Dear Commons Community,

The Mayo Clinic News Network published an article by Heather Carlson Kehren,  earlier this week entitled, “Five ways that AI promises to transform organ transplants.”   It focuses on  the potential of artificial intelligence to become a valuable tool for organ transplants and to save more patients’ lives. Recent studies have already shown promise in using AI to analyze large sets of data to discover important trends and patterns. In this article, Mayo Clinic transplant experts share how this technology may improve outcomes for patients.  As reported in the Mayo Clinic News Network.

“Physicians once practiced medicine without CT scans and with only limited lab tests. Now, these tools are not only commonplace, but they are also critical to treatment decisions. I predict AI will also become an important decision-making tool for physicians,” says Mark Stegall, M.D., a Mayo Clinic transplant surgeon and researcher.

Here are five ways AI promises to improve transplant outcomes.

1. Preventing the need for a transplant

Research efforts are underway to use AI to detect organ failure earlier. AI also can be used to determine which early interventions delay the need for a transplant and, in some cases, prevent the need for one altogether.

“Transplantation is something that helps patients live longer, but it can be filled with potential complications. We always strive to discover ways to help patients recover on their own and have better quality and quantity of life,” says Rohan Goswami, M.D., a transplant cardiologist and director of heart transplant research at Mayo Clinic in Florida.

2. Better match organ donors and recipients

Matching organ donors and recipients is complex. There is hope that AI could help improve the matching process. AI also can help determine whether a donated organ would make for a successful transplant. A recent Mayo Clinic study demonstrated how an AI-based scoring system could be used to analyze transplanted kidney biopsies to determine inflammation levels, important information that helps indicate the health of the transplanted kidney.

3. Increasing the number of usable organs

Advances in transplant technology are helping expand the number of organs from deceased donors available for lifesaving transplants. Organ perfusion systems, which are a mechanical device that keep organs viable, allow more time for donor organs to survive outside the body before being transplanted. A study about the use of this new technology to improve organ use rates was recently published by Dr. Goswami and colleagues in the International Journal of Scientific Research. The hope is that AI will help transplant experts better understand which organs would benefit from these technologies before transplant, and which are not suitable for donation.

4. Preventing organ rejection

The risk of organ rejection is one of the biggest challenges in transplant medicine. Researchers are turning to AI to help identify patients most at risk for organ rejection. A recent Mayo study published in the European Heart Journal found that an electrocardiogram could potentially be used to predict the risk of low-grade rejection for heart transplant patients, potentially without requiring a biopsy. There is hope that these advances also will help prevent transplant patient deaths.

5. Improving care after transplant

To help prevent rejection, transplant patients are given immunosuppression medication. Because these medications can cause potentially harmful side effects, it is critical to determine the minimum dose necessary for patients to remain healthy. AI could one day be used to help determine how a patient’s body reacts to immunosuppression and guide when medications should be adjusted. A recent Mayo abstract at the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplant discussed the role of AI electrocardiographs as a predictor of high and at-risk patients after a heart transplant occurred. There is hope that AI could eventually make posttransplant care easier for patients, eliminating the need for routine biopsies and blood draws.

Experts stress that the success of AI depends upon the quality of the data it is based upon. The goal is not to replace a clinician’s expertise with AI, but to create another tool to ensure patients get the best care possible.

“We don’t use information blindly and will not follow AI tools blindly. One of the great hopes of AI decision tools is that they can help integrate many other tools, such as scans and labs, into a model that provides a fuller picture of the patient,” Dr. Stegall says.

Important commentary from the Mayo Clinic and the benefits of AI!

Tony

Gordon Moore

Dear Commons Community,

Gordon Moore, the Intel Corp. co-founder who set the breakneck pace of progress in the digital age with a simple 1965 prediction of how quickly engineers would boost the capacity of computer chips, has died. He was 94.

Moore, who held a Ph.D. in chemistry and physics, made his famous observation — now known as “Moore’s Law” — three years before he helped start Intel in 1968. It appeared among a number of articles about the future written for the now-defunct Electronics magazine by experts in various fields.

The prediction, which Moore said he plotted out on graph paper based on what had been happening with chips at the time, said the capacity and complexity of integrated circuits would double every year.

Strictly speaking, Moore’s observation referred to the doubling of transistors on a semiconductor. But over the years, it has been applied to hard drives, computer monitors and other electronic devices, holding that roughly every 18 months a new generation of products makes their predecessors obsolete.

