Panel: House rules package will ‘test’ how Republicans will govern

NBC News Jan 9, 2023

After electing a speaker, House Republicans are now turning to the task of governing. Jeff Mason, Symone Sanders-Townsend and Doug Heye join the Meet the Press NOW roundtable to discuss the challenges Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will face as speaker.

Hawley is a ‘fraud and a coward’, says Democratic challenger

MSNBC Jan 9, 2023

Democratic Senate candidate from Missouri, Lucas Kunce, joins Morning Joe to discuss his challenge against Republican Sen. Josh Hawley and why he says Missouri is the frontline for democracy.

Ralph Nader | Unchecked CORPORATE Power

Chris Hedges Fan Club Jan 9, 2023
Ralph Nader (/ˈneɪdər/; born February 27, 1934) is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes.

The son of Lebanese immigrants to the United States, Nader attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School. He first came to prominence in 1965 with the publication of the bestselling book Unsafe at Any Speed, a highly influential critique of the safety record of American automobile manufacturers. Following the publication of Unsafe at Any Speed, Nader led a group of volunteer law students—dubbed “Nader’s Raiders”—in an investigation of the Federal Trade Commission, leading directly to that agency’s overhaul and reform. In the 1970s, Nader leveraged his growing popularity to establish a number of advocacy and watchdog groups including the Public Interest Research Group, the Center for Auto Safety, and Public Citizen. Two of Nader’s most notable targets were the Chevy Corvair and the Ford Pinto.

Nader made four bids to become President of the United States, running with the Green Party in 1996 and 2000, the Reform Party in 2004, and as an independent in 2008. In each campaign, Nader said he sought to highlight under-reported issues and a perceived need for electoral reform. He received nearly three million votes during his 2000 candidacy, but also stirred controversy over allegations that his campaign helped Republican candidate George W. Bush win a close election against Democratic candidate Al Gore.

A two-time Nieman Fellow, Nader is the author or co-author of more than two dozen books and was the subject of a documentary film on his life and work, An Unreasonable Man, which debuted at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. He has been repeatedly named to lists of the “100 Most Influential Americans”, including those published by Life, Time, and The Atlantic. The New York Times described him as a “dissident”.

See related:

• Thought & Work of Ralph Nader
• The Wit and Wisdom of Noam Chomsky

Cornel West Explains Why He’s Leaving Harvard | The Mehdi Hasan Show

MSNBC On Peacock Jul 14, 2021
As schools are being ripped apart by rows over racism, professor Cornel West joins Mehdi to talk about his decision to resign from Harvard University.

Professor Cornel West on why he left Harvard over tenure dispute

ABC News Mar 9, 2021

ABC News’ Linsey Davis speaks with Dr. Cornel West about why he chose to leave Harvard after a dispute over being denied tenure, and about how to increase diversity in academia.

Harvard names Claudine Gay 30th president – Harvard Gazette

Date December 15, 2022

Claudine Gay, a widely admired higher education leader and distinguished scholar of democracy and political participation, will become the 30th president of Harvard University on July 1.

Since 2018, Gay has served as the Edgerley Family Dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), the University’s largest and most academically diverse faculty, spanning the biological and physical sciences and engineering, the social sciences, and the humanities and arts. As dean, she has guided efforts to expand student access and opportunity, spur excellence and innovation in teaching and research, enhance aspects of academic culture, and bring new emphasis and energy to areas such as quantum science and engineering; climate change; ethnicity, indigeneity, and migration; and the humanities. She has successfully led FAS through the COVID pandemic, consistently and effectively prioritizing the dual goals of safeguarding community health and sustaining academic continuity and progress. The disruptive effects of the crisis notwithstanding, she has also launched and led an ambitious, inclusive, and faculty-driven strategic planning process, intended to take a fresh look at fundamental aspects of academic structures, resources, and operations in FAS and to advance academic excellence in the years ahead.

