Why Liberals love the disease theory of addiction, by a Liberal who hates it (Drugs)

Stanton Peele, an addiction expert, from 2014. He doesn't address obvious points about genetic factors and how they might correlate not just with drug use but being underprivileged as well.

Why Liberals love the disease theory of addiction, by a Liberal who hates it

"Because they can’t draw unfavorable inferences about life in poor ghettos or poor rural communities (to which they have little exposure), liberals are drawn to the belief that drugs cause addiction...

A desire to think the best of people, particularly those less fortunate than ourselves, is admirable: We mustn’t blame people for being addicted, goes the well-intentioned thinking, so addiction has to be caused by an irresistible force. A theory that ascribes near-magical malevolent properties to drugs—involving a 12-step-inspired belief in the “powerlessness” of individuals in the face of this scourge, in cahoots with some neuroscientists’ portrayal of addiction as a function of brain chemistry “hijacked” by drugs—thus fills the bill for liberals.

Indeed, we don’t need to blame anybody for being addicted. As Ilse Thompson and I wrote in our recent book, neither shame nor blame contributes to recovery. But that doesn’t mean we should deny the social factors that contribute to addiction, or deny that addicted people can improve their lives through their own thinking and action. The widespread belief of oversensitive liberals in the disease theory, however well-meant, undercuts and demoralizes the very people liberals wish to help...

One of the most influential opponents of legalizing marijuana and other drug policy advances has for many decades been that bastion of liberalism, the New York Times. True, the Times has just come out with a major policy statement in favor of legalizing marijuana. But they continue to stigmatize addiction and to test their own prospective employees for marijuana...

Most conservative politicians strongly oppose marijuana legalization. But the Obama administration, of which we might expect better, isno better, and continues to fight legalization in the face of growing awareness of its inevitability. How often, after all, do politicians oppose policies that a majority of Americans favor? That this opposition is steeped in disease theory beliefs comes through in Obama’s drug czars’ attitudes...

See how Times star Benoit Denizet-Lewis combines in one heady mixture the latest neurochemistry mish-mash (this was in 2006, and we still haven’t quite got that promised anti-addiction pill) with the good old 12-step spiritualism that Denizet-Lewis favors. And Times columnists from liberals Nicholas Kristoff and Maureen Dowd to chief conservative David Brooks have also endorsed AA and other disease standard-bearers...

The tendency for liberals to endorse the disease theory of addiction has strong wellsprings. You see, there’s a trap that the privileged and enlightened find very hard to escape: We are frightened to say that people in our country who are disadvantaged economically, socially or, alas, racially, are more likely to become addicted. That would mean that they are different from us in a bad way. Much safer is to play up that drugs are bad, that drugs trap unfortunate people, and that these people have diseases against which they are powerless. 

Back in the media, no one supports the disease meme more than the liberal commentators on MSNBC. Consider the strange pas de deux of Chris Hayes and Carl Hart. Hart is an associate professor of psychology and psychiatry at Columbia University and the author of High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society. The book lives up to its claim. In a phrase, Hart says, “Drugs aren’t the problem.”

Hayes loves Hart. But, unfortunately, he can only love one part of Hart’s story. Hart rose out of the Miami ghetto through his interest in science, which Hayes continuously cites.

The second part of Hart’s story is really hard for Hayes and MSNBC to swallow: that drugs—and particularly meth, which Hart researches (he points out that methamphetamine is chemically almost identical to Adderall) are not unusually powerful forces in people’s lives. Nearly all users can quit or cut back. Hart’s experiments prove this, as do many real-life examples. Unfortunately, the ghetto which Hart came from has remained just as dysfunctional since he left, he reports. Hart knew it pre-crack; he knows it after crack. He sees little change.

But if you can’t buy Hart’s version, how to explain the broken homes and communities and ruined lives? There is the rub. Hayes and fellow commentators (including the extremely smart panel on MSNBC’s The Cycle) rely on this narrative: Drugs have overpowered communities, just as they hijack an individual’s brain chemistry. And, yes, sometimes these happen to be deprived communities. Butactually, drugs are so bad—especially heroin, painkillers, meth and crack—that they overpower everybody. “Addiction Does Not Discriminate,” liberal disease theory acolytes typically trumpet.

Except it does.

That Hayes et al. know many people—probably including themselves—who have taken powerful painkillers and then simply quit when their pain subsided, say post-operatively, means nothing to them. They ignore their own experiences, which tell them that people well-situated economically and socially routinely take drugs safely. (Of course, as both Hart and I note, people with deep personal problems from any walk of life, think Phillip Seymour Hoffman, may form drug and other addictions.)

Thus liberals excuse themselves from addressing the havoc in poor urban and rural communities which turns them into centers for addiction. Instead, they satisfy their instinct for equality by emphasizing that people in upper-middle-class communities—like college campuses, playground resorts like Colorado, and the good old Golden Triangle of New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles—also take drugs. “See, marijuana use rates are the same for blacks and whites,” they cry, conveniently ignoring their very different rates ofproblematic drug use.

Look at alcohol: Those in the upper-middle class far more often drink (about 70% of college grads) than those in lower socioeconomic groups (only 35% of those lacking a high school diploma do). But, of those who do drink in both groups, far more of the socially disadvantaged have drinking problems. They also smoke more—despite smoking’s now-exorbitant costs. For example, 12% of college grads smoked in the last month, compared with 34% of those without a high school diploma.

“But look,” liberals protest, “middle-class kids sometimes take heroin!” Then comes the fast shuffle, parenthetically or under the breath: “so middle class people are addicted as much as people in Appalachia, inner cities, and poor white New England neighborhoods.”

But they’re not, you know. Poverty is conclusively linked with a greater risk for addiction, and with the probability of worse consequences for people who become addicted.

I turn to my good colleague at Substance.com, the often prescient Maia Szalavitz. After announcing in her piece, “These ‘New Face of Heroin’ Stories Are Just the Old Face of Racism” that, of course, middle class kids use heroin and painkillers, so everybody’s equal on that score, she sneaks in:

“Addiction rates are higher in poor people—not because they are less moral or have greater access to drugs, but because they are more likely to experience childhood trauma, chronic stress, high school dropout, mental illness and unemployment, all of which raise the odds of getting and staying hooked.”

Wait a second, run that by me again? After we discard the chaff—poor and black people are less moral and have more access to drugs—we come to the crux of addiction: Underprivileged people are more likely to “experience childhood trauma, chronic stress, high school dropout, mental illness and unemployment, all of which raise the odds of getting and staying hooked.”

That’s a rather important fact to bury near the end of the article, don’t you think? Especially considering that Maia worked with Hart on his book. And certain psychological dispositions come along with those deprived situations. I’ll quote Maia again, this time making an important point in another article about the ability to delay gratification:

“Follow-up studies on these preschoolers found that those who were able to wait the 15 minutes (to eat a marshmallow) were significantly less likely to have problems with behavior, drug addiction or obesity by the time they were in high school, compared with kids who gobbled the snack in less than a minute.”...

NBC and MSNBC, as Maia points out, love to feature white middle-class addicts and drug scares in supposedly middle-class communities (which, on closer inspection of the video, are more often deprived areas).

While Maia objects to their claiming heroin use by these people is a new phenomenon, I have a different critique: It’s just so easy to portray middle-class heroin addicts. Their homes are so much more pleasant, and—given their advantages—they usually recover, unlike those in Appalachia, inner-city ghettos and similar communities, whose lives are much more frequently marked by lifelong addiction, poor health, crime, joblessness and despair. As Granfield and Cloud point out, the biggest factor aiding people in recovery from drug addiction with or without treatment is their “social capital”—their life resources...

The disease theory has everything the media demands: star power, drama and a personal moral lesson linked to tragedy. It also suits politicians by endorsing their instinct to try to suppress drug use and their wish to be seen as uncompromising against a public menace. And strange to say, the moral lesson many liberals derive from those who become addicted—since they can’t lay it at the feet of social forces—is the same just-say-no temperance message that they mock when it comes from the likes of a Nancy Reagan." 

Links - 12th August 2026 (1 - Palestine/Middle East Peace [including Ro Khanna Stunt])

Ro Khanna on X - "Israeli settlers, brandishing American made M4s, detained me & other Americans on my trip to Palestine. When the IDF arrived, they sided with the settlers & continued our detention. They made a huge mistake. You will be hearing more soon."
AG on X - "I am very critical of settler violence and think Israel needs to do far more to punish it. But that’s not what this is about.   So what appears to have happened here was an intentional political stunt by someone who has built his entire career on stunts.  @RoKhanna  had his Palestinian guides take him into a restricted area that is closed off to civilians without requesting access or coordinating with anyone.  Local security (which Khanna intentionally misrepresents as random settlers) then stopped them. IDF arrived and spent time evaluating the situation. Then Israeli police showed up, determined what had happened, and let them go on their way.   No one was hurt or attacked. No one was threatened. Khanna knew going to a restricted area would get a response and he got exactly what he wanted.   I will note that if a random group goes onto a military restricted area in the U.S., they would also be detained and questioned.   Israel is to blame for letting Khanna plan out this stunt, but that’s exactly what it was. And it was predictably coordinated with the press as he had a NYT photographer with him and waited until they released a story days later to even post about it.   Khanna wants to run for president on this nonsense because he has nothing to offer Americans."