It became a standard for the tech industry’s progress and innovation. As reported by the Associated Press.

“It’s the human spirit. It’s what made Silicon Valley,” Carver Mead, a retired California Institute of Technology computer scientist said in 2005.

Moore later became known for his philanthropy when he and his wife established the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, which focuses on environmental conservation, science, patient care and projects in the San Francisco Bay area. It has donated more than $5.1 billion to charitable causes since its founding in 2000.

“Those of us who have met and worked with Gordon will forever be inspired by his wisdom, humility and generosity,” foundation president Harvey Fineberg said in a statement.

Intel Chairman Frank Yeary called Moore a brilliant scientist and a leading American entrepreneur.

“It is impossible to imagine the world we live in today, with computing so essential to our lives, without the contributions of Gordon Moore,” he said.

In his book “Moore’s Law: The Life of Gordon Moore, Silicon Valley’s Quiet Revolutionary,” author David Brock called him “the most important thinker and doer in the story of silicon electronics.”

Moore was born in San Francisco on Jan. 3, 1929, and grew up in the tiny nearby coastal town of Pescadero. As a boy, he took a liking to chemistry sets. He attended San Jose State University, then transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, where he graduated with a degree in chemistry.

After getting his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1954, he worked briefly as a researcher at Johns Hopkins University.

His entry into microchips began when he went to work for William Shockley, who in 1956 shared the Nobel Prize for physics for his work inventing the transistor. Less than two years later, Moore and seven colleagues left Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory after growing tired of its namesake’s management practices.

The defection by the “traitorous eight,” as the group came to be called, planted the seeds for Silicon Valley’s renegade culture, in which engineers who disagreed with their colleagues didn’t hesitate to become competitors.

The Shockley defectors in 1957 created Fairchild Semiconductor, which became one of the first companies to manufacture the integrated circuit, a refinement of the transistor.

Fairchild supplied the chips that went into the first computers that astronauts used aboard spacecraft.

In 1968, Moore and Robert Noyce, one of the eight engineers who left Shockley, again struck out on their own. With $500,000 of their own money and the backing of venture capitalist Arthur Rock, they founded Intel, a name based on joining the words “integrated” and “electronics.”

Moore became Intel’s chief executive in 1975. His tenure as CEO ended in 1987, though he remained chairman for another 10 years. He was chairman emeritus from 1997 to 2006.

He received the National Medal of Technology from President George H.W. Bush in 1990 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush in 2002.

Despite his wealth and acclaim, Moore remained known for his modesty. In 2005, he referred to Moore’s Law as “a lucky guess that got a lot more publicity than it deserved.”

He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Betty, sons Kenneth and Steven, and four grandchildren.

May he rest in peace!

Tony

Michael Steele

Dear Commons Community,

Michael Steele, former chair of the Republican National Committee, hit the current GOP with a scathing question while guest-hosting Chris Hayes’ show on MSNBC last night.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Steele asked Republicans, as he examined the latest political developments on the Donald Trump-supporting right.

Steele suggested how national Republicans were subtly siding with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) ahead of his potential 2024 run for the GOP presidential nomination against Trump.

He then aired an old DeSantis ad of the governor praising Trump, contrasting it with the GOP book ban of “The Life of Rosa Parks” from schools in Duval County, Florida.

“There it is, the modern Republican Party in a nutshell: Reading MAGA B.S. to your kids while taking Rosa Parks out of our schools and libraries.”

Steele has it right!

Tony

Trump posts disturbing baseball bat photo with Alvin Bragg, threatens ‘death and destruction’

Dear Commons Community,

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post has a front page this morning showing an image of Donald Trump taking a bat to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.  Labeling Trump as deranged and crazy, the newspaper copied a picture that Trump posted earlier on his Truth  Social website. 

The front page states that “Having no shame or regret for stirring up a violent mob on January 6^th,  Donald Trump is now targeting Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who is considering an indictment against the former president.  Vowing ”death and destruction” Trump posted a picture of himself holding a baseball bat next to Bragg’s head.”

In addition to threatening “death and destruction” if he’s criminally charged in New York, Trump  raged in one post:

“They are HUMAN SCUM!” and asking why Bragg “refuses to do the right thing and ‘call it a day?’”

Here is an excerpt from a New York Post article.