The daughter of Haitian immigrants, Gay received her bachelor’s degree in 1992 from Stanford, where she majored in economics and was awarded the Anna Laura Myers Prize for best undergraduate thesis. In 1998, she received her Ph.D. in government from Harvard, where she won the Toppan Prize for best dissertation in political science. A quantitative social scientist with expertise in political behavior, Gay served as an assistant professor and then tenured associate professor at Stanford before being recruited to Harvard in 2006 as a professor of government. She was also appointed a professor of African and African American Studies in 2007. She was named the Wilbur A. Cowett Professor of Government in 2015, when she also became dean of social science at FAS.

“Claudine is a remarkable leader who is profoundly devoted to sustaining and enhancing Harvard’s academic excellence, to championing both the value and the values of higher education and research, to expanding opportunity, and to strengthening Harvard as a fount of ideas and a force for good in the world,” said Penny Pritzker, senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation and chair of Harvard’s presidential search committee. “As the Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences since 2018, and previously as dean of social science, Claudine has brought to her roles a rare blend of incisiveness and inclusiveness, intellectual range and strategic savvy, institutional ambition and personal humility, a respect for enduring ideals, and a talent for catalyzing change. She has a bedrock commitment to free inquiry and expression, as well as a deep appreciation for the diverse voices and views that are the lifeblood of a university community.

“As her many admirers know, Claudine consults widely; she listens attentively; she thinks rigorously and imaginatively; she invites collaboration and resists complacency; and she acts with conviction and purpose,” continued Pritzker. “All of us on the search committee are excited by the prospect of her bringing her high aspirations and interdisciplinary outlook across the Yard from University Hall to Massachusetts Hall. We are confident Claudine will be a thoughtful, principled, and inspiring president for all of Harvard, dedicated to helping each of our individual Schools to thrive, as well as fostering creative connections among them. She is someone intent on affirming the power of curiosity-driven learning. And she is someone eager to integrate and elevate Harvard’s efforts — throughout the arts and sciences and across the professions — to address complex challenges in the wider world.

“For all her professional accomplishments, even more impressive are Claudine’s personal qualities — her quality and clarity of mind, her broad curiosity about fields beyond her own, her integrity and fair-mindedness, and her dedication to creating opportunities for others. She will be a great Harvard president in no small part because she is such a good person,” said Pritzker.

… (Read more).

See related:

• Harvard names Claudine Gay 30th president
• Announcing Harvard’s 30th president – Claudine Gay
• Harvard Faces Outcry for Rescinding Post to Ex-Head of Human Rights Watch over Criticism of Israel
• Why the Godfather of Human Rights Is Not Welcome at Harvard | The Nation
• Professor Cornel West on why he left Harvard over tenure dispute

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Harvard names Claudine Gay 30th president

Harvard University Dec 15, 2022

Claudine Gay, a widely admired higher education leader and distinguished scholar of democracy and political participation, will become the 30th president of Harvard University on July 1, 2023. Music courtesy of Extreme Music. “The Brave Trade” – Fleming, Naroth, Fingers

See related:

• Harvard names Claudine Gay 30th president – Harvard Gazette
• Announcing Harvard’s 30th president – Claudine Gay
• Why the Godfather of Human Rights Is Not Welcome at Harvard | The Nation
• Harvard Faces Outcry for Rescinding Post to Ex-Head of Human Rights Watch over Criticism of Israel

Announcing Harvard’s 30th president – Claudine Gay

Coffee Time Dec 19, 2022

Learn English with Claudine Gay Announcing Harvard’s 30th president. Claudine Gay is a political scientist and university administrator. She serves as Harvard’s Wilbur A. Cowett Professor of Government and of African and African-American Studies, and Edgerley Family Dean of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. She is vice president of the Midwest Political Science Association. Gay’s research addresses American political behavior, including voter turnout and politics of race and identity. On December 15, 2022, Harvard announced that Gay had been selected as the 30th president of Harvard University, with her term beginning on July 1, 2023. She will be Harvard’s first black president. English Announcing with big subtitles make it even more enjoyable. Watch, learn, and share.

See related:

• Harvard names Claudine Gay 30th president
• Harvard Faces Outcry for Rescinding Post to Ex-Head of Human Rights Watch over Criticism of Israel
• Why the Godfather of Human Rights Is Not Welcome at Harvard | The Nation
• Professor Cornel West on why he left Harvard over tenure dispute

Why the Godfather of Human Rights Is Not Welcome at Harvard | The Nation

and

Soon after Kenneth Roth announced in April that he planned to step down as the head of Human Rights Watch, he was contacted by Sushma Raman, the executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Raman asked Roth if he would be interested in joining the center as a senior fellow. It seemed like a natural fit. In Roth’s nearly 30 years as the executive director of HRW, its budget had grown from $7 million to nearly $100 million, and its staff had gone from 60 to 550 people monitoring more than 100 countries. The “godfather” of human rights, The New York Times called him in a long, admiring overview of his career, noting that Roth “has been an unrelenting irritant to authoritarian governments, exposing human rights abuses with documented research reports that have become the group’s specialty.” HRW played a prominent role in establishing the International Criminal Court, and it helped secure the convictions of Charles Taylor of Liberia, Alberto Fujimori of Peru, and (in a tribunal for the former Yugoslavia) the Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.

Roth had been involved with the Carr Center since its founding in 1999. In 2004, he participated in a debate before 300 people with Michael Ignatieff, then its director, over whether the US invasion of Iraq qualified as a humanitarian intervention (Ignatieff said it did; Roth said it didn’t). The debate was moderated by Samantha Power, one of the center’s founders.

In a video conference with Raman and Mathias Risse, the Carr Center’s faculty director, Roth said he was indeed interested in becoming a fellow; he planned to write a book about his experience at HRW and how a relatively small group of people can move governments, and he could draw on the center’s research facilities. On May 7, Raman sent him a formal proposal, and on June 9, Roth agreed in principle to join the center. Raman sent the proposal to the office of Dean Douglas Elmendorf for approval in what was assumed to be a formality. On July 12, Roth had a video conversation with Elmendorf (a former senior economist at the Council of Economic Advisers and a director of the Congressional Budget Office) to introduce himself and answer any questions he might have.

Two weeks later, however, Elmendorf informed the Carr Center that Roth’s fellowship would not be approved.

The center was stunned. “We thought he would be a terrific fellow,” says Kathryn Sikkink, the Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School. A leading academic in the field, Sikkink has been affiliated with the Carr Center for nine years, and during that time nothing like this had ever happened. As she noted, the center has hosted other prominent human rights advocates, including William Schulz, the executive director of Amnesty International USA from 1994 to 2006, and Salil Shetty, the secretary general of Amnesty International from 2010 to 2018.

Sikkink was even more surprised by the dean’s explanation: Israel. Human Rights Watch, she was told, has an “anti-Israel bias”; Roth’s tweets on Israel were of particular concern. Sikkink was taken aback. In her own research, she had used HRW’s reports “all the time,” and while the organization had indeed been critical of Israel, it had also been critical of China, Saudi Arabia—even the United States.

…(read more).

See related:

• Professor Cornel West on why he left Harvard over tenure dispute
• Harvard Faces Outcry for Rescinding Post to Ex-Head of Human Rights Watch over Criticism of Israel

Democracy Now!

Jan 9, 2023

See related:

• Harvard Reverses Course on Human Rights Advocate Who Criticized Israel – The New York Times

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Reflecting on January 6th

Free Speech TV Jan 9, 2023

Randi reflects on the January 6th insurrection that occurred two years ago. The brave Capitol police are the ones to thank and respect as they upheld our Democracy at one of its worst times. Unfortunately, the ones who believe most on Jan 6th and the acts committed are now the House majority.