Emily Schrader - אמילי שריידר امیلی شریدر on X - "US Rep. Ro Khanna is a charlatan and dishonest. His tour was halted on the bus because they entered a closed military zone (CMZ) which is prohibited (due to safety) to civilians. Police were called in to discuss the problem with the tour organizer who had repeatedly attempted to enter the CMZ in the past as well. The bus has to wait until the arrival of the officers to the scene, which is what caused the delay. It was not a "detainment" and no one was arrested. Police stated they have already reviewed the body cam footage of police at the scene confirming this account. The tour participants were also briefed and then continued on their way. Much like Rahm Emanuel, this is another example of a propagandist (who behaves as if he is paid by America's enemies) intentionally orchestrating a scene to provoke attention and whine about Israel.   Ro Khanna you are truly pathetic."
Left wingers claim Americans are arrogant for going overseas and expecting special treatment. But if you push the left wing agenda you need to get special treatment and if you don't, it's an outrage

Max 📟 on X - "Let me get this straight: Ro Khanna was taking a lot of heat at home because he was propping up a Nazi-sympathizing rapist (Graham Platner).  So in order to take the heat off of the fact that he had propped up a Nazi rapist, he flew to Israel to fabricate a diplomatic incident with an ally on behalf of a different group of Nazi-sympathizing rapists (Arab-Islamic supremacists).  And all of this could have been avoided if he had simply coordinated his visit with Israeli authorities instead of having a tour guide sneak him into a military-protected zone.  Do I have that right?"

Zvika Klein צביקה קליין on X - "Rep. Ro Khanna was blocked on a road near Khirbet Zanuta on Wednesday. That happened, a NYT photographer saw it, and if the armed men who did it broke the law, prosecute them. Now the rest of the story.  The IDF says its troops and police dispersed the civilians and let his vehicles drive on. His own aide says the group was released when officers arrived. Yet the tweet claims the IDF "sided with the settlers and continued our detention." Both cannot be true.  The "M4 machine guns": the M4 is a carbine, and it is precisely the rifle the IDF issues to civilian rapid-response squads in the area. Nobody, including Khanna, has established whether these were "hoodlums" or local security members reacting to an unidentified convoy that no one knew was coming.  Because no one did know. Israeli security officials confirm the congressman never coordinated the visit, which is why he had no protection. He toured Area C with programming run exclusively by Palestinian hosts, by his own description, to get an "unfiltered" view. Unfiltered also means unverified.  And the timing tells its own story. Incident Wednesday. Tweet Saturday, minutes behind a New York Times article, from a politician who told Reuters this trip made him "more resolved" to run for president in 2028, and who declared anyone unwilling to use the words genocide and apartheid "morally compromised" before he ever got in the van.  An hour on a blocked road is not Israel's finest moment, and settler violence, including Saturday's attack on a CNN crew near Sinjil where four suspects were arrested, deserves condemnation and prosecution. But a presidential launch video dressed up as a human rights report deserves scrutiny too.  Congressman, our studio in Jerusalem is open. Come tell the full story, on the record, with the IDF statement on the table."

Yael Bar tur on X - "This is the best thing that could have happened to Ro Khanna. A bunch of assholes harassed him, true, but then you know what happened?  The police and IDF were called, and broke it up. So really the Israeli authorities protected him from a violent minority group, which of course Israel is the only country in which this problem exists.   Anyway, enjoy telling your heroic tale to the guy who thinks 9/11 was awesome."

Albert Aaron | Facebook - "I received a lot of questions about the Ro Khanna incident and I want to provide an update with additional information that came out today. People also asked me for sources so I will try to be more deliberate with my sourcing for this one. Based on everything I reviewed, here’s what happened:
1. According to Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S., Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli Embassy reached out to Ro Khanna when they learned that he was going to Israel in order to coordinate a trip. Khanna ignored Israel’s request (Source: Face the Nation). He instead coordinated the trip without Israel’s knowledge and with a left-leaning organization named “Breaking the Silence” (Source: Jerusalem Post). The group advocates for an effective displacement of Jews in Judea and Samaria. Now, what specifically happened on the ground.
2. While in Area C, Ro Khanna entered a Closed Military Zone (CMZ). NBC confirmed this and Khanna’s trip organizer from Breaking the Silence did not dispute this fact to the Jerusalem Post. According to the Israeli government, which controls Area C, “when an area is formally declared a closed military zone, Israeli military orders generally prohibit entry or presence without permission from the military commander…. A foreign visitor (including an American or European citizen) who enters a CMZ without permission can potentially be removed, detained for questioning, fined, or face other legal consequences depending on circumstances.” So according to this, Ro Khanna acted contrary to Israeli military regulations governing closed military zones and against diplomatic norms of a U.S. congressman.
3. It was at that point, that local civilian guards saw a bus in a CMZ area, and took matters into their own hands by stopping the bus and calling up the IDF. Israeli officials criticized this intervention by local civilians, with Prime Minister Netanyahu referring to them as “vigilantes.” Jerusalem Post also cited Israeli officials who said that initial stop by the local guards was a “failure on the Israeli side,” implying that the initial stop by local civilians was outside of their jurisdiction. Nevertheless, these local guards immediately called the IDF according to numerous sources, including Ro Khanna’s own account. The IDF arrived promptly within 20 minutes.
4. When the IDF arrived, they began to investigate. According to the Jerusalem Post report, at this point, the people on Khanna’s bus also called the Israeli police to resolve the dispute. The precise division of authority between the two agencies at this point was not publicly explained. The New York Times added this: “Mr. Khanna assumed the soldiers were there to help him pass. Instead, the soldiers smoked cigarettes, chatted with the men.” Khanna adds, “I felt powerless in that situation, which is not an easy thing, as I have a lot of privilege in life.” I could not decipher if it was the female soldiers smoking cigarettes, their conversation with the men, or both that made Khanna feel “powerless,” based on the New York Times reporting. [Yes, I’m kidding.]
5. About an hour later from the start of the incident, Israel’s police arrived. “Israel Police told NBC News that it responded to a report that a group was blocking a route inside a ‘closed military zone’ [CMZ] that’s technically controlled by the Israel Defense Forces.” [it should be noted that for this particular incident, it appears that the IDF controls the military zone, while the Israeli police controls the traffic and detention matters.]
6. The police also added that they reviewed camera footage and added this about the group leader, likely a reference to Breaking the Silence activist. “A review of body-worn camera footage confirms that the group leader was explicitly warned by officers, as this was not his first time violating the Closed Military Zone order,” police said. “He was issued a final warning that any future violations would result in immediate arrest.” (Source: NBC) About an hour and some minutes later, local police cleared the area, and Khanna continued on his way. These are the facts. That is exactly how it went down on Wednesday. With sources. But what happened after that is important too.
7. Ro Khanna sat on the story for several days and coordinated with major networks in the United States to provide an incomplete picture of what happened. He did not disclose, for instance, that he himself was acting outside of military laws by being inside a CMZ. Khanna also described the incident to networks as him being held at gunpoint. While militarily personnel were armed because that is the nature of military personnel in closed military zones, there is absolutely no evidence that firearms were ever pointed at anyone or that anyone was threatened with anything gun-related.
8. In my view, these deliberate material omissions and egregious overstatements by Khanna were designed to paint him as a victim of something (I’m not sure what exactly) instead of stating the facts about exactly what happened. For instance, Khanna specifically didn’t report to any of the networks in his initial media blitz that he was in a restricted area controlled by Israel pulling a stunt against Israel. Aside for NBC, none of the networks disclosed that important fact. Khanna also fundraised off of this media blitz.
9. Another piece of information to have emerged from this story is that Khanna went on the trip with his new aide, a democratic socialist Cameron Kasky (in the photograph below). Kasky is a Columbia University dropout who had entered New York’s congressional race to replace Jerry Nadler (my district in NYC) and dropped out fairly quickly because he was a terrible candidate. His primary message was effectively that he has a deep hatred for Israel. For instance, he likened Israelis fighting in the Gaza war to mass shooters on high school campuses, and blamed the United States for both. Here is how he framed it: “What do the mass shooting at my high school in Parkland and the mass killings of children and adults in Gaza have in common? America is responsible.”
10. Most importantly, as I mentioned yesterday and as was repeated by the ambassador today, the trip’s timeline and intent are strange. The trip occurred shortly after Graham Platner’s campaign collapsed as a result of credible rape allegations. Ro Khanna was one of Platner’s most important supporters and campaigned with him in June, shortly before Platner won his primary. It is also peculiar that Khanna chose the Middle East, and not the United States, as the setting from which to announce his candidacy. Why are democratic socialists and left-leaning candidates so focused on what Israelis are doing in the Middle East and not on their own constituents in the United States?
So that’s what happened."