Trump is seeking a rematch against President Biden in 2024 and previously used heated language ahead of actual violence — most notoriously on Jan. 6, 2021, when he told thousands of supporters to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell” to prevent certification of Biden’s Electoral College win, which they proceeded to do by smashing into the building and battling with police.

Trump shared the image of himself holding a baseball bat — with Bragg’s hands up — on his Truth Social platform Thursday as he devoted his day to attacking the prosecutor for pursuing a case over a “hush money” payout to porn star Stormy Daniels. The bat image was pulled from an article that he shared but was not removed.

The bat-wielding image was reminiscent of an infamous scene in the 1987 film “The Untouchables,” in which mob boss Al Capone, played by Robert De Niro, menacingly walks around a banquet table with a baseball bat, before mercilessly beating one of his thugs to death for failing him.

Trump, meanwhile, kept on raging until the early hours of Friday with continued incendiary name-calling.

“What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country?” he asked just after 1 a.m.

“Why & who would do such a thing? Only a degenerate psychopath that truely [sic] hates the USA!”

He continued posting until 2 a.m. — then started again after 9 a.m., writing: “PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT!”

Former President Donald Trump accused Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg of being a “degenerate psychopath” who “hates the USA” on Truth Social.

His latest images — especially the baseball bat image — quickly sparked a Bronx cheer online, with few coming out to bat for him.

CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen tweeted that “threatening a prosecutor is a crime in NY. In fact MULTIPLE crimes.”

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who testified for Trump’s defense during his first impeachment for pressuring Ukraine to investigate the Biden family, has repeatedly sought to warn the former president off threatening postings.

“[M]any of us have criticized the reported indictment as deeply flawed and politically motivated,” Turley tweeted Friday. “However, that will be addressed by the courts. The rule of law will be protected by the bench, not the bat, in our constitutional system.”

On Thursday, Turley blasted Trump for writing in all caps, “OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED, AS THEY TELL US TO BE PEACEFUL!”

“Given the violence on 1/6 and riots in various cities, our leaders have to avoid reckless rhetoric,” Turley wrote. “Being peaceful is not just a legal obligation but a civic duty of citizens.”

Others called Trump “a violent, Pathological criminal” who is “dangerous, unhinged, and running free to incite violence in America.”

“Enough really is f–king enough,” one person told their more than 90,000 followers.

Former MSNBC host Keith Olberman tagged the Justice Department as he raged: “ARREST TRUMP NOW.”

He accused Trump of having “issued repeated stochastic terrorist calls for his cult to ‘remove’ the ‘animal’ Alvin Bragg – and use a baseball bat.

“He’s trying to get this man killed. Period. Enough,” he told his 1 million followers, comparing Trump’s bat image to “a movie murder scene” and part of a plot “as disgusting as Charles Manson.”

He called the former president “an active, mortal threat” to those investigating him “and all witnesses involved,” saying he must be immediately busted with “no perp walk, no bail.”

Trump first said last week that he expected to be arrested on Tuesday, which came and went without any word of charges. Instead, the grand jury was postponed on both Wednesday and Thursday.

Manhattan prosecutors have been presenting evidence to the grand jury since late January in connection with the $130,000 hush money payment made to porn star Daniels shortly before Trump’s shocking victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, alleges she had an affair with Trump in 2006, which Trump has denied.

Former Trump lawyer and ex-con Michael Cohen alleges he made the payment at Trump’s direction. Bragg reportedly plans to charge the ex-president with falsifying business records for allegedly writing off the payment as “legal fees.”

Trump is a  pathetic  human being who should be in an asylum for the criminally insane.

Tony

Strike of Los Angeles Schools Goes into a Fourth Day!

Dear Commons Community,

Bus drivers shuttle America’s children to schools where cafeteria workers feed them and teacher aides assist students who need the most help.

And their pay is notoriously low. School support staffers earn, on average, about $25,000 a year in Los Angeles, barely enough to get by in one of the most expensive cities in America.

The pay is a driving factor behind a three-day strike that has shut down the entire Los Angeles school system and put a spotlight on the paltry pay of support staff that serves as the backbone of schools nationwide.

Even outside pricey California, the school gigs often don’t pay enough to live on.

Arthur Anderson, a school worker in Virginia, says it’s a shame it took a walkout to draw attention to the longstanding problem, but he hopes it helps.  As reported by the Associated Press.

“People are so frustrated. We all are,” said Anderson, a teacher’s assistant in the Chesapeake Public School System where he has worked for 30 years and makes $32,000. He works three other part-time jobs to make ends meet. “I struggle to pay my rent. I struggle to pay my bills,” he said. “I love what I do. I just don’t love what I get paid.”

Anderson works 36 hours as a special education aide in his school’s science department. But he is also asked to fill in as a bus driver and a custodian. When a science teacher is absent, he fills in as a substitute, which pays an extra $10 per class. “I did that today. I got an extra $20.”

The strike against the Los Angeles Unified School District that started Monday has been led by the teachers’ assistants, custodians and other support staff who are among the district’s lowest-paid workers. They’re demanding better wages and increased staffing. Teachers joined the picket lines, in a show of solidarity that forced the district to close schools in the nation’s second-largest district that serves a half million students.

School support staff around the country tell stories of spending entire careers in public education, filling jobs that keep schools functioning. Yet, many are not making a living wage and like the striking workers in Los Angeles cannot afford to live in the communities where they work.

“The issue in Los Angeles is not confined to Los Angeles. It’s an issue across the country and it has been decades in the making,” said Princess Moss, vice president of the National Education Association, which represents about half a million educational support staff. “It’s an injustice for these school employees who work so hard and do so much for our students.”

The NEA, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, last year released data that showed full-time school support staff earned an average salary of $32,800. Delaware had the highest salary for full-time K-12 support staff ($44,738), while Idaho had the lowest ($25,830), but salaries vary widely by state. They can also vary by metro area and even within school districts, depending on how long a person has been in a job.

Amid staff shortages exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, schools have struggled to hire during a strong labor market, adding to the burden on the staff that remain.

A RAND survey of school leaders last year found that around three-fourths of school leaders say they are trying to hire more substitutes, 58% are trying to hire more bus drivers and 43% are trying to hire more tutors. Shortages increase the stress on existing school staff, often without a commensurate increase in pay. In recent years, staff also have found themselves on the front lines of enforcing pandemic protocols or helping students struggling with their mental health or behavior.

More than half of the nation’s public schools started this school year feeling understaffed, with many struggling to fill key support staff jobs, especially in transportation and custodial work, according to an Education Department survey. Asked about the biggest challenges, roughly four in 10 said candidates felt the salary and benefits weren’t good enough, and more than half of schools said they weren’t getting enough applications.

Local 99 of the Service Employees International Union represents about 30,000 LAUSD teachers’ aides, special education assistants, bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria workers and other support staff. The union says many live in poverty because of low pay or limited work hours while struggling with inflation and the high cost of housing. Support staff, including many who work part-time, earn about $25,000 a year, according to the union, which is asking for a 30% raise.

The school district has offered a cumulative 23% raise, starting with 2% retroactive as of the 2020-21 school year and ending with 5% in 2024-25. The package would also include more full-time positions and an expansion of healthcare benefits. Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho has accused the union of refusing to negotiate and said that he was prepared to meet at any time.

Leaders of United Teachers of Los Angeles, which represents 35,000 educators, counselors and other staff, have pledged solidarity with the strikers.

“These are the co-workers that are the lowest-paid workers in our schools, and we cannot stand idly by as we consistently see them disrespected and mistreated by this district,” UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz told a news conference.

Experts say it is unusual for different unions in the same school district to band together but the unified labor action in Los Angeles could mark an inflection point.

“The idea of the teachers union and service personnel union saying we can do better if we stick together, could be a contagion in other communities looking and saying, ‘Hey, they did it in Los Angeles — maybe we can do it,’” said Lee Adler, a lecturer and expert on education union issues at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

It’s too soon to say if the Los Angeles strike could have a ripple effect. But people are paying attention.

“When something like this happens in a place like Los Angeles, people with similar jobs in places like Chicago or Detroit wonder whether they should be fussing more, or demanding more,” Adler said.

“When people see others stand up and fight they certainly get a little restless, and some think, ‘Could we do something like that to improve our lives?’”

Glad to see the teachers supporting the bus drivers, cafeteria works, and teaching aides.  The support staff deserve better.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Hope Carrasquilla,  the principal of Florida’s Tallahassee Classical School is out of a job after parents complained that their sixth-grade children were shown Michelangelo’s 16th century “David” sculpture, with one parent calling it “pornographic,” the Tallahassee Democrat reported.

Ms. Carrasquilla, told HuffPost the situation was also “a little more complicated than that,” noting that the usual protocol is to send parents a letter before students are shown such classical artwork.

Due to “a series of miscommunications,” the letter did not go out to the sixth-grade parents, and some complained, Carrasquilla said.

One parent was “point-blank upset,” Carrasquilla continued, and “felt her child should not be viewing those pieces.”

The board of the charter school decided Monday to give the principal the choice to resign or be fired after less than a year in the job. She was the school’s third principal since it opened in the fall of 2020, per the Tallahassee Democrat.

The move comes as conservatives in Florida and elsewhere battle to step up their input in primary education.

Michelangelo’s marble sculpture of the Biblical figure David was crafted between 1501 and 1504, originally commissioned for an Italian cathedral. It now resides at the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence.

Carrasquilla said she had taught in classical education for a decade and knew that “once in a while you get a parent who gets upset about Renaissance art” — hence the letter. She was not surprised by the reaction from the school board chair, Barney Bishop, but the fact that other board members went along with him was unexpected.

In a call with HuffPost, Bishop emphasized that the nude sculpture incident was one of multiple issues with Carrasquilla. He declined to go into specifics, citing advice from the school’s employment lawyers.

Bishop explained he was lobbying for legislation that would give parents even more input in primary education.

“Parental rights trump everything else,” Bishop said. He added that the pandemic’s remote teaching gave parents a clearer window into their children’s education and prompted some to choose schools like Tallahassee Classical.

“They didn’t like the woke indoctrination that was going on,” he said.

Bishop accused Carrasquilla of trying to “gin up a lot of publicity” by sharing her experience.

Carrasquilla said many other parents and faculty members were upset about her ouster and have been reaching out with support.

The Tallahassee school is a public charter institution that focuses on classical learning, a teaching philosophy centered on a traditional Western liberal arts education that aims to impart critical thinking skills children can use throughout their lives. Classical learning is also popular within the Christian homeschooling movement.

The Tallahassee Classical School is affiliated with Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian institution that has sought to expand its influence over the last decade by helping set up public charter schools. Hillsdale briefly cut ties with the Tallahassee school in early 2022 for not meeting improvement standards, but it later regained affiliation.

What nonsense!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Aren’t we all sick of hearing from this crybaby Donald Trump who whines about everything – the Democrats, the Justice Department, the Rhinos, Mitch McConnell, the media, etc.  Currently it is mostly about DAs, judges, and witnesses involved with his legal problems. Conservative commentator, George Will (above) said it well a couple of years ago about Trump’s self pity.  And to think this man was once the leader of our country.

Tony

Tirien A. Steinbach and Stuart Kyle Duncan

Dear Commons Community,

Tirien A. Steinbach, the Diversity Dean at Stanford’s law school who has drawn fire from right-wing pundits and free-speech activists over her actions during a federal judge’s recent disrupted speech, is now on leave. It’s not clear whether the school placed Steinbach on leave or she stepped aside voluntarily.

Jenny S. Martinez, the school’s dean, made the announcement yesterday in a detailed, 5,000-word letter to the campus community that also touched on free speech, academic freedom, institutional neutrality, the law, university policy, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.  As reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

In the letter, Martinez defended her decision to apologize to the federal judge, Stuart Kyle Duncan, for how students had behaved during his speech and to single out “staff members who should have enforced university policies” that bar disruption of campus events. Martinez’s comments apparently refer in part to Steinbach, who became a focal point during law students’ protest of Duncan’s speech, on March 9.

Martinez also said that law students would be required to take a half-day course on “the topic of freedom of speech and the norms of the legal profession” this spring, and that administrators would receive more training on the university’s disruption protocols.

Duncan, nominated by former President Donald J. Trump to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, had been invited by the school’s chapter of the Federalist Society, a conservative and libertarian group, for an event titled “The Fifth Circuit in Conversation With the Supreme Court: Covid, Guns, and Twitter.” In advance of Duncan’s speech, students opposed to his court decisions — including those that limited the rights of same-sex couples and denied transgender children access to the bathroom matching their gender identity — hung fliers around campus and said the society “should be ashamed” for inviting him.

At the speech, student protesters loudly interrupted Duncan and, according to some free-speech experts, censored him. Steinbach, the associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion, then intervened and talked to the room for roughly six minutes. She said she sympathized with students who believed that Duncan’s actions as a judge had been harmful. She also said that he had a right to speak.

Martinez seemed to take issue with two of Steinbach’s comments. When a disruption occurs during a speech on campus, Martinez wrote in the letter, “the administrator who responds should not insert themselves into the debate with their own criticism of the speaker’s views.”

Secondly, it would be inappropriate, Martinez said, for an administrator to suggest “that the speaker reconsider whether what they plan to say is worth saying.” That point appeared to cite a refrain that Steinbach repeated several times: “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”

A Stanford University spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment yesterday about the circumstances of Steinbach’s leave.

The scene featuring Steinbach and Duncan — captured on video and audio — has been thoroughly scrutinized within and outside of higher ed for two weeks.

While speaking to the room, Steinbach explained that Duncan’s views had made her uncomfortable. “For many people in this law school who work here, who study here, and who live here, your advocacy, your opinions from the bench, land as absolute disenfranchisement of their rights,” she said to Duncan.

She also questioned whether it was worth letting Duncan speak, given the division it had spurred among students. She acknowledged the student protesters and mused that they might be right to suggest that Stanford’s free-speech policy should change. She also defended the existing policy.

“And I do want to hear your remarks, and I do want to say thank you for protecting the free speech that we value here of our speakers and of our protesters, and I want to remind you all of one thing: I chose to be here today. You all chose to be here today,” Steinbach said. “You can stay if this is where you want to be right now. But make that choice.”

Afterward, some student protesters left the room, and the event continued, ending roughly 40 minutes earlier than planned. In an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal, Duncan wrote that after Steinbach spoke, he opened the floor for comments and questions rather than finish his prepared remarks.

“The protesters showed not the foggiest grasp of the basic concepts of legal discourse: That one must meet reason with reason, not power. That jeering contempt is the opposite of persuasion. That the law protects the speaker from the mob, not the mob from the speaker,” Duncan wrote. “Worst of all, Ms. Steinbach’s remarks made clear she is proud that Stanford students are being taught this is the way law should be.”

Major news outlets have covered and published opinions on the fallout, including Newsweek, the Daily Mail, the New York Post, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, USA Today, Fox News, and other publications. A moving billboard, which appears to have been funded by Accuracy in Media, a nonprofit conservative news watchdog, called for Steinbach to be fired.

“Tirien Steinbach uses fascist tactics to bully others,” the billboard said. “Stanford, stand up for REAL inclusivity!”

In the days after the event, Martinez, the law dean, and Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Stanford’s president, apologized to Duncan. Martinez also sent an email to the law school and to its alumni, assuring them that “the way the event with Judge Duncan unfolded was not aligned with our institutional commitment to freedom of speech.” Administrators’ decision to apologize drew condemnation from several student groups and prompted dozens of students to hold a protest outside of Martinez’s class.

Stanford students have argued that they had a free-speech right to protest Duncan. But in her Wednesday letter, Martinez said some students’ sustained heckling had violated the law school’s disruption policy. Enforcement of that policy, Martinez wrote, is an important element of ensuring academic freedom and an inclusive environment for students.

“I can think of no circumstance,” she wrote, “in which giving those in authority the right to decide what is and is not acceptable content for speech has ended well.”

Martinez also devoted a section of her lengthy statement to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and its intersection with academic freedom.

Martinez said she wanted “to set expectations clearly going forward” that the law school would not “announce institutional positions on a wide range of current social and political issues” or “exclude or condemn speakers” as part of its commitment to diversity. Focusing on such actions “as hallmarks of an ‘inclusive’ environment,” she wrote, would run the risk of “enforcing an institutional orthodoxy.”

She cited the Kalven Report and its promise of institutional neutrality. Last year several colleges announced their commitment to the half-century-old report, which has also been cited in model legislation about free speech created by conservative think tanks.

“I recognize that the course I have chosen will not please everyone,” Martinez wrote, “not least of which those who have demanded that I retract my apology to Judge Duncan and those who have demanded that students be immediately expelled.”

This is a difficult situation that will likely emerge  in other schools and venues.

Tony

Laura Ingraham is Backing Away from Donald Trump

Dear Commons Community,

Fox News host Laura Ingraham has suggestions (see video below) for former President Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.

