Clearing the Fog: Steve Milloy Discusses Junk Science and Aaron Sibarium Exposes Harvard President Claudine Gay
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Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts, Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. Folks, we have another great show with unbelievable guests lined up for you today. Leading off our program, Steve Malloy. He is the founder of Junkscience.com, an environmental and public health consultant, recognized leader in the fight against junk science with more than 33 years of experience, credited with popularizing the term. And there is a lot of junk science out there.

We could be getting into, but the biggest one is the environmental junk science. Steve Malloy, welcome to the program. Hey, Sam. Thanks for having me. So when you got into this, because...

This is – the left has essentially two weapons that they have wielded against the right probably most effectively, one being the environmental movement, the other being abortion. We've seen that recently. But the environmental movement is built on a foundation that is so unbelievably fractured and flawed. What you're doing has to come to the forefront, right? I mean where did this – I know I'm hitting you with a big question but where did this start?

that this went off the rails this badly. And talk about creation, too, of the world when you get out. Go ahead. But where did this... I mean, there has to be a point where environmental science started to become junk science.

What was that? You know, that's a really interesting question. I mean, you can trace it back as early as the 1950s with the scare about nuclear fallout. I've got a pretty good...

uh... story at the top of my website junk science dot com about that i would say that one of those people probably are familiar with is rachel carson's silent spring where she tried to scare everyone about uh... you know pesticides especially d_t_t_ claiming that you know d_t_t_ was killing birds and what not none of that was true

And I think the environmentalists learned to lie from there, and they have done a pretty good job of it ever since. I remember that one particularly well because at the time we lived in far upstate New York, which anyone who's ever lived in far upstate New York knows you're lucky if you survive your childhood without being carried off by a cloud of mosquitoes. Yeah.

And that cloud became distinctly worse immediately after people stopped using DDT. Yeah. Yeah, well, and, you know, it's the first thing that the U.S. EPA really did when it was formed by Richard Nixon. It banned DDT in the United States. And, of course, that ban was expedited.

to the rest of the world, which has resulted in the needless deaths of tens of millions of black and brown people around the world, people that the left claims to represent, but of course they don't. They really want to get rid of these people.

You're talking about malaria deaths from... Yes. Yeah. Malaria, dengue, just all these mosquito-borne diseases. I mean, Washington, D.C., and America was made safe from mosquitoes through DDT, same with Western Europe, and we have denied that to places like Africa and Latin America and Asia. Okay.

Which is astounding because historically, mosquitoes, Chuck, are like the number one killer in history. They are the number one killer. They make every other mass murderer look like a child in kindergarten. Yeah, no, I mean, they shouldn't call people serial killers. They should call them mosquitoes because they are large. Steve, look, I think the one thing people misrepresent in environmentalists try to do this is if you go encounter what they put out as facts or how they are loosey-goosey at the numbers—

they make it seem like you don't care about the environment. And I think that's ridiculous because most people I know, especially conservatives, they love the environment. They go outdoors. They love it. They don't want to see condos on top of a mountain. They don't want to see any of this stuff. By percentage, conservatives are far more likely to be country and suburban living in open-air environments. So as they go and talk about climate change and global warming –

And then they go and push against nuclear plants. How did they expect us to take them seriously? Because could you really change anything they want to do without more nuclear energy?

Well, yeah, I mean, there's a lot that you raised there. I mean, of course, we all care about the environment. We all breathe the same air, drink the same water. The notion that they're somehow more worried about safety than, you know, the rest of us is just crazy. With respect to nuclear power, of course, nuclear power is perfectly safe.

uh... you know it's if if if you are for some reason uh... concerned about emissions emissions free uh... and and and it would seem to be the uh... solution to you know uh... climate concerns but of course they oppose nuclear power they always have i mentioned when we started the whole scare about nuclear fallout well that you know the left has never liked nuclear power

And so they tried to get rid of it with the nuclear scare, nuclear fallout scare. And they've always opposed nuclear power. They were finally able to really stop it in the United States with the Three Mile Island scare, which was really a bunch of nothing. The Three Mile Island worked, right? Like the safety features worked. It proved the model actually has the safeguards that it needs. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, the whole radiation thing has just been way, way, way overblown. I mean, it's so expensive to build nuclear power today because of the science fraud that has gone into the radiation scare. Once again, I've got this fantastic story at the top of Junk Science. It's a must-read for anybody that's interested in nuclear power to find out what's really going on. So even today, even as terrified as the left wants you to be about emissions,

They oppose nuclear power, of course. They also oppose the siting of wind farms and solar panels and transmission lines for – so what they're really trying to do is just cause chaos in society, and out of chaos, of course, comes their goal, which is government control of all of us. Yeah.

I've always posited government control as one aspect of it, but at their heart, these folks are eugenicists who are bent on population reduction. Right. Well, that's absolutely right. And I think this goes back to at least the mid-60s with Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford professor who is for some reason in the National Academy of Sciences. The guy's never been right about anything anyway.

He declared that the carrying capacity of the Earth is 2 billion. Of course, we're at 8 billion today, but Paul Ehrlich is still at 2 billion. And when you look at what the greed agenda is, going after our energy supply and our food supply, the two things that have taken us from less than a billion people pre-industrial to now more than 8 billion people,

You know, they're really, they are, they expect to get rid of 75% of the world's population at least through their policies. We're with Steve Malloy. You can find his work on Junkscience.com, and he's written over a thousand articles in the Wall Street Journal and various newspapers. Look him up. We are going to post on our social media the top story on junk science. Emails reveal bureaucrat sensor radiation risk science fraud by canceling whistleblowers.