Hen Mazzig on X - "According to a source for the New York Post, Ro Khanna was invited to meet freed hostages and survivors of October 7th.  Khanna's team didn't even bother to respond.  His team was also offered an opportunity to meet with Druze civilians in the Golan Heights and a briefing on how aid is currently getting into Gaza. They didn't take it.  Now, if Ro Khanna genuinely believes that aid is not properly getting into Gaza, why not go to the briefing? If he thinks Israel is lying, wouldn't that be the perfect time to get proof?  But he didn't go, because those aren't his intentions. He didn't want to meet with victims of Hamas or those trying to get as much aid into Gaza as they can because they contradict his narrative.  And the narrative is all that matters."

MacKenzie Scott sends millions to nonprofit that supports anti-Israel and pro-Muslim groups | Fortune - "According to a Dec. 9 blog post written by Scott, her philanthropic organization Yield Giving donated to Solidaire Network, which says it “nurtures relationships between social movements and members to create regenerative systems rooted in love and justice.” This means in practice that the network has funded organizations including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), the US Palestinian Community Network, and the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), according to tax filings and press releases from the Solidaire Network...  SJP and AMP—two organizations receiving funding from Solidaire Network—face investigations in both the House and Senate for allegedly coordinating with terror group Hamas to start anti-Israel protests in the U.S...  U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) in September also asked the FBI to investigate what he calls the “virulently antisemitic” PYM, after its leader Aisha Nizar called on supporters to disrupt the U.S. F-35 fighter jet supply chain."

The Archbishop of Canterbury is blind to the true enemies of Middle East Christians - "Which country offers the strongest legal protections and lowest risk of persecution for Christians in the Middle East? Where do believers enjoy the greatest safety and the richest opportunities to flourish? The answer, of course, is Israel.  According to a US State Department report on international religious freedom, this is because “the country’s laws and Supreme Court rulings protect the freedoms of conscience, faith, religion, and worship, regardless of an individual’s religious affiliation”, and it “criminalises actions that damage or desecrate religious sites or restrict access to worshippers”.  Anybody following the new Archbishop of Canterbury’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land last week, however, would be encouraged to think rather less favourably of the Jewish state. Unlike Justin Welby, who in 2017 met leaders from both sides (yet was hardly free from Israelophobia himself), her schedule seemed to be rammed with set-pieces designed to cast a cloud over Jerusalem... At the end of her pilgrimage, Mullally got political, releasing an open letter to Anglicans calling for an end to the “occupation” and a “viable two-state solution”, with Jerusalem as a “shared capital”. Strangely, she did not mention that Ramallah had previously rejected this precise offer, such as when Ehud Olmert tabled it in 2008. As a professional nurse rather than foreign policy expert, perhaps she had no idea. Provocatively, the Archbishop’s letter also spoke of the “indigenous Christian Palestinian presence in the Holy Land”. Indigenous? Now that’s a weapon of a word. Without denying Arab history, delve deep enough into Christian indigeneity and you will end up finding Jews, who lived in Israel for a millennia before the birth of Christ, the Jewish prophet... much of Mullally’s campaigning focused on the Arab Christians living on the West Bank, who experience markedly less freedom than their brethren in Israel. But their plight cannot solely be blamed on the Israelis. Partly – the Archbishop was apparently not aware of this detail – it is due to the repressive nature of the Palestinian regime in Ramallah, which is saturated in corruption, Islamism and brutality. Israel does not qualify for the 2026 World Watch List, one of the best-known indexes of persecution against Christians globally, published annually by the charity Open Doors. This is backed up by other groups, such as the Pew Research Center.  Open Doors does, however, highlight the persecution faced by Christians in the Palestinian Territories, which were ranked at 62 on its 2025 World Watch List... Most Christians on the West Bank, Open Doors adds, feel they are “squeezed out” of their country, with some fleeing abroad. “We are considered foreigners, seen as people that come from the crusaders, we’re seen as infidels,” one testified... Of course, as Open Doors rightly reports, the “political situation with the State of Israel” does have an effect on civilians, with checkpoints – a security necessity, from Israel’s point of view – making life “extremely difficult” for all Palestinians. Then there is worrying intimidation on the fringes by gangs of contemptible Jewish extremists on the West Bank and in parts of Jerusalem, who have been emboldened by certain deplorable government ministers.  Certainly, Israel must do more to clamp down on this vandalism and harassment. But there are criminals and bigots in every society, and democracy provides no bulwark against the incompetence of elected governments.  Moreover, notwithstanding this darkness, settlers do not tend to target Palestinian Christians for their faith, unlike in Nigeria and Pakistan, where Christians are subjected to spectacular massacres, or Somalia, where converts are butchered.  While reporting in Sri Lanka in 2019, I saw with my own eyes – and smelled – the gruesome results of true Christian persecution, when jihadis killed 269 people in attacks on churches and hotels in what came to be known as the Easter Bombings. To say that such horrors dwarf settler bullying would be to understate the point greatly. As Jesus Himself put it: “You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.”  There is no dispute. By far the greatest threat to Christians around the world is Islamist extremism. Other factors include the communist oppression seen in North Korea, the dictatorial paranoia seen in Eritrea, the religious nationalism of India and the clan oppression in parts of East Africa; but jihadism eclipses them all. The Jewish state, by contrast, a wonderful place for Christians... Instead, she shone a spotlight on the failings of a natural ally while essentially ignoring the true enemies of the Church. It’s an approach that is sure to win plaudits on the Left, but by implying that Israel is a malevolent force, she is falling victim to trendy bigotry. In short, she made herself part of the problem."

moses hess on X - "“I don't know what his intentions were,” he threw a fire bomb at jews"
Kathryn Paisner on X - "The speed with which we went from, “Don’t stop talking about Charlottesville,” to, “There are good people on both sides of antisemitic terrorist attacks,” is really breathtaking."
From Melat Kiros, a Democratic candidate. Time to demonise the "far right" and Republicans for anti-Semitism. Of course she blames 911 on US foreign policy too

Aristonkle on X - "I’ve stated this before but I want to ensure that every single person that sees this talking point out in the wild is armed with the correct response.   When leftists like this person or Hasan Piker say that excursions in the Middle East resulted in 9/11, be sure to bring up the fact that the chief motivation for Bin Laden was the fact that he considered coalition forces that were *invited* to KSA were “illegal crusaders” on holy land and that the West needed to be punished for this.   Those same coalition forces pushed out Saddam’s armored corps from their brief invasion of KSA when they attacked the Saudi city of Khafji and  saved Saudi Arabia as a state by doing so.   It was, and is, an entirely schizophrenic argument."

Hen Mazzig on X - "I’m all for representation of Palestinians, but Prada posting a video to their 33M+ followers of their new “Palestinian ambassador” Saint Levant wearing a necklace shaped like the entire land with Israel erased, that’s a message.  If an Israeli, or any Jew, wore a pendant that included Gaza, the outrage would be instant. But erasing Israel, “from the river to the sea,” gets a luxury campaign."

Dr. Maalouf ‏ on X - "Can anyone help me understand this? Because I genuinely don’t get it. LGBT people are imprisoned, tortured, and killed in ‘Palestine.’ So how come they are the biggest supporters of Palestine?"
Larry Sanger on X - "There are three reasons.  First, woke progressives (“intersectional activists”) constantly thirst for confirmation of their moral superiority, which they typically get by defending whoever (they're told) is victimized, and by signaling their superiority both to the victimizers and to all who do not signal hard enough. Virtue signaling is socially powerful and explains a lot of what wokesters say and do.  The second reason is that there is only one victimizer that matters: Western civilization (and its defenders). So, if a group—like Muslims, trans people, illegal aliens, etc.—is plausibly victimized by the West, they become the victims. Then they are helped, their causes promoted, and any harm that comes to them becomes the cause du jour.  The third reason is that the only victims that matter are those that, by being defended, can help destroy Western civilization, or whatever parts of it stand in the way of a socialist, egalitarian (“woke”) utopia. Muslims can weaken Western civilization by increasing crime (including rape gangs), creating ghettos, and threatening terrorism and Sharia Law. Think several European cities with large unassimilated Muslim populations. The trans movement can be used as a blunt weapon to indoctrinate children into the joys of LGBTQ and as a way to divide Christian denominations. Illegal aliens can be used to defend violent gangs, drive up housing costs, and generally increase alienation in society. Thus we have sanctuary cities.  Conservatives notice what's going on, complain about it, and thereby can be identified with the "victimizers." They do unforgiveable things like opposing the spread of Islam, say that trans women aren't women, and complain about needless, avoidable violence by known illegal immigrant criminals.  So the left then secures its wonderful tasty moral superiority by defending the "victims" against the complaints of conservatives.  As to LGBT people (or women) victimized by Muslims in Muslim societies, leftists haven't been told this, so they don't believe they are. Or, if they can't avoid the facts, they believe this is a legitimate cultural difference. Not only are the moral relativists, their commitment to moral relativism becomes central to their moral self-concept when they reflect that their purpose is to defend victims as “historically marginalized groups” and to fight the historical oppressors. Any suggestion that it's a serious problem is the bigoted and offensive imposition of the great oppressor, Western civilization, which is the source of all the worst problems in the world. Any violence and other crime on the side of the victims is thus recast (in the twisted progressive mind) as legitimate acts of war, essentially; for the progressive to acknowledge a problem would be treasonous. This is why the hatred of Israelis became so pronounced after October 7.  I have no doubt that some LGBT progressives are uncomfortable with their “strange bedfellows,” but allies are allies. In fact, the self-disinterested ability to accept them as allies in the bigger fight is surely another source of that tasty sense of moral superiority."

Leslie Kajomovitz on X - "The United Nations International School is technically a private institution, with annual tuition of about $50,000. In practice, however, it receives at least $21 million in taxpayer-funded tuition payments each year through the United Nations.  It is outrageous that taxpayer money is being used to fund a school where public records show students have been allowed to use Nazi-inspired cartoons and antisemitic imagery and compare Israel to Nazi Germany.  Nearly 30% of its student body (about 415 students) are children of UN staff. As part of their employment benefits, The UN pays for for their children's private school tuition.  This does not include the children of ambassadors and diplomatic staff, whose tuition amounts to an additional $7 million annually.  These figures apply only to UNIS in New York. Not all UN staff children attend this school. Across the entire UN system, taxpayer-funded private school tuition for UN staff children exceeds $200 million per year.  @USAmbUN  @michaelgwaltz  @HillelNeuer  @UNWatch  @dannydanon  @IsraelinUN  @gidonsaar"
Clearly when the UN condemns Israel it cannot be lying and this is also proof anti-Zionism isn't anti-Semitism

Andy Burnham just gave away what kind of PM he'll be - and it stinks - "The idea that Andy Burnham will bring change is laughable. He has just made perfectly clear that the obsession with Israel is to remain the priority of his unelected incoming Labour Government. Burnham’s contrived video criticising Keir Starmer for the Labour Party’s position in the Israel-Hamas war is our best indication yet of the type of Prime Minister we are about to get.  In the space of three minutes, Burnham confirmed that he will cynically stop at nothing to exploit the tragic events of the Middle East to win back far-Left Labour voters from the Green Party. The stench of desperation is strong. It matters not to Burnham that Israel - a strategic ally of the UK - has been at war with a terror group banned in our own country. Or that its refusal to release hundreds of Israeli hostages was the sole reason for the war’s continuation.  The reality is that the anti-Israel crowd cannot be appeased. No amount of anti-Israel measures will sate their desire to denigrate the world’s only Jewish state. I recall all too well how the Labour Government’s recognition of a Palestinian state – hitherto the holy grail of anti-Israel obsessives - was immediately met with demands for ever more punitive steps directed at Israel... The very fabric of Britain is being torn apart by those that have given succour to the anti-Israel hate mobs. It has fuelled sectarian politics with so called ‘Independents’ elected to Parliament and even local councils exclusively on the cause of Gaza. It can also be directly linked to the record levels of anti-Jewish racism which have brought international shame on our country.  Brits will be wondering today why the first act of the incoming Prime Minister has been to appease the crazies by jumping on their hateful bandwagon. They will question why Israel is a bigger priority than the cost of living, ending illegal immigration or fixing the broken NHS. They would be right to fear that things are only going to get worse. Even before walking into 10 Downing Street, Burnham has chosen to pick a fight with our most important ally, the United States... The UK is today regarded as a basket case. Once revered as a nation, we have become a source of ridicule. The student style gesture politics of successive Labour prime ministers amounts to little more than a race to the bottom."
The left wing wishlist is endless, after all

Links - 11th August 2026 (4.3)

Ed: This was previously unpublished due to "spam" so I split it into multiple posts to try to narrow the problem down. This post was again flagged, but was reinstated on appeal (but apparently got hidden again). This was originally from 21st May 2025 (2) then 16th May 2026 (0.99). This is to split it again to confirm what has tripped the filter.

Hunter Ash on X - "The thing that makes far right people less obnoxious to me than leftists, even when I strongly disagree with them, is that their motivation is honest self-interest, rather than nannying morality."
Quote by C. S. Lewis: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised...” - "“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” ― C. S. Lewis

Links - 11th August 2026 (4.2)

Ed: This was previously unpublished due to "spam" so I split it into multiple posts to try to narrow the problem down. This post was again flagged, but was reinstated on appeal (but apparently got hidden again). This was originally from 21st May 2025 (2) then 16th May 2026 (0.99). This is to split it again to confirm what has tripped the filter.

UK Weighs Making Netflix Users Pay License Fee to Fund BBC - Bloomberg - "Even if they don’t watch BBC programs, households are required to hold a TV license to view or stream programs live on sites including YouTube and Amazon Prime Video. However it’s not needed by those who only watch on-demand, non-BBC content."

Links - 11th August 2026 (4.1)

Ed: This was previously unpublished due to "spam" so I split it into multiple posts to try to narrow the problem down. This post was again flagged, but was reinstated on appeal (but apparently got hidden again). This was originally from 21st May 2025 (2) then 16th May 2026 (0.99). This is to split it again to confirm what has tripped the filter.

Barak Ravid on X - "Elon Musk tells an AfD rally in Germany: "I think there is too much focus on past guilt (in Germany), and we need to move beyond that. Children should not feel guilty for the sins of their parents - their great grandparents even""
Martyr Made on X - "They’re freaking out because if it’s OK to be proud of being German, then it’s OK for everybody to be proud of who they are. It subverts the entire postwar culture of demoralization meant to introduce moral doubt in European peoples about resisting their dispossession."

Links - 11th August 2026 (3.1 - Migrants: Europe - Ceuta)

This was formerly published as the second links post on 5th August, but was deleted due to "hate speech". I am splitting it up so I can find the offending text.

pagliacci the hated on X - "Spanish leftards like Sanchez are in an amazing ideological predicament rn because they know what is happening in Ceuta isn’t organic, but at the same time they’re supposed to be unconditionally pro-migrant.  So they’re in zugzwang.   If they try to stop this, they’re admitting that migrants can be sent as political weapons, which is effectively an admission that the “right wing conspiracy theories” they hate so much were correct, and that their universal asylum policy is retarded.  But if they accept the migrants, Ceuta is going to collapse and the right is going to have a massive step-up politically.   No good move."

Rihards Kols on X - "The border breach at Ceuta is severe. It is useful to remember that the exclave maintains double border checks before the European mainland. The true vulnerability exposed today is political.   Spain’s domestic push for the mass regularisation of illegal migrants creates an undeniable pull factor. Judicial rulings blocking expedited returns multiply the threat. The Sánchez government is making unilateral choices that systematically undercut collective European security.  You cannot fracture the external perimeter in the south and expect European stability. Latvia guards the EU’s eastern external border - we know this, and the cost of deterrence. The current migration situation does not allow for any national exceptionalism in applying our rules.  Spain will soon benefit from the EU Migration Pact’s solidarity mechanism as a country under 'migratory pressure' - receiving money, support, or relocations. Rewarding a state that simultaneously legalises mass illegal migration is a farce. European solidarity requires strict national responsibility."

GeoInsider on X - "There is another possible angle worth considering:  Just days before the Ceuta crisis, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez traveled to Algeria to restore diplomatic and economic relations after four years of tensions. The visit marked a major reset in Spain-Algeria relations after years of strained ties.  During the visit, Sánchez met with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and senior government officials. Both countries reaffirmed Algeria as one of Spain's principal strategic partners, discussed expanding energy cooperation, increasing Spanish investment, strengthening trade, coordinating on migration, and agreed to hold a new high-level bilateral summit later this year to deepen cooperation further.  Historically, when Spain has taken actions that Morocco views as contrary to its interests over Western Sahara, relations have at times deteriorated sharply. The clearest example came in 2021, when Spain allowed Polisario leader Brahim Ghali to receive medical treatment. Morocco strongly protested, recalled its ambassador, and during the ensuing diplomatic crisis, a mass migration event into Ceuta followed.  To understand why this matters, you have to understand the Western Sahara dispute. Morocco considers Western Sahara an integral part of its territory and has proposed an autonomy plan under Moroccan sovereignty. The Polisario Front, backed primarily by Algeria, seeks independence for Western Sahara and has proclaimed the self-declared Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.  This is why Morocco pays such close attention to Spain's relationship with both Algeria and the Polisario Front. Spain is the former colonial power in Western Sahara and remains one of the most influential European countries involved in the dispute. When Madrid takes steps that Rabat interprets as favoring Algeria or Polisario as happened with the Ghali case in 2021 it has, in the past, led to severe diplomatic crises.  There is another important point that is often overlooked. Morocco has never recognized Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla. To this day, Rabat officially considers both cities to be Moroccan territory under Spanish administration. While Morocco has generally pursued its claims through diplomatic channels, the status of Ceuta and Melilla remains one of the most sensitive issues in Spain–Morocco relations.  Does this mean Sánchez's visit to Algeria caused the current migration crisis? No, there is currently no public evidence to support that conclusion. However, given the events of 2021, Morocco's longstanding rivalry with Algeria, the central importance of Western Sahara in Moroccan foreign policy, and Morocco's official claim over Ceuta and Melilla, it is another plausible angle worth considering as events continue to unfold. It should be treated as a possibility based on historical precedent, not as an established explanation."

Octavian on X - "The fact that tens of thousands of Moroccans instantly ran to Ceuta in the hopes they could escape Morocco reminds me of this quote by Algerian president Boumediene:  "No quantity of atom bombs could stem the tide of billions… who will someday leave the poor southern part of the world to erupt into the relatively accessible spaces of the rich Northern Hemisphere looking for survival."  Don't get me wrong, it's on us to protect our borders and to stem the tide. But the Roman Empire fell in a fairly similar way, where the Romans eventually just gave up. It's simply dangerous that the pressure is this intense for such a long time. You just need a couple more Pedro Sanchez governments and we'll face the same fate as the Romans. We do have to think about how to give North Africans a future so they don't run to their deaths trying to get to Europe, not for the sake of North Africans but for our sake to relieve not only the physical pressure but also the psychological one."
It's weird how non-Western countries don't face this problem

Rupa Subramanya on X - "49,000 illegal migrants just crossed into the Spanish city of Ceuta, population roughly 84,000. That’s an influx equivalent to nearly 60% of the city’s entire population in just 24 hours. This is an extraordinary demographic transformation.
Ceuta is currently: 60% Catholic and 37% Muslim 50.4% male and 49.6% female
If all 49,000 migrants are Muslim and men and that's a reasonable assumption to make going by the images, and were allowed to remain, the religious composition would almost exactly reverse:
-60% Muslim and 38% Catholic
-69% male and 31% female
 If this alarms you, let me remind you that this is simply the illegal version of the demographic transformation  western democracies especially Canada pursued legally: millions admitted in just a few years, and in Canada's case, large numbers of low-skilled, uneducated, working-age men, many we're now discovering are criminals, originating mostly from Punjab and Haryana in India.   If you're pro-immigration, this is what legal mass immigration looks like when it happens at extraordinary scale and speed. Canada accomplished its own version of it in remarkably little time."

Mariana Hernandez | Facebook - "Your timeline is about to be full of videos of Moroccans "invading Spain" with captions like "this is what happens when you vote socialist" and I need you to pause before you share that garbage. Ceuta is not in Spain. It's not in Europe. It is physically, geographically, on the continent of Africa. On Moroccan soil. Taken from Morocco in 1415 — before Columbus, before the Inquisition, before Spain even existed as a unified country. Spain has a colony in Africa in 2026 and nobody wants to call it that. "This is what happens when you vote socialist." No. This is what happens when you colonize a piece of another continent and hold it for 600 years and then act shocked when people from that continent walk into it. The Portuguese crown took Ceuta in 1415. Spain inherited it in 1668. And never left. So when you see Moroccans swimming around a fence to set foot on *their own continent* and someone captions it "Muslim invasion" — the irony is so thick you could build a border wall out of it. About 2,000 people crossed into Ceuta in the last ten days. Spain's far right is foaming. American accounts are already repackaging the footage for people who will never google where Ceuta actually is. You want to know what actually triggered this? Spain's own Supreme Court just ruled that migrants intercepted at sea near Ceuta can't be sent back to Morocco. Not socialism. Not open borders. A judicial ruling by Spain's own judiciary. But that doesn't fit in a rage-bait caption, does it? Morocco has claimed Ceuta for decades. The only reason there's an EU border there at all isn't geography — it's because a European empire took a piece of Africa and never gave it back. And now they're mad that Africans keep showing up to it. "This is what happens when you vote socialist." No. This is what happens when you never decolonize."
Comments: "I guess that means Constantinople doesn't belong to Turkey because they invaded Europe and it's an Asian Turkish colony in Europe? "
"I guess you missed what happened in Spain for 800 years. This is a tiny part of their former colonizer."

Matt Van Swol on X - " #BREAKING: The Moroccan Muslims who have invaded the small Spanish city of Ceuta are now BREAKING INTO STORES by the HUNDREDS. Police are completely overwhelmed. Migrants can be seen running from one store to the next, grabbing items and running. WHERE IS THE MILITARY?!!!!!"
What would Spain do without all these doctors and engineers (or "doctors and nurses, engineers and computer scientists")?

Dolors Montserrat on X - "Ceuta is paying the price for the Spanish Government’s massive regularisation, the failure to enforce EU return rules and its repeated delays in implementing the Migration Pact.  Sánchez has lost control of Spain’s external border and his failure is now a European problem.   Europe cannot tolerate a government that fails to protect an external EU border and expects the rest of Europe to bear the consequences."
Zineb Riboua on X - "The moment someone reaches Ceuta, they come under EU asylum rules and may become eligible for regularization programs such as the one recently introduced by the Sánchez government. The Spanish Supreme Court has also ruled that migrants who arrive by swimming cannot be sent back. Everyone warned how absurd it is."

David Santos on X (Translated from Spanish) - "A Moroccan who entered Ceuta illegally claims he fled Morocco because he's linked to a death, and he has problems with both the police and dangerous individuals.  Spain is a shithole."
If Spain sends him back and he gets killed or executed, Spain will have murdered him (as per Nixon Giovanni Pérez Paz and Glendy Marisol González de la Cruz and ICE)

Zineb Riboua on X - "Morocco maintains functioning schools, universities, hospitals, a working economy free from war and famine in a very unstable region, has different projects, and today there are more opportunities than ever. However, in Morocco, criminal punishment is severe. & those who violate Moroccan law exploit a structural advantage because Sanchez’ permissive immigration policy and willingness to invoke human rights rhetoric to shield criminals provide sanctuary to them. Moroccan authorities cannot pursue offenders across the border into Spanish territory or Ceuta and whenever it did it created a scandal one way or another, these criminals know this and leverage this gap to the maximum."
Left wingers think all third world countries are shitholes, so you need to let everyone from those countries into the West, or you lack "empathy" and are a terrible human being

Rawan Osman | Facebook - "In the past 24 hours, ten of thousands of migrants — mainly Moroccan nationals, confirmed by AP — poured across the border into Spain's exclave of Ceuta. Ceuta is politically, administratively, and officially Spanish territory — which means it's the EU. Spain now faces a choice it has avoided for decades: settle the sovereignty question for real, or accept that anyone who reaches Ceuta's shores has, in every legal sense, reached mainland Europe. Here's one "solution": just give Ceuta to Morocco. Problem solved, right? I am looking forward to watching how virtue-signaling Sanchez will solve this one.  As a German citizen and European taxpayer, here are my thoughts. I came to Europe in 2011, a divorced woman escaping the Arab world. I chose the conservative south of Germany because I wanted my son raised in a democracy, properly educated, able to give back to humanity. In 2015, when Merkel opened Germany's gates to Syrian refugees, she invited in mostly men — the very men I had spent my life running from. My son came home from the pool one day and told me police had been called after a Syrian teenager groped a German girl in broad daylight, even after she told him in German and English to stop. I had to explain to my seven-year-old why men behave this way where I grew up. Getting my visa was brutally hard, as if the process was designed to discourage people like me. But I did it. I arrived alone, with a child — not with friends "conquering the land." I didn't speak the language. I was ridiculed, sometimes dismissed by people who wouldn't even try English. I learned German, opened a business, worked 12–16 hour days. Then my son was bullied for years — told we lived off other people's taxes. I was paying taxes. I was sending him to one of the most expensive schools in Germany. Every mistake a refugee made, we paid for too. I fought to build a life here so my son could live safely. Watching wave after wave of illegal migration flood this continent, I sometimes feel like I wasted my life running from the very ideology I thought I'd escaped — because it followed me here. What happened is part of an ideological invasion, and we have to fight it because we have no choice. This won't leave us alone. #spain #europe"

Pedro Sanchez holidays as migrants refuse to leave Ceuta

A complacent EU is to blame for the chaos at Ceuta - "Whether the illegal immigrants have gone back is immaterial. As Joshua Treviño, an American analyst, has pointed out, Morocco has shown it has the capability to do this if it wishes. Should Spain displease it again, flooding Ceuta with almost as many illegal immigrants as there are residents is now an option.   This is a long-held tactic: in 1975, Morocco marched a human wave of 350,000 people into the Western Sahara, which was then ruled by the Spanish. This coincided with the death of General Franco, and so the Spanish army was ordered not to fire. The land was given up to Morocco the next year... The EU is a powerful bloc, yet it finds itself at the mercy of Morocco because human rights laws undermine border controls. Without those controls, freedom of movement under Schengen becomes a liability rather than a benefit. Yet instead of leading, the EU merely convenes meetings. The EU’s complacency has seen its share of the global economy shrink and the continent miss out on the frontier of AI. If it fails to secure Europe’s borders, then the whole project may well collapse, as frustrated voters demand the security that European leaders refuse to deliver.   Ceuta was a test of the EU’s ability to respond and it failed."

Links - 11th August 2026 (3.0 - Migrants: Europe - Ceuta)

This was formerly published as the second links post on 5th August, but was deleted due to "hate speech". I am splitting it up so I can find the offending text.

Libs of TikTok on X - "So lemme get this straight… Spain passes mass amnesty plan for hundreds of thousands of migrants Morocco then pardons nearly 3,000 criminals including terrorists And days later hundreds of Moroccan men INVADE Spain…? This is how a Western civilized country gets destroyed."
Damn Israel!

PeterSweden on X - "The Swedish Green Party has now expressed SUPPORT for the almost 50.000 people that arrived in Ceuta the last day. They are now accusing the Swedish government for "non existent empathy" after announcing that Sweden won't accept them into the country. The Green Party is likely to be part of the next Swedish government according to the polls."

PeterSweden on X - "IT BEGINS Finland is now supporting Italy in calling for possibly SUSPENDING Schengen with Spain and introduce border controls."

Sanchez condemns ‘selfish’ EU in row over Ceuta migrant chaos - "Pedro Sánchez has criticised “selfish” EU leaders after 22 European prime ministers and presidents attacked him for the sudden migrant surge in Ceuta... They singled out Mr Sánchez’s migrant amnesty for criticism. In early July, some 609,737 of the 1.17 million migrants in Spain who applied for legal status obtained temporary work permits, making it the largest regularisation of black market workers in European history... Mr Sánchez has been an outlier in the EU because he is pro-immigration, anti-Israel and one of the few Left-wing leaders in the bloc... France tightened checks on its Spanish border and said it would increase its police presence fivefold to 334 officers and gendarmes by Saturday."
Left wingers cannot take personal responsibility

Meme - "It said, Spain has opened the door."
_didier.neza: "This Illegal Moroccan Migrant in Ceuta said it clearly:“The door was announced for us to come. We were promised a good life in Spain.”They received messages on social media telling them the borders were open. Thousands believed it and rushed in.This is not accidental. The EU has opened its borders on purpose. It is globalists—not Islamists—who hold the real power behind this. Globalism has far more reach and influence than radical Islam. These open-border policies are part of a deliberate globalist agenda to reshape nations.At New Africa Network, our message is the opposite. We are calling Africans to stay and rebuild. We want Africans to live free, safe, and fulfilled in Africa; with real security, real opportunity, and real financial freedom.Whether a man is Muslim or not, we stand against every form of extremism, especially Islamic extremism and jihadism. Our mission is to help every African build a better life right here on African soil.This is why I do not believe in an Islamic Antichrist or an Islamic beast system. The Antichrist will rise through the globalist system; not through Islam. Globalism, not radical Islam, is the greater threat to nations and to the church.Africa does not need empty promises from Europe. Africa needs Africans who will rise and rebuild.This is the work of New Africa Network.@newafricanetwork#NewAfricaNetwork #LetMyPeopleGo"

David Bernstein on X - "So Spain has killed 67 Moroccans breaching its border, all civilians. 67 a days for three years would be 73,365 people or approximately how many Gazans Hamas alleges has been killed in the war, including combatants.  So Spain has the same daily death toll as the Gaza war, except that every single person they killed was a civilian, there was no precipitating massacre, they aren't at war, and there is no threat from the likes of Iran and Hezbollah looming over them."
The claim is that this doesn't count because Spain didn't actively kill them. Yet, when left wingers throw around death tolls due to the Iraq war, they rely on projection populations if the war hadn't happened and compare them to actual populations, then proclaim that the US killed that many people

Oli London on X - "Hollywood actor Javier Bardem shares Instagram post blaming ISRAEL for 50,000 Moroccan migrant men storming into Spanish territory.   “Spain has been Europe’s loudest voice against Israeli and US war crimes in Palestine, Lebanon and Iran.”  The actor reposted an Instagram post from another user which claimed Israel “benefits” from a “destabilized Spain.”   “We don’t know who engineered this crisis, but we know who benefits from a weakened, destabilised Spain: Israel, and the Western far right eager to turn migration into a weapon against Muslims.”"
Terrorism supporters are stupid, hateful and can't take responsibility for their own idiocy
It's interesting. Left wingers are usually for open borders, but have a decidedly more mixed reaction to the Ceuta invasion. Maybe because they blame Israel.

Charlie Weimers MEP on X - "Ceuta shows what happens when borders are abandoned.
Thousands of illegal migrants are right now storming into Ceuta. This is no coincidence. It is the direct result of Spain’s amnesty policy and a court ruling that makes returns more difficult.  The social democratic government in Spain has “regularised” hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. Almost 1.2 million applied. Over 600,000 have already received temporary permits.  At the same time, the Spanish Supreme Court has banned swift pushbacks of those arriving by sea. The smugglers exploited this immediately. The result was a veritable invasion across the border.  I have been to Ceuta myself and seen the weak border protection with my own eyes. I have seen how thin it is and how quickly the city can be overwhelmed. This is not theory. It is reality.  When a Member State creates strong pull factors through amnesties and obstacles to removals and deportations, the rest of Europe must be able to act. Otherwise both security and trust between the states collapse.  This time we have sharp tools. The Return Regulation, which I have helped drive forward, provides longer detention periods, mutual recognition of return decisions, tougher entry bans and return hubs.  It replaces the old, toothless system. Now the legal basis exists to send back the illegal immigrants who stormed the border.  It is time to use the new tools. Everyone who has illegally forced their way into Ceuta and has no right to stay must be returned – quickly, consistently and without exception. No more excuses. No more amnesties that reward illegal immigration.  Border control is not extremism. It is survival. Either we take back control – or we lose it.
Ps. I see some gleeful right-wing debaters urging Spain to “decolonise” Ceuta and Melilla as a response to the Sánchez government’s militant policy towards Israel.  Consider this: in these cities, which have been European for five hundred years, people live who now fear for their existence and their lives. We already see illegal migrants trying to occupy private homes.  A majority in Ceuta votes for the right and does not support Pedro Sánchez in any way."

AwakenedOutlaw on X - "“The immigrants coming to Ceuta are women and children, many of them malnourished” ~ Pedro Sánchez, Prime Minister of Spain. Ok, sure they are. BTW, this is a coordinated invasion being perpetrated by Morocco, as can be seen here."

The Spanish Left have themselves to blame for this migrant invasion - "“Long live Spain,” shouted one of the thousands of Moroccans who had forced their way into Ceuta. He didn’t seem aware of it, but he and his fellow migrants have destroyed the country’s myth of positive mass immigration.  “Throughout history, migration has been one of the great engines of national development.” These were the words of Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish prime minister, a few years ago. Now his government is in crisis after it lost control during an invasion of its territory... The initial story was that a July 8 legal decision, which stopped the Spanish authorities from immediately deporting those who swam over the border, had caused the collapse of the frontier.  Government sources believe that people-trafficking groups used it to create a snowball effect of people thinking they could make it into Ceuta and Europe... civil guard sources told El Mundo that “Morocco wasn’t fooling anyone” and that thousands of young Moroccans had been arriving near the border zone from all over the country.  As the centre-Left newspaper El País reported, such a large entry of people would have been impossible without the complicity of the Moroccan authorities.  The last time a similar incident happened was in 2021, when 15,000 stormed the border. Then it was an organised assault by the Moroccan government after Spain protected of one of the militant leaders that still contest Morocco’s annexation of Western Sahara in the 1970s. In return for stopping the flow and taking back those who had broken in, Spain agreed to support Morocco’s claim to what had once been a Spanish colony.  The majority were deported within 10 days, and only legal disputes over the status of children caused the process to last longer. Sánchez’s great mistake is not only being soft on immigration, but being soft on Morocco. The images that went viral across social media were matched by government inaction. Only 15 police officers and 40 Civil Guard officers were manning the border, even as hundreds started crossing into the city days earlier.  After control had been lost, Sánchez’s government still sought to downplay the crisis, failing to declare a national emergency and only calling in the army eight hours after Ceuta’s leader had begged for help... Sánchez is now dealing with the occupation of part of his country by tens of thousands of young, military-aged men. When he said that his nation had to choose between being “an open, rich country or a closed, poor one”; he clearly failed to envision anarchy. While it is worth separating the crisis in Ceuta from his broader strategy of bringing in millions of Latin Americans, in this case the government is worse than complicit: it is weak.  Across the spectrum of Spanish politics, every significant party from right to left has condemned what is effectively an invasion.  The Left is blaming the border breach on an Israeli-American-Moroccan pact to punish Spain for its pro-Gaza policy, while the right sees it as the start of an attempted annexation of Ceuta.  The Sánchez government’s casual promotion of mass immigration, and its treatment of the nation’s frontiers, have left it prey to not only the Moroccan government but also large numbers of idle young North Africans. This has already led to 18 deaths among those trying to cross, and it is hard not to believe that the open rhetoric of Spain’s government has encouraged some of those crossing. El Mundo reported one Moroccan telling a civil guard officer: “I want to be Spanish like you.”  Sánchez’s government was already at the end of its cycle, incapable of passing legislation and buffeted by damaging corruption cases.  The historic events in Ceuta, which are still ongoing, have, however, consigned a government “which showed the way on low skilled immigration” to what was once called the dustbin of history. Ceuta tells a different story."
One left wing cope is that Ceuta isn't contiguous with mainland Spain, so it's not Spain. By this logic, if the US invades the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador isn't allowed to complain

The crisis in Ceuta threatens the very fabric of the EU - "The Spanish government also bears much of the blame. Ceuta faces regular attempts by illegal immigrants to enter, yet as Jack Davey has pointed out in these pages, there were only 55 officers guarding the border and it took the government precious hours to call in the military. Considering the scale of the crowds (see the video below) which crossed the border, there should have also been intelligence warnings that something was going on... It seems highly unlikely that such large numbers of illegal immigrants could cross again without the tacit acceptance of the Moroccans.  Morocco has claimed since independence in 1956 that Ceuta should be part of their territory. Using illegal migration flows to breach the city’s defences shows how migration can be used as a weapon. It’s similar to the sort of hybrid warfare used by Russia in Crimea, where their “little green men”, who were members of Russian special forces in unmarked uniforms, were able to seize the peninsula. The EU and Nato should take that threat seriously.  Unfortunately the result so far has been unimpressive. EU officials have expressed concern but done little... Much like the refugee crisis of 2015, EU leaders seem caught off guard instead, unable to react as needed. That may prove their downfall."
Israel didn't respond well to October 7th, so terrorism supporters claim that's proof that they wanted it. Spain didn't respond well to the Ceuta invasion, and terrorism supporters claim Israel was behind it

Congratulations Ireland, you’re no longer Europe’s most ridiculous country - "There’s nothing like 50,000 migrants pouring over a border to burst a bubble of progressive indulgence. In a single afternoon, the dogma upon which Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s reviled prime minister, had built much of his liberal Eldorado – that migration and security can be managed by way of humanitarianism and European solidarity – collapsed under the dead weight of reality.  In fact, the only major plank of his dogma that was left unchallenged was his gratuitous Israelophobia, and even that came jolly close. After all, Sánchez’s ability to side with Hamas over absolutely everything – this is a man who said he regretted not having nuclear weapons to “stop” Israel’s war of self-defence – would have looked rather silly if the Ceuta migrants had employed jihadi-style butchery, rape, mutilation and kidnap... the man could have been chewing a wasp for the sourness of his tone as he found himself talking in the language of sovereignty – territorial integrity, legal reforms, maritime barriers – rather than the post-national liberalism upon which he has so often relied for that warm and fuzzy tingle. From a British point of view, it was hard to avoid a frisson of schadenfreude. Two weeks ago, the achingly cosmopolitan Sánchez was crowing about the removal of la verja, the border barrier at Gibraltar, describing it as the fall of “the last wall in western Europe”. Fast-forward to Friday, and the Spanish leader, who remains mired in an awkward corruption scandal, found himself condemning a “violación de la integridad territorial de España” as if he had converted to conservatism.   It was even more satisfying to see the beleaguered socialist bleating so impotently as Italy suspended the EU’s hallowed Schengen open borders agreement, backed by Finland, Denmark and Czechia... For some time, it has been too close to call. The great nation of Ireland has been steadily vandalising itself in recent years.   Beginning in the Nineties, its elites replaced one overbearing moral establishment – the Catholic-nationalist order, which had long been beset by scandals – with another, namely a creed of Brussels fanaticism, the embrace of American-centric multinational capitalism and the determined imposition of tiresome progressive ideology.  As ever, the most potent symbolism of this cultural shift is that of immigration. The Emerald Isle, a country of just five million, has experienced one of the fastest rates of population growth in the developed world in recent years, driven overwhelmingly by arrivals from overseas.  Record numbers of new arrivals have coincided with housing shortages that predated the migration wave, leading to tent villages in Dublin, asylum seekers living in hotels and old office blocks, and GP surgeries and schools coming under immense strain. Violent riots flared in 2023, followed by arson attacks. The second emblem of national decline, of course, is hatred of Israel. Here, too, we find Ireland excelling; Jerusalem even announced the closure of its Dublin embassy in December 2024, citing the Irish government’s “extreme anti-Israel policies”.  Anti-Semitism has a long history in Catholic Ireland. In James Joyce’s 1922 masterpiece Ulysses, Mr Deasy tells Stephen Dedalus: “Ireland, they say, has the honour of being the only country which never persecuted the Jews... Because she never let them in.”  But its obsession with Israelophobia has reached new depths of petty depravity, from withdrawing from Eurovision in protest against Israel, to renaming Herzog Park in Dublin, which was named after the Chaim Herzog, Israel’s sixth president, who grew up there.  All pretty bleak. Spain, however, has now claimed the booby prize. Not only has it also pulled out of Eurovision and indulged in gender recognition laws and amnesty programmes for undocumented migrants that would make Zack Polanski blush, but – as Ceuta has shown – its hard-left leader governs with such brazen hypocrisy that no other European country comes close."

Links - 11th August 2026 (2 - Jason Arday)

Thread by @AaronBastani on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "I’ll be honest, I was barely aware of who Jason Arday was until this week. Learned a lot covering the story on Tuesday. One thing that interests me is that some of the most senior people in British academia believed he was: a world class marathon runner, one of Britain’s most impressive charity fundraisers, an apprentice at Crystal Palace football club, a plausible snooker pro, and that he had brain surgery weeks before his viva (which meant memory loss). The liberal intelligentsia like to think they are smarter than everyone else, but most people would hear that and think “hang on, this doesn’t really sound very possible does it”. ‘Smart’ (credentialed) people can persuade themselves of basically anything, by making complex arguments that defy basic intuitive reasoning. They are more prone to motivated reasoning as a result. And it’s not even close!"
Alex on X - "I’ve heard it said that it sometimes requires an above average level of intelligence to be convinced of utterly ridiculous things, as the mental gymnastics required to make them sound believable to oneself are both a constant and intense exercise."
Craig Ewen on X - "The easiest people in the world to deceive are those so sure of their own superiority over others that their arrogance blinds them to the deceptions of others. They can't see the truth. There's another way of putting that but X would prob suspend my account."

Richard Hanania on X - "Jason Arday's memoir begins with a prophecy. He's 21 years old and installing water pumps in Brazil. A woman touches his arm and tells him he's going to suffer but do great things. The guy has been adding Game of Thrones scenes to his life story."

Steve McGuire on X - "The Atlantic has just published a review of Jason Arday’s forthcoming memoir. They compared it to the original book proposal and observed several inconsistencies. They reached out to just about everyone involved, but no one answered their questions."
Peter C. Herman on X - "In other words, this "memoir" is really a work of fiction."
Steve McGuire on X - "“According to a cover letter that his agent sent to publishers at the time, Arday’s book, to be titled Great and Unfortunate Things, would be ‘an awe-inspiring tale of near mythic proportions.’”"

Richard Hanania on X - "The Atlantic reads Jason Arday's memoir, and finds his life story was even more inspirational than we thought He was beaten so badly as a teen he became an epileptic. When the boys who did this were caught, he magnanimously told the judge he didn't want them to go to prison. "By the time Arday started on his master's degree, he writes, he was reading at about the same level as his 3-year-old daughter." You complain you can't get a girlfriend. Chad Arday was going through college illiterate, had his girlfriend write out his applications, and managed to father a child. He then got a teaching job. But he didn't have money, so he started working at a supermarket from 11 PM to 5AM, then a cleaner from 5:30 AM to 7:30 AM. Remember the guys who beat him up? It turns out that two of the muggers ended up being his students. They were so moved by his compassion, that they'd turned their lives around and were now helping at risk youth. As his dissertation approached, Arday got a brain tumor and lost his memory. "More troubles follow in the years ahead: Arday’s brain tumor returns; he splits up with his wife; he suffers autistic burnout during the coronavirus pandemic and can’t get out of bed. He decides to kill himself by jumping off a bridge, but at the very last minute, he listens to his favorite song." The author of the piece writes: "I reached out to the book’s fact-checker to ask whether this and several other stories from the book had been verified, but she did not respond." The Atlantic also got its hands on his book proposal. There are even more incredible stories in it. As a teenager, Arday got hit by a car and went into a coma. The doctor told his parents to pull the plug, but he refused. There's also a bout of testicular cancer that shows up in the proposal but is not in the book. I guess there wasn't enough room for all of that given all of the other amazing stories in his life. Oh, and the book isn't being pulled. Simon & Schuster are still going to publish it next week. The haters are just one more obstacle Arday has overcome."

Jacqueline (Jacqui) Mckenzie on X - "Most of us who signed the open letter in support of former Cambridge Professor, Jason Arday, has had the media on our case for the past couple of days. I signed the letter. Jason's resignation seemed bound to happen and once Cambridge University started its own investigation, inevitable. Jason was clearly hounded by people with an agenda, particularly ones with distasteful and discredited views on race. They in turn were fuelled by a ravenous media which thrives on people's downfall, and other nefarious commentators. But Jason's fate was sealed as the discussion moved from plagiarism and his scholarship, to his character, in a way we've not seen before. And there are plenty of accusations of plagiarism. Academia in the UK is overwhelmingly white so therefore faculty plagiarism is going to be overwhelmingly white. We read about these cases from time to time. I don't recall the sort of forensic examination of every facet of the protagonist's life as I've seen in this case. I don't recall the elderly parents of anyone being doorsteped. African and Asian heritage professionals are over surveilled, micro managed and investigated. This is simply a fact; report after report in some professions, including law and medicine, tell the tale. So whereas media presenters are trying to catch us out when they ask whether race is a factor in this case, it is fair for me, who's worked in the UK for 40 plus years, including as a race equality officer, to say that whilst we don't know the facts in this particular case, we do know the uncomfortable truth that the likelihood is high and as luck would have it, the end might well have justified the means. But this isn't always the case! I signed the open letter when I heard that Liverpool John Moores had cleared Jason of plagiarism. Are they maintaining their position? Is he innocent of this? Was the problem poor citation, or something else? Who amongst us know the facts? This sorry tale does raise issues about the quality of the work done in some of these institutions, including the hallowed ones, and about how autism and neurodivergency might play out in the final analysis. If the multiple stories portrayed as fact turn out to be fantasy, exaggeration or invention, what caused this? Did this young man feel the need to emblish facts to fit in to what is a high, and possibly overachievening, world? Jason is obviously a very talented young man whatever the facts turn out to be. I hope he receives the best support, love and care from his friends and family and can reset and go on to use his talents. Whatever the facts are on his extra curricular activities and on the plagiarism when things are examined, Jason has, seemingly, more talent than most of the people celebrating his downfall. Not sure many of us can write a PhD even with copied paragraphs, run a marathon, or have any inclination to do anything useful for our communities. It's been interesting to hear his bright students speak about him and credit him with their own development. I was happy when I read about his appointment. It is rare to see a young Black person in the space he occupied. I am sad to read about his resignation, the confusion, the gotcha comments, and the implications for those who seek to put their head above the parapet only to be told you don't belong and, we'll get you one way or the other."
When you still cling onto the narrative

Prof. Hanna Kienzler 🧡 🇵🇸 on X - "The glee of the right over the Arday case is indicative of how unsafe academia is for Black scholars and of an attempt to erode whatever fragile safety still exists.They are having a field day while many on the left once again find what is happening too complicated to have a view"
Daniel Friedman on X - "A prominent black academic who was hired as the youngest ever full professor at Cambridge has been exposed as a flagrant plagiarist and a total fraud. The story is so ridiculous it has attracted a high degree of mainstream attention. To normal people, this episode reveals how shoddy and fake academia is, how little rigor and scrutiny is applied to academic publications and how low the bar can be for diversity hires at even the most prestigious institutions. For professor Palestine Flag, however, this is actually “indicative of how unsafe academia is for Black scholars.” What is the danger that they face? Being exposed as frauds like Arday? Is the danger that there are many more just like him?"
Isn't it racist to say Black scholars are all plagiarising liars?

Andrew Hammel on X - "Arday is bringing out the pent-up rage of thousands of non-minority scholars who've toiled for decades in relative obscurity and produced valuable, original work -- all the while watching colleagues whom everyone knew to be mediocre being promoted to positions for which the non-minority was objectively more qualified. And being unable to say anything about it publicly without potentially wrecking their careers. The sheer magnitude of the Arday fiasco is breaking open the debate."

Richard North on X - "Defund the BBC
Although much more is to come out of the woodwork with the Arday affair, the role of the BBC in reporting the emerging controversy should not be forgotten. The contrast between how newspapers like The Telegraph or The Times, and journals such as The Spectator, meticulously dismantled his claims and the passivity of the BBC in handling the story points to several systemic failures in the broadcaster’s objectivity. The BBC possesses an elite investigative arm, yet it fundamentally failed to use Verify or any of its other fact-checking resources independently to audit Arday's work during the height of the controversy. While print journalists were calling up charities, mapping out impossible marathon times (such as his claim of running 600 miles in six days), and running software on his academic papers, the BBC largely limited its coverage to reporting on other people's reporting. It limited is coverage of the controversy, effectively treating the crisis as a mere “row” or a clash of opinions between opposing camps, rather than a verifiable case of fraud. In so doing, it seems to have been attempting to protect a narrative it had spent years building. The BBC itself was a primary driver of the Arday phenomenon. They presented him as the definitive symbol of progressive triumph over institutional barriers: a man diagnosed with global development delay who could not speak until 11 but became Cambridge’s youngest Black professor at 37. Because the BBC’s senior editors used its platform to champion this specific biography, critically examining his thesis would require the broadcaster to admit that its own editorial vetting had failed. Thus, to preserve institutional face, the BBC consistently framed the accusations not as an issue of basic academic integrity, but as a “highly politicised” debate surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The broadcaster’s limited coverage heavily repeated Arday’s defensive framing. In his statements - broadcast extensively by the BBC - Arday claimed that the identical passages in his thesis were merely “errors” caused by his autism and a reliance on “mimicry” to learn. This was despite independent fact-checking and analysis of his 2015 PhD thesis at Liverpool John Moores University, which exposed 188 sentences that were identical or near-identical to a 2009 Brunel University thesis, a statistical impossibility to achieve by accident. Any experienced academic (in fact, any academic) knows that copying entire blocks of text from a previous student’s dissertation is plagiarism, not a symptom of "neurodivergence". By uncritically broadcasting his defence without explicitly pointing out that the scale of text duplication breached standard UK university regulations, the BBC chose to prioritise editorial sympathy over strict factual analysis. But the most significant indicator of a lack of objectivity was the BBC's initial silence on how the story was suppressed. The public now knows that journalists trying to investigate Arday were met with legal threats from elite law firms, and that the Metropolitan Police actually launched a four-month harassment investigation into an independent reporter just for emailing Arday standard journalistic questions. The BBC’s failure to investigate why a university professor was using the Met Police to silence legitimate journalistic scrutiny reveals what appears to be a deep-seated reluctance to challenge the establishment figures they admire. Yet, as a universally tax-funded broadcaster supported by the UK licence fee, the BBC is bound by a strict Royal Charter that legally requires it to maintain absolute impartiality and objectivity. When the broadcaster prioritises protecting a celebrated narrative over conducting basic, rigorous fact-checking, it represents a profound systemic failure that directly violates those foundational public duties. By contrast, the BBC routinely deploys its “Verify” unit to fact-check minor internet rumours or political claims, yet it consciously chose not to apply those same data-journalism tools to a high-profile academic scandal that was emerging. By framing massive text duplication as “errors” and focusing heavily on Arday's defence, the broadcaster allowed its own editorial sympathy to obscure the objective reality of the plagiarism. This demonstrates that the BBC had created for itself a clear conflict of interest where a public broadcaster was protecting its own historical reporting at the expense of the truth. In aligning its coverage with a specific progressive worldview – in this case uncritically championing a high-profile appointment to support a diversity narrative – it has succumbed to institutional capture. It has ceased to be an objective observer (not that it has been for some time) and instead has become an active participant in a cultural conflict, using public money to validate its own institutional preferences. Prior to the current Charter running out on 31 December 2027, the BBC’s reporting of the Arday controversy should feature prominently in the funding review. It should be taken as additional evidence that the current public service broadcasting model has outlived its usefulness. If the BBC wants to be the propaganda arm for the progressives, it should be so on its own dime. It is wholly unacceptable that the public should be forced to pay for it."

Jukka Savolainen on X - "In sociology hiring, race was linked to placement prestige at least as strongly as having a publication in the field’s flagship journals. Black candidates reached top departments with significantly weaker records—evidence of a systemic double standard, not just anecdotes."

John McWhorter on X - "Read this man's resignation letter and witness a delusion, megalomania, and dimness paralleled in public figures today only by America's President. Apparently the letter is AI. But from all we have learned about his "scholarship," of course he was incapable of composing intelligent prose himself. The whites who elevated Arday think Black people are dumb. And yes, it could have happened here. Yes, I am leaving some stuff unsaid."

Melissa Chen on X - "To understand just how irredeemably messed up academia is, compare the differences in how Cambridge treated Jason Arday and how Harvard treated Roland Fryer. One is a black sociologist; the other is a black economist. At this point, we are all very well acquainted with Jason Arday’s insane fabrications, plagiarism, and less-than-stellar research record. Yet he became the youngest black professor in Cambridge’s history at 37. Now look at the case of Roland Fryer. He produced rigorous, data-driven research, published extensively, and ran a major institute (EdLabs) at Harvard. He doggedly pursued the truth on one of the most charged questions in American public life. His landmark 2016 study titled “An Empirical Analysis of Racial Differences in Police Use of Force” examined millions of encounters and officer-involved shootings. It found that there were no racial differences in the raw data or after controlling for circumstances. In some datasets (notably Houston), blacks were actually less likely to be shot once the encounter was underway. As you know, this finding directly contradicted Black Lives Matter’s core orthodoxy that police systematically and disproportionately kill Black men out of racial animus. It was not only in vogue at the time; it was literally religion. Roland Fryer and his data were guilty of blasphemy. Harvard launched investigations into allegations of verbal sexual harassment and a hostile work environment in his lab. The process produced a two-year unpaid suspