we must reaffirm what made this country exceptional: a commitment to liberty, property rights, free markets, and the truth. That’s the only path forward. That’s how we liberate American energy — and the human potential it powers.
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Bud Brigham is an energy entrepreneur from Austin, Texas, and chairman of Brigham Exploration, Brigham Royalties, Langford Energy Partners, and Atlas Energy Solutions (NYSE: AEISI). He is also a founding board member of the American Energy Association, a trade organization representing companies that unabashedly support free markets to liberate American energy.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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