All right, so you've had a fun week. The New York Times on December 29th had this front page graph, a new spike in global temperatures, which you refuted with actual numbers, which they did not take kindly to. Could you explain a little bit about that and why their numbers are wrong?

Well, sure. 2023 has been an unusual year. We think it's been unusually warm. And of course, environmentalists are celebrating this because there had been no global warming in the previous eight years.

despite 500 billion tons of emissions. It's really a problem in their thesis. So this year it was warm, and so they're trumpeting this on their front page. And I just look at all this stuff now. This notion that we have these global temperatures, the New York Times runs this graph with no error bars, as if there's something called a global temperature.

You know, the average global temperature is not a physical quantity. There's no reality to it. No one lives there. Where would you take it, even if you could? You know, the Earth is a big place. You know, it can be 50 below zero at the poles and 100 degrees at the equator. And what's the average temperature? What does that mean? It doesn't mean anything. Right.

Our temperature measurements are very imprecise. The best U.S. surface data sets, they're not accurate to within a whole degree, one degree C, which is the amount of global warming they claim has happened since global warming began.

uh... it's just the whole thing is just crazy but uh... you they did they have such uh... you know with such power in the media and they could they own every institution all the universities the government's uh... state government international government all these other organizations that you had and we're constantly bombarded with this stuff they just expect you to believe whatever they print and they just printed literally anything uh... the other day the new york times

you know, had on its editorial page a piece called The End of Snow. Like...

Are you kidding me? I mean, Sierra Nevada just got almost a foot the other day. These people are insane. Well, and last winter was one of the best snowpack winters in history in the West. But do you believe that they sincerely hold their views to be true? Or are they sort of the George Costanza, if you believe it's true, it's not a lie? I mean—

What do you think it is? I think part of them is a scam and part of them are true believers. You know, we've got this in conservative circles now. We have our real believers and we have some really tremendous grifters who are doing well with the GOP movement right now. Do you feel there? What's the mix on the side? Because, you know, they are real alarmist about it. And I really do think they are freaking out our grade school kids.

Yeah. Well, of course, they're doing that on purpose. I mean, this is what they pray on the most ignorant people they can, right? That's why they have all these kids lined up for them. Look, they all have access to the Internet. They can all see that even if the United States went dark today and remained dark for the rest of time, more than 90% of greenhouse gas emissions would still happen. So what's the point of the United States

you'd vanishing itself i mean it you they can figure out for themselves that nuclear power safe but you know they remain blind to it so i i think this is intentional me yes there are lots of people they get caught up in and become activists for that if you would agree themselves to walls the guy that killed himself on the steps of the supreme court ever climate last year uh... yes or you know these people have been

Their minds have been destroyed by the climate movement. But the guys that are in charge, they know this is a hoax. They know why they're doing it. They've got a political motivation. You know, the guys that are in the wind and solar industry, those guys are doing it for financial reasons. The oil industry plays along with this for financial reasons. It's just this huge scam.

Yeah. And there's an enormous amount of government money that's now tied to it, enormous amount of taxpayer money. And all you have to put is the right name on a program, regardless of how successful or how big a failure it is.

We have just about 30 seconds before we go to break. We're going to be coming back with more from Steve Malloy, founder and publisher of Junkscience.com, here in just a minute, folks. And then stay tuned for our second segment. We're going to be talking about all the fun with Claudine Gay and Harvard and the DEI movement with Aaron Sabarium of the Washington Free Beacon. So stay tuned for that. Breaking Battlegrounds back in just a moment.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Folks, if you haven't checked out YRefi, you need to do that right away. If you want to earn a up to 10.25% fixed rate of return, you can go to their website right now. It's invest, the letter Y, and then refi.com. That's investyrefi.com. Learn how you can earn this amazing return.

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All right. Continuing on with Steve Malloy. He is the founder and publisher of Junkscience.com. He'd done amazing work on the environmental movement, kind of the sham of the environmental movement. Steve, one of the things you've alluded to is the focus and panic on the left over CO2. Right.

One of the things – I work with candidates, as most folks know. One of the things I've always talked about with folks on our side is CO2 really isn't the enemy because there's a mechanism for the earth to deal with that.

There are other things we should be looking at. So why isn't CO2 our number one concern or shouldn't it be? And what are major concerns that we should be looking at to preserve and protect our environment? So I think the whole emissions-driven warming thing is a hoax. There is no scientific evidence that shows that emissions –

have really impacted our weather or climate at all. And when you're talking about CO2 in particular, it's carbon dioxide, it's plant food. It's colorless, it's odorless. People call it pollution. Even Nikki Haley called it pollution. It's not pollution, it's plant food. If there were no CO2 in the atmosphere, we'd all be dead because all the plants would be dead. And there have been times when there were

far more CO2 in the atmosphere than now. Sure. And there have, you know, for the most last 500,000 years, CO2 has been, you know, at that prehistoric level of about 280 parts per million. But, you know, places like, you know, Greenland were ice-free. Right.

100,000 years ago when CO2 was at 280, now it's at 420, and Greenland is still a frozen wasteland. CO2 is not important at all to the climate or weather. It's just the left that has made it this boogeyman.

In fact, it's plant food. We need more emissions. The earth now is greener than it's ever been as far as we can tell, and it's because of the warming we've had and the CO2. And that's good because we use that for – that's important for agriculture that we use to feed the world. What are constructive steps conservatives –

can take for the environment? We all want to live in a world of clean air, clean water, right? That's the one thing I think we all agree on. So what are steps you think we can take that are not part of this fairy tale narrative, this crisis that they put on us?