Her number one suggestion? “Stop talking about 2020.”

“Now, if I were Trump and running his campaign, I’d strongly urge him to stop talking about 2020,” she said Wednesday night. “It’s over. Enough. Marinating in old claims of election fraud will not win over a single voter in any state that he needs to win in 2024.”

Another piece of advice she offered was: “Talk less about yourself, more about the American people.”

Her other suggestions included: Explain how you’ll rebuild the economy, surround yourself with serious advisers, “run against the Democrats, not the media” and “drop the nicknames and petty personal stuff.”

Having spent the best part of seven years attacking the media and giving crude nicknames to political rivals and critics, more than two years raging about the 2020 election and a lifetime talking about himself, Trump is incapable of taking Ingraham’s advice.

It also sounds like Ingraham is ready to bail out on Trump and probably look to support someone like Ron DeSantis.

Tony

Laura Ingraham auditioning to be Trump's campaign manager pic.twitter.com/1BnZGbx3Dj

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) March 23, 2023

Piers Morgan Interview with Ron DeSantis

Dear Commons Community,

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has finally taken the gloves off and launched a blistering attack on former President Donald Trump.

In an exclusive wide-ranging interview with Piers Morgan airing on Fox Nation’s “Piers Morgan Uncensored” tomorow he said “stay tuned” about his widely expected announcement that he’s running for president and declared: I have what it takes to be president and I can beat Biden.

But it’s what he said about Trump that will ignite a firestorm in the Republican Party.  As reported by the New York Post.

For months, DeSantis has said nothing as Trump’s escalated his verbal attacks on him, branding his ex-protégé “Ron DeSanctimonious” and “Meatball Ron.”

On Monday, Trump went nuts after DeSantis took a shot at him over his anticipated indictment over alleged payoffs to ex-lover Stormy Daniels, saying, “I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair.”

The inferred morally censorious tone sparked a furious response from Trump, who raged on his own Truth Social platform: “Ron DeSanctimonious will probably find out about FALSE ACCUSATIONS & FAKE STORIES sometime in the future, as he gets older, wiser and better known when he’s unfairly and illegally attacked by a woman, even classmates that are ‘underage’ (or possibly a man!). I’m sure he will want to fight these misfits just like I do!”

Trump’s mood is likely to deteriorate further when he hears what DeSantis now says about him in our lengthy interview at the Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee, the most personal and revealing he’s ever given.

It was clear that the governor has had enough of Trump’s constant baiting and felt ready to take him on in what could end up being a ferocious battle for the White House.

And in a series of jabs at his likely biggest Republican nominee rival, DeSantis slammed Trump over his character failings, chaotic leadership style, and for his handling of the COVID pandemic — especially in keeping controversial health chief Dr. Anthony Fauci in his post helping to run the White House Coronavirus Taskforce.

Trump even awarded a presidential commendation medal to Fauci in one of his last acts as president.

When I asked DeSantis to cite specific differences between him and Trump, he said: “Well I think there’s a few things. The approach to COVID was different. I would have fired somebody like Fauci. I think he got way too big for his britches, and I think he did a lot of damage.”

DeSantis also slammed Trump’s chaotic, self-obsessed, and divisive management style, saying: “I also think just in terms of my approach to leadership, I get personnel in the Government who have the agenda of the people and share our agenda. You bring your own agenda in you’re gone. We’re just not gonna have that. So, the way we run the Government I think is no daily drama, focus on the big picture and put points on the board and I think that’s something that’s very important.”

As for the rude nicknames, he mocked: “I don’t know how to spell the sanctimonious one. I don’t really know what it means, but I kinda like it, it’s long, it’s got a lot of vowels. We’ll go with that, that’s fine. I mean you can call me whatever you want, just as long as you also call me a winner because that’s what we’ve been able to do in Florida, is put a lot of points on the board and really take this State to the next level.”

Until now, DeSantis has never engaged with any of Trump’s regular attempts to provoke him and he doesn’t intend to make a habit of it.

“To me, it’s just background noise,” he said.

“It’s not important for me to be fighting with people on social media. It’s not accomplishing anything for the people I represent. So, we really just focus on knocking out victories, day after day, and if I got involved in all the under tow I would not be able to be an effective Governor. So, I don’t think it’s something that makes sense for me.”

There was a time when DeSantis would have never dared talk this way about Trump whose presidential endorsement of him when he first ran for Governor almost certainly got him over the line in a paper-thin win over Andrew Gillum by just 34,000 votes.

I reminded him of what Trump had tweeted before that 2018 election: “Ron DeSantis is a brilliant young leader. Yale and then Harvard who would make a great Governor of Florida. He loves our country. He’s a true fighter.”

DeSantis, 44, chuckled: “Things have changed a little bit, I guess. It is what it is.”

Then he spoke about their previous friendship.

“We had a good relationship [when I was a Congressman and I think one of the reasons he got to know me is because I saw the Russia collusion thing as a farce from the beginning. Very few people said that. We had a handful of us in Congress that were fighting back against that. So, I would go on TV, and I would defend him when it wasn’t popular and when it was kinda politically risky, but I just thought it was the right thing to do and then I thought that he had good ideas for the country. And then when I became Governor, his last two years as President, we worked very well together. He had a place in Florida and worked well with us to serve our state.”

But then came the big break-up.

“You made a fatal error in your relationship with Donald Trump,” I suggested.

“What’s that?”

“You got too popular.”

DeSantis laughed loudly.

“Well, I would say if you look at some of the change from that . . . the major thing that’s happened that’s changed his tune was my re-election victory.”

It was, mainly because while most of Trump’s big endorsements did badly in the midterms, his previous pet student was by far the biggest Republican winner, landing a massive new majority by more than 1.5 million votes in a stunning validation of his leadership by Florida voters.

“If you’re [Trump] desperately trying to get back to the White House this was a nightmare,” I said.

“My view though is we should want the country to do well,” DeSantis replied.

“I want other Republicans to do well. I want them to eclipse me. We’re setting a great standard in Florida, have everyone up their game.”

We met just two hours after he poked a disapproving moral stick at Trump over his Stormy Daniels legal scandal.

When I asked if he meant to be as censorious as he sounded when talking about Trump allegedly paying off porn stars, he doubled down and replied: “Well, there’s a lot of speculation about what the underlying conduct is. That is purported to be it, and the reality is that’s just outside my wheelhouse. I mean that’s just not something that I can speak to.”

The message was clear: I’m nothing like Trump when it comes to sleazy behavior.

And when I followed up by asking if personal conduct in a leader matters, he contrasted Trump to past presidents with a higher moral code.

“At the end of the day as a leader,” he said.

“You really want to look to people like our Founding Fathers, like what type of character, it’s not saying that you don’t ever make a mistake in your personal life, but I think what type of character are you bringing? So, somebody who really set the standard is George Washington because he always put the Republic over his own personal interest. When we won the American Revolution, Washington surrendered his sword. [King[ George III said he’s the greatest man in the world if he gives up power. I think the person is more about how you handle your public duties and the kind of character you bring to that endeavor.”

I asked him how important truth is to him in a world where leaders like Trump, and recently ousted UK prime minister Boris Johnson, have played so footloose with facts.

“People feel whether it’s being in the US or the UK, there’s been a departure from the truth being an important factor of leadership?”

“100%,” he replied.

“Truth is essential. We have to agree that there’s a certain reality to the world we live in and if we can just create our own facts then we’re never gonna be able to agree on anything or never really be able to do policy in a way that makes sense, and so yes, it’s not your truth or my truth, it’s THE truth.”

There’s no doubt that DeSantis is now preparing to take on the man who claims to have made him what he is.

I asked him if he was familiar with the story of Frankenstein, and he said he’d seen the movie.

“And you’re alluding to what?” he smirked, knowing full well what I was alluding to.

“Dr. Frankenstein creates a monster then loses control of the monster and then the monster ends up killing him,” I reminded him. “You know the parallel I’m making . . .”

He chuckled. “Let’s put the country first rather than worry about any personalities or any type of individual . . . at the end of the day, I’m a vessel for the aspirations of the people I represent. It’s not about me, as Ronald Reagan said, ‘there’s no limit to what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.’ ”

“That’s true,” I replied, “but you’re up against somebody who definitely cares who gets the credit, and who’s desperate to want to win back the White House.”

“Well, I’m not up against anybody quite yet,” DeSantis replied.

Not quite.

But after this explosive interview, I’m sure he will be very soon.

Piers Morgan’s interview with Gov. DeSantis airs Thursday on “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” Fox Nation.

Watch it!

Tony