Okay, so when I started doing this 33 years ago, the environmentalists pretended to be concerned about a lot of issues in the environment. Today, everything has focused into climate because that's how they can achieve their end goal. That's where the money is, too. Right. But we do have real environmental problems like stormwater runoff.

like nutrient enrichment of, you know, rivers. You know, we're having groundwater depletion issues all over the place. So, I mean, these are real environmental problems that, you know, we should be addressing, which we could address with smart engineering and smart solutions. But we're not because all our, you know, public resources and attention go into wind farms, right?

Solar farms and EV nonsense. You know, we're spending, you know, Sam mentioned the money that all the hundreds of billions from the Inflation Reduction Act that are now going into this climate hoax. You know, if we're going to spend that money, and I'm not for the government just spending money willy-nilly, but if we're going to spend money like that, you know, we've got stormwater systems in every city that need to be fixed.

Instead of recycling, which has been a total failure, we should be building modern incinerators. We can burn trash for energy, and we won't have plastic bottles floating in the ocean. We won't have to export trash to Africa and Asia for them to throw in their rivers. Did you see the piece some guys in Canada did where they put GPS trackers in their plastic recyclables? No. No. Oh, yeah. It's brilliant because they track it right out into the ocean where it gets dumped. Right.

Yeah, yeah. We pay foreign countries to take our trash and to do something with it. And do they? Yeah, what they do is throw it in the rivers, which winds up in the ocean. I think even the New York Times or Bloomberg, I forget. I think, Sam, I sent you this a couple years ago, where China said they were not going to take any more of the recyclable stuff from Europe because –

They couldn't do anything with it. They have their own recyclable. When I was at the city of Phoenix, we found out that one of the plastic recycling companies we were using was literally taking their ship halfway out into the middle of the Pacific, dumping it and turning around and coming back with

With a different name. They were pretending one ship was two. That's great. Well, you know, the U.S. EPA admits only 8% of plastic is actually recycled. The rest of it just gets thrown away someplace. You know, we should just burn for energy. You know, we can do it cleanly. Yeah. And win-win. Okay. So let's just say...

There is a Republican nominee. I don't know if you're public or not, but let's say there's a Republican nominee for president. I'm letting you be objective here. So there's a Republican nominee for president and they bring you on as their environmental advisor.

What would you tell them that they should go and campaign on to let people know they care about the environment? So you'd like, for example, the stormwater systems is a perfect example. What would you tell them? Say, look, this is what you need to do to make our communities better.

and it fits the checkbox for people who want something done in the environment. Well, so, you know, water is really important to the agricultural communities in the West. In California, they need more water. They don't need to spend more money for water. They just need more water, and we could have more water. You know, we can desalinate from the Pacific Ocean, which could alleviate the groundwater problems we have. You know, there are technologies that we can help farmers reduce water

that will improve their crops and reduce the flow of fertilizers into rivers, which is crapping them up with algae. We need politicians to talk about real problems that we have and dismiss these fake problems. And it takes courage. I mean, I think someone like Donald Trump, for example, could do it. He's got the standing. He could challenge anything he wants because he does. Yeah.

But anybody could do it. You know, DeSantis could do it. And he talks about in Florida, they have real problems with the Everglades. So they're working on that. But none of that's got anything to do with wind farms and solar panels and climate nonsense. No, absolutely not. I was at Freedom Fest this year and RFK Jr. spoke. He spent 30 minutes, 40 minutes on environmental runoff, water runoff issues.

And he got a standing ovation from the room at the end. Well, sure, because you can fix it. That's the thing, too. You can literally fix it. I mean, look at the poor manatees in Florida. That's a runoff issue. Yeah. Right? Yeah. No, these problems can be fixed. There are technologies for it, but no one is interested. And the environmentalists have completely abandoned this because of climate.

And the long-term profits are not there for just fixing something and moving on. Steve Malloy, we want to thank you so much for joining us today. We definitely hope to have you back on the program in the future. This was fantastic. If, folks, you want to follow him, go to Junkscience.com or on Twitter, actually, at Junkscience.

Brilliant work that more folks need to be paying attention to because we can do a lot to improve our environment and protect it. We just have to stop paying attention to what the left wants us to do. Steve Malloy, thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate having you on the program. Thanks for having me. Breaking Battlegrounds. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Up next with us today, Aaron Sabarium, staff writer at the Washington Free Beacon, graduated from Yale University where he was the opinion editor of the Yale Daily News.

And prior to joining The Beacon was an editor at The American Interest. You can follow him on Twitter at Aaron Sabarium. And he has been leading really, quite frankly, the reporting on Claudine Gay and the scandal that has developed there with plagiarism and everything else that's been involved. Aaron Sabarium, thank you so much for joining us and welcome to the program.

Thank you for having me. So, Aaron, I have two questions to start off with, which have nothing to do with Claudine Gay. First of all, you went to Yale. Did you go as a young, high-minded progressive? Were you a little more nonpolitical when you started Yale? How did that metamorphosis happen for you?

I was probably somewhere in between. I would say I came into Yale like a center-left Democrat, you know, supporter of Barack Obama, critical of political correctness, thought free speech was important, things like that. But generally on most policy questions and in terms of political and tribal affiliation, certainly saw myself as more liberal than conservative. And being a student and a graduate of Yale...

Do you feel that if you had created plagiarism that has been cited for Miss Gay, would you have stayed in score? Would they have kicked you out?

Probably would have depended on the frequency, right? For any one of these cases, I don't think there'd be serious consequences. At worst, you might fail. Well, failing an assignment is pretty serious. You know, it's possible that the professor would just tell you, hey, you got to rewrite this paragraph. Don't do it again for a single case. But I can't imagine that...

50 different examples of plagiarism across numerous courses, I'm sure I would have been suspended at a minimum and possibly kicked out. Great. All right. Well, thank you for that. I just wanted to know that a little bit about your background and your opinion on that. Okay. So Claudine Gay has resigned. She has gone down and played the race card and other items. After her disastrous testimony with the MIT and the University of Pennsylvania presidents and the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania president resigned, like, what, four days after the hearings? Is that about right? Four or five days? Yeah, I think that's right. That's right. What brought about the plagiarism thing? I mean, how did this start? Because it just seemed to take like a snowball going downhill and gain more and more and more. How did this come about? Sure. So, I believe it was Sunday night before the Harvard Corporation was meeting to decide Claudine Gay's fate in the wake of that hearing. Christopher Ruffo publishes

a few of the initial allegations relating to Gay's dissertation. And then the following evening, I publish a piece that contains about a dozen cases and

uh, several more. These are all distinct from the examples of Rufo surface. Um, and from there, yeah, it kind of snowballs. Uh, there was a complaint lodged about a week later that details about 40 total allegations of plagiarism, including those that, uh, Rufo and I had already reported, um, as well as some, but the New York post had, uh, obtained, uh, and then, uh,

A week later, on January 1st, in the evening, I think it was about 7.30 p.m., we publish a follow-up story detailing six additional allegations, including some that are, I would say, on the more severe end of the ones that have been surfaced so far. Large chunks of text lifted without attribution. And then within 24 hours, she was gone after that January 1st report.

One thing I keep wondering about, Aaron, is it doesn't seem likely that Claudine Gay is the only example of these sort of very weak – I mean throwing away the plagiarism, her academic track record was incredibly weak for anyone to become a professor at Harvard in the first place, much less its president.

How much more of this is out there at all the rest of these universities? And I apologize, we only have about a minute left before we go to break, and then we're going to be coming back with more from you there. It's hard to know how common it is. I suspect it is more common than a lot of people realize, although I will say that the scope and scale of gay plagiarism is probably more severe than what I would expect a normal academic to have in their background.

Is this something that – the question I have, and we can talk about this actually when we come back here, but Chuck, you always like to talk about the need to have real journalists on the right. Correct. Is this something that highlights the need for more real investigative journalism on the right? Because I think a lot of times –

It just becomes a parrot trap of social media where people are not really doing the background investigation. So, Aaron, I want to get your thought on that when we come back here. Folks, stay tuned. We've got more from Aaron coming up. And then also be sure you stick around for our podcast segment and download that. Breaking Battlegrounds will be back in just a moment.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Folks, you've been hearing me talk about why refi for a while now. Why refi has been getting a ton of calls. And we thank you for supporting an investment that actually helps people. First off, let's get some facts. It's true. You can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return that's not correlated to the stock market. You can turn your income on or off, compound it, whatever you choose. There are absolutely no fees. And there's no attack on your principal if you need your money back. And you get your monthly statements every month. No surprises. And you get your monthly statements every month.

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I'm following up a little bit what Sam said. One thing that conservative conservatives are missing is true investigative journalism. We talked about this many times on the show. Just not enough of it. No, we just regurgitate what's on Twitter or something of that nature. And what you've done here is original investigative journalism.

Do you feel, A, we need more of that for moderates, right of center people? I'm not just talking about liberals, moderates, right of center. And how do we get conservative outlets to start putting more timing resources into investigative journalism?

need more of it. The right has historically really dominated at opinion and commentary, which has a role and is great, but it's not enough. And in fact, I'd argue that investigative journalism like this in particular, it

It just has far more of an impact than any one op ed or even detailed essay is ever going to have. There could be exceptions to that. But generally speaking, I do think investigative journalism is more. This becomes the base that creates the opportunity for that kind of commentary. Right. Right. I mean, so, for example, on this story.

How many hours, I mean, I'm giving a guess, because I'm sure you didn't keep it for a time card. How many hours did you spend researching, checking sources, things of that nature, to get this type of series of articles out since December 1st? A lot. I don't have an exact number, but it was very time intensive. And I will say, I am Jewish, so I don't have as much to do on the Christmas holidays as some people do. But I was...

You know, I took some breaks, but I was I was working over the holidays. And yeah, it's been pretty nonstop since since early December. My sister spent over 30 years at the Chicago Tribune. She she ended up as their lead photographer and she always referred to Christmas as Jews do the news. Yeah, that's that. That is definitely what happened in this case. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So, okay. So why did this story do you feel took off as it did versus –

There's been other stories, conservative push. They could be Fauci. They could be Hunter Biden's laptop. But why did this one? It seemed like everything just came to fruition on this from students at Harvard saying this isn't fair to donors. But there seem to be more donors. The University of Pennsylvania upset about this and Harvard donors. But why? Why did this come to fruition? Truly no mass protests on campus against this. I mean, not of the scale. There's some organized stuff, but not of that is a very good point. But why do you feel that is, Aaron?

Yeah, I think it was a few factors. One, as you say, the students did begin to really criticize her because it was just a very basic unfairness. Right. They are held to extraordinarily exacting standards for academic integrity that the school was willing to enforce.

just totally jettison for not merely a professor, but for the president of the entire institution. And I think that double standard was just unsustainable and everyone kind of knew it after a certain point. I think the other thing too is that in contrast to say Hunter Biden's laptop

which was initially dismissed unfairly, but dismissed as Russian disinformation by much of the media and the so-called disinformation experts. In this case, it was really impossible to perform a kind of dismissal or delegitimization like that because the evidence was just there for everyone to see. You could say, here is the page of Claudine Gay's work. Here's what she said. Here is the page of this other scholar's work. Here's what he said.

It's a visual. Yeah, it's a visual. You just couldn't ignore it. You couldn't ignore it. There was not any kind of plausible argument that could be used to undermine the authenticity. Right. In a meme culture we're in now, it fits that mindset. Look, it's just look on the left, look on the right. As simple as that.

Doesn't take rocket science to look it over. Yeah, no, exactly. Exactly. And I actually, although the donor revolt, I'm sure didn't help. I, as you say, it was really a bigger factor, I think, at UCAN than at Harvard. And it's interesting to ponder the counterfactual of what would have happened without the congressional testimony and the blowback over anti-Semitism with the plagiarism allegations have been sufficient on their own.

Who knows? But I don't think it's obvious that they wouldn't have been. I mean, I think the double the double standard was so glaring that even if she hadn't already been under fire or how she handled questions about anti-Semitism.

I think this would have been a real issue for her. And it's worth noting that other professors have resigned. Presidents of universities have resigned for academic integrity issues. Right. There was a guy at the University of South Carolina, I believe the president resigned for plagiarizing a speech. And then more recently, the president of Stanford resigned over.

issues of alleged data manipulation or fraud in his research. So, you know, it's not unheard of for a scandal like this to foul a university president. Do you think Ms. Gay could have kept her job if she'd just come right out and said, I did this, it was a mistake, it's not what's my intention, and been more humble about it instead of coming out and

saying things like, you know, people are recycling tired racial stereotypes about black talent. I mean, she wants to take no responsibility. There's no humility in this. There's no meekness in this. Do you feel like if she had handled that differently, the Harvard Corporation board would have just said, we're sticking with her? Yes, but I actually think the Harvard Corporation is a big part of the problem here, too, right? Because it was

It was Gay and the Harvard Corporation who together retained this high-powered law firm, Claire Locke, to threaten the New York Post to suppress the story. And my sense is that that also really did play a role here because there were a lot of faculty who –

you know, the way it was framed initially was, oh, we did this review and Gaye owned up to her mistakes and is making corrections. Oh, it's fine. But then it turned out, oh, actually, that's not what she did. She and the Harvard Corporation conspired to suppress the story through a bogus defamation threat. I think that revelation eroded a lot of goodwill she may have formerly had among faculty members. And yeah, it's worth emphasizing that legal threat that

that didn't just come from harvard in the abstract the the letter that the new york post published uh threatening to sue for defamation that letter says that you know the harvard corporation and claudine gay are of the opinion that these allegations are false and would constitute irreparable harm so it's clear that she was in on that legal threat um and i think that

That's not just not taking responsibility. That's actively trying to avoid accountability for your action. Right. Is it concerning at all? One of the things I've seen up close here in Arizona is that Arizona State University really functions more as a high-powered developer than a university in some sense. It's sort of a science university on one end and a developer on the other end.

Is it concerning that we're talking about Harvard Corporation Board and no one seems to think that that might not be appropriate in education? Yeah, I think I think that's a very good point. And part of the the subtext to this drama that hasn't really been emphasized sufficiently is that, yeah.

Claudine Gay was really a professional administrator. She was groomed for high-level administrative positions for a long time. That's part of why she's produced so little scholarship. And I would say that the...

Part of the issue here is that she's sort of an avatar for a huge transformation of the university where these administrative tracks, the very possibility of professional administration, this wasn't a career path 50 years ago because there weren't so many administrators. And the bloat, the bureaucratic bloat is in part a function of universities coming to see themselves as businesses and also to some extent,

a function of students and policymakers coming to see them as businesses and treating them that way. But I think that is a big part of the problem here. And, you know, what I find, just speaking for myself, sort of so scandalous about the Claudine Gay affair is that, you know,

She sort of represents, I think, through her violations of these scholarly norms against plagiarism, she kind of represents and epitomizes the way in which the growth of administration and the corporatization of the university has surpassed

supplanted scholarship and kind of diverted resources from it. I mean, I think these two things are our intention, the kind of corporate model of the university and traditional virtues of scholarship. And I hope that this story does serve indirectly

make the public aware of that tension, because I think it's a really, really big problem. Oh, it's crucial. Have we seen the type of anti-Semitism we've seen at Harvard and University of Pennsylvania and other universities? Have we seen that at Yale? I mean, let me give you an opportunity to plug Yale here. Have you seen it at Yale? Have they had that problem? Well, I...

You know, some people have asked me what you're reporting on Harvard motivated by a Yale-y desire to... I hope so. I hope so. Well, unfortunately, I have to disappoint you and say no. I'm actually an equal opportunity hater of the Ivy League. I have written a lot of stories that have hurt my alma mater, including there actually was some low-level scandal at Yale Law School where there were some pretty brazen double standards around anti-Semitic speech. But

- Yeah, I mean, it seems to me that at Yale and some other places,

You've seen double standards, but you haven't seen anything like the controversies at Penn or Harvard over the past couple months. It seems to me that at Yale, it really took the form more of just some obnoxious protests, and universities maybe didn't issue statements as promptly as they should have or responded with the moral clarity some might have liked. But

There really was not any kind of huge showdown the way that there was at Harvard. And I don't know if that's just luck or if that's because they handled it. The administrators at Yale were a little more confident. But whatever the case may be, it's clear that Harvard –

I mean, Harvard really screwed this one up. Well, they're not used to being questioned. I mean, they're not used to being questioned. They're elite institutions. We're supposed to bow to what they say. And their leaders aren't used to being questioned, the board members and that. As we wrap up here, we've got about two and a half minutes. I want to talk about Yale for a minute because you had the experience. You went to one of the top universities in the world. It's just not the country, the world. What would people be surprised about?

about the students who go to Yale as undergraduates? What would surprise them? Because a lot of people don't know someone... Well, we all know someone who goes to Harvard because they tell you 20 times. But most people from Yale don't tell you, right? So you've got two minutes left here. I don't know about that. I don't know about that. But maybe Yalies are...

Maybe Yale undergrads are a modicum more modest than Harvard undergrads. I think at the law school level, it's the opposite. Harvard law grads are more modest than Yale law grads. Yale law grads may be the most insufferable. I was going to say, Chuck, I've had a lot of Yale rings flashed at me over the years here. But what would – we've got 800,000 listeners on our radio show. What would our audience –

be surprised about that the students who go to this, Yale, for example, what are the students like? Well, what I would say is that probably the majority of them are not the really crazy ones who are responsible for these scandals. There's a large kind of silent, maybe not majority, but at least plurality of students who I think are vaguely apolitical. Maybe they're a mean center left, but they're not activists. And they probably privately think that a lot of this stuff is bullshit.

But they tend to be silent. They tend to be very responsive to social incentives. And so a lot of what you're seeing at these places is a kind of preference falsification cascade where everyone supports the woke virtue signaling for professional reasons, but there's not actually that much deeply felt support for it. I mean, I think that is an important point.

dynamic. Absolutely. Aaron Sabarium, thank you so much for joining us today, folks. You can follow his work at freebeacon.com. You can also check him out on Twitter at Aaron Sabarium. Aaron, we really appreciate having you and look forward to having you back on the program in the future.

Awesome. Thank you so much. Folks, Breaking Battlegrounds will be back on the air next week, but be sure to download and tune in for our podcast segment because we always have a good discussion. And you don't want to miss Kipper's Corner, Breaking Battlegrounds, back on the air next week.

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Welcome back to the podcast segment of Breaking Battlegrounds. I want to thank both of our guests today, Aaron Sabarian doing great work over at the Washington Free Beacon on the Claudian Gay Story and many others. Need more investigative reporters like him on the right? Well, it would make a difference for the narrative of the country. So, for example, you and I have talked about this. If conservatives are serious about changing the narrative of America,

We need to go sponsor conservatives to get journalism degrees and then they need to go work at actual daily newspapers or do investigative reporting because that's what sets the menu of what local newscasts talk about. That creates almost almost everything else. I mean, interestingly, like J.D. Vance, his entire rise comes from Hillbilly Elegy. Correct. That book was essentially a couple hundred pages of investigative reporting that no one else was doing.

And no one cared about. And no one cared about. And nor do they still care about it. And yet, well, they don't, but that has changed the national conversation and raised his profile to a very different level. We're talking about...

These deaths of despair, fentanyl, meth and all these other. We're talking about that in a way we weren't before he jumped into that frame. You know, going on, following up on our conversation we just had, there's a story out in Newsweek by Sean O'Driscoll. He is a senior crime and courts reporter. So the University of Washington has revealed that.

that an internal whistleblower exposed discrimination against white and Asian job candidates in the psychology faculty. The internal report found that third place job applicant, who is black, was given a tenure track assistant professor job last April above a white and Asian candidate who were ranked higher in the selection process.

And they talked about through this whistleblower how they were trying to see how we get around the Supreme Court hearing. You had one of the professors who was black saying, I don't want any white people on this committee. I mean, horrible. And I think that happens a lot. I have no doubt it happens all the time, especially universities, but also now corporate settings. It's happening. You know, here's the problem. And if you're a and I've had this conversation with

some black friends who are very high achieving people, right? The problem is now DEI is affirmative action on steroids. I mean, it's just taking this concept to a whole nother level. They said, when I walk in a room,

I I'm insecure because I know a bunch of people in there look at me and think I'm one of those who didn't deserve to be here. That's a good point. That's a good point that I mean, this Newsweek article continues. The report also said a member of the faculty of color did not want any white women at the meeting.

and complained that the interviews were awkward when there was a white candidate. The names of everyone involved was redacted from the University of Washington report. Furthermore, as a person who has been on both sides of the table of these meetings, this is the faculty of color, I have really appreciated them, the person wrote an email, but when the candidate is white, it is just awkward. The last meeting was uncomfortable, and I would go so far as burdensome for me. Can we change the policy to not do these going forward with white faculty?

What is that? What that is is a horrible racist human being hiding behind DEI. They're black. I mean, this isn't about skin color. This is about the content of their character, and they're failing the Martin Luther King test entirely.

It's just horrible. And look, I think we all agree, Kylie does as well, that we want America to be best. I want our elite institutions to be elite, but I want them to have a diversity of ideology and thoughts. That's what learning is about. I want everything in America to be number one. I'm a total homer for America.

The way they're pursuing it is not the correct way of making us the best for generations to come. No. And so much of this, you know, I wonder how much of this comes back to the child rearing theories that came out of the 70s and the 80s where, you know, every kid is special and this, that and the other thing. And I just wonder if we've reached the point where some of these systems are not savable anymore. Right.

Because the Claudine gave resignation, firing, whatever you want to call it. She is the tip of a giant iceberg at Harvard of this DEI garbage. And they're not talking about extracting that iceberg and breaking it up. No. And it's one of a herd. It's a herd of icebergs from all these universities, these corporations, everything else. This fight has to break all of that up to win. Yeah.

Well, as we talked to Erin about, I am convinced if she had been more humble, Claudine Gay, and showed some meekness amid wrongdoing, I think she would still be president of Harvard today. And she would have got the benefit of the doubt on that. I think she would have. The difference is that the DEI practice and principle does not allow for humility on the part of its practitioners. I agree. I agree. But a normal person under situation, if she had practiced meekness and humility—

I think she would still be president of Harvard. But it's okay. She's still getting $900,000 a year. It would have been the first time in her professional life she had practiced that, those things. So Kylie, I think we're going to fire you and give you $900,000. Are you okay with that deal? Deal, deal, deal. All right. I'm taking it. Do I still have to do my Kylie corner? We are here today with Kylie's corner. By the way, her name is now Kylie Kipper Campbell because she was a bride, which we talked about in the show last week. Yeah.

And congratulations. Thank you, thank you. We're very excited for her and him. But we're back. We're back. We're back with Kylie's Corner. What have we got today? Well, I was trying to be happy today, and then I got a...

Then you open the news. On a different rampage, yeah. I just have a feeling that this year is going to be like the year of prison releases because we've already seen two large ones. So today, this morning, January 5th, we had the release of the world-famous double amputee Olympian Oscar Pistorius. Oh, yes. It was released this morning. Killed his girlfriend, shot her, said he didn't know. Yeah, well, they were in an argument and he shot her and said it was an accident. Not sure how that happens, but...

I'm not here to judge. He got out after serving nine years. It's okay to judge. He was convicted of murder. So we can just call. Yeah, wait a minute. I'm sitting here like, the guy's a murderer.

This next case, you know. But what I really want to talk about was Gypsy Rose Blanchard because she has a new documentary coming out today, January 5th. Just going to put that out there in case you're listening to it later. You can watch it. But this case caught my attention in 2017 after watching the documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest. And if you guys don't know who she is, she was just served and released after eight years of

in prison for killing convincing her online boyfriend to come over and kill her mom but her mom psychologist said had the disorder um munchausen syndrome by proxy which is where

The guardian or parent exaggerates or invents a child's illness. Yeah, they can put them through hell. Yeah. And I mean, watch the documentary. It's crazy, but she would get like surgeries. They would shave her head. She had like a feeding tube most of her life. They would chain her to the bed and beat her because like anytime she would try to push back. And so she ended up she got this online boyfriend. I don't because she did watch the documentary. That's all I have to say. She has this online boyfriend convinced him to come over and stab him.

her mom to death while she hid in the bathroom. And she was released after eight years. The

serving life in prison without parole. And when asked about that, she goes, well, I'm sure we both have a lot of regrets. All I can say is that I did my time and he's doing his time for his part and I wish him well on his journey. Oh, wow. Wish him well in his journey. However, she in jail got happily married, apparently, in 2022 to

to a gentleman named Ryan Anderson, who was a middle school special education teacher in Louisiana.

After watching his documentary, he was talking. This does not make me more confident about our schools. I know. This is what scared me too. But after talking to a colleague, they had said they were writing letters to Joe Exotic from Tiger King on Netflix as well while he was in jail and convinced him to write letters. I don't know if he convinced him or he was just like, I'm going to start writing letters to Gypsy Rose. And after that, they just had this amazing emotional connection. And they got married after two years of writing letters together.

Do you feel she was justified and could make a justification for her having her mom killed?

Her mom sounds horrible. Her mom sounds like a horrible person. I got to be honest, Chuck. Yeah, I mean, I would have been a very sympathetic juror on this. You know the part I don't sympathize with is bringing someone else into it. I agree. I would have actually felt she was justified in killing her mother. Yeah, she did herself. I think she deserves the life for doing that, for bringing somebody else in. Now, he's a fool, but I wish him well. Right. On his journey. On his journey. That's what I'm thinking. I'm like, he had to have, because she was on a lot of avoidance.

opioids and drugs and whatnot where, you know, who knows what he was on or whatever. But like,

He essentially was just like a random person that was listening to what she was saying. So he probably has some sort of mental illness as well. I might assume that maybe Ryan Anderson does as well. I mean, if you kill somebody because of an online relationship, you're not sane. Yes, because they had her controlled. So she wasn't allowed to see this boy in person or anything like that. These prison relationships fascinate me. Me too. I think we discussed it before, but I don't understand the draw.

She apparently got many letters, lots of people writing to her and expressing their love. I don't remember this much. Is she attractive? Is that part of the thing? No. Hot women in prison are a thing. Hot men in prison are apparently a thing, too. They're not my type. Right now, Kylie of Kylie Corner is sharing the photo with Sam.

Yeah, no. Look, if you bumped into him on the street, I mean, he looks like a nice guy. I mean, I imagine there's probably going to be like a TV. They're going to get a TV show because everyone is so fascinated by this. And she has a book coming out as well. And it's weird that they're fascinated by it.

I mean, if all the murder type cases out, I find this the least interesting. So I think also she's also really entertaining social media. So when she went, she plays it. She plays it. Yeah. Like she, she posted, you know, people are just really jealous because he has, he pleases her every night in a much more graphic way. She said that, um,

But they're like very open about posting everything on social media and celebrating. So I think like, and just writing crazy things. But prior to this, she didn't have social media, right? Like it was almost really a thing. We really are, do really do have a voyeuristic society. Yes. I mean, I, I mean, I just, I mean, I, I, she's on feet stories about her on the feed and there's some publications that I just block because I don't want to see it or hide the story. But then there's other things I like to get, you know, because so it comes to like,

Like, I like to get people on my feed because it has interesting stories, right? Sometimes. Right, right. And they're short, right? Half of it's nasty. Yeah, but the other half is interesting, right? You know? Sure. So, anyway. So, yeah. Um...

That happened. We might see woolly mammoths also in 2024. We'll see. So next week, let's talk about... Wait, wait, wait. That one just went flying right by. We're going to have woolly mammoths in 2024? Supposedly. What? Well, I can't talk about this because in our first two segments, we're all talking about...

But suppose there's a group that's trying to bring back woolly mammoths and recreate embryos from past genetics. Like Jurassic Park? Yeah, basically. And then put them into the Indian elephant because they are 99.6%...

similar to the woolly mammoth and then it'll take 22 months for them to birth a woolly mammoth but the whole point is to put them back in the arctic to offset carbon emissions here's the problem is how will they commit how will they offset carbon emissions the woolly mammoth i have no idea well okay so let's cover that next week right yeah right uh here's my thing about this what you're gonna what you're gonna have is some di promoted biologist yep

who gets involved with this, accidentally crosses a woolly mammoth with a saber-toothed tiger with an African elephant, we're all going to get eaten. Yeah. Well, they've raised $225 million for this. $225 million? Yep. You know, that type of thing. I've got to be a woolly mammoth. Well, yeah, but I've got to tell you, I'm finishing up the book by Michael Lewis on Sam Bankman on the FTX scandal.

Um, first of all, I think Michael Lewis has been unfairly criticized through the book. He just raises questions about how weird this guy is the whole time. So just because you go and you, you spend a year with the guy interviewing him and you have a relationship doesn't mean you don't think he's weird. And it's very clear in this book. He thought he was weird. Right. Um, but you know, there's the altruistic altruistic giving, right. Which is what supposedly really got it into him. And I think he believed it to begin with. Right. Right. Um,

So when I hear things like this, $225 million, you know what $225 million could do for some bunch of kids in Nigeria? Right. I mean, that's what offends me. How about a bunch of kids here? Yeah, I mean, that just offends me. Yeah. I mean, that stuff offends me. That's ridiculous. I mean, you know it's just some rich...

second, third generation wealthy person who has nothing better to do and say, oh my goodness, let's do the woolly mammoth down in the Arctic. I am only a third of the way into that book, so do not give away anything. But am I right so far what you've written on it? No, you are. I would also add...

I'm starting to take away that I think it's his mom, Bankman Freak's mom. Yeah, so I am not a big fan of the parents after I read it. No. I think they should be held ten times more culpable than they are. I really have started, and obviously I got two-thirds of the book still left to go, but my first impression is, boy, that woman is the center of this problem. It doesn't get better.

She doesn't get better at it. I wouldn't. So what do we learn today, as Howard Stern would say? We learn, first of all, that Republicans should be looking at wastewater. Yes. And we really should make this an issue because that's one of those local issues, too. Yeah, groundwater pollution, chemical runoffs, microbeads. By the way, it's one of the things I've really gone through my bath products and removed everything with plastic microbeads. Oh, you're such a hypocrite.

And then two, we learned what we also learned. Our water systems are not designed to deal with them. I know. I know. I mean, why don't you make a list and Kylie put on our social media? Let's let's be the environmental friendly. OK, so we also learned today that he's giving me a dubious look. We also learned today we need more conservative investigative reporters because they really can change the narrative. Makes a big difference. It makes a big difference. It's.

Aaron Sabarium's comment that, hey, we've generally been pretty good at the opinion side of this. Right, which we all read and share with each other who already agree with the position. Right, exactly.

But those opinions, you need the foundational work of investigative journalism to inform those opinions and create the issues like this one. Well, you do. But the thing is, like the opinion pieces, and there's some very good ones. I mean, anybody go to Wall Street Journal every day, they have a great opinion piece, right? The problem is it is shared. You're not sharing it with your left-leaning friends. They're like, oh, well, I didn't think about that.

But the investigative journalist side on this, of Claudine Gay, changed minds. Well, and it forces coverage by even the major left-leaning networks, as much as they don't want to. And then we learned that University of Washington is a train wreck up there, apparently. I've kind of assumed that for a while because of Washington. And we've learned that we're a voyeuristic nation, and if you really want to meet your soulmate, there's a lot of people in prison that can help you out here. Yeah. Lots of people.

Lots of options. Including the Tiger King. Your fish is out there. Folks, this is Breaking Battlegrounds. Please follow us on BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. Anywhere you get your podcasts, please share it. We found out today we're the 39th most popular political podcast, and that is very exciting for us. It's huge. It's a huge deal. We haven't even hit 200 episodes yet. Well, and we're just a couple, you know, we're three people from, well, four, Jeremy. I'm not leaving Jeremy out.

We're just four random people from Phoenix, Arizona, having fun on the air and informing ourselves along the way. Three random dudes and Miss Campbell. Yep. All right, folks. If we didn't have this, if we didn't have her, we'd definitely be getting sued right now. Yeah, exactly. Folks, we hope you have a great weekend. We'll see you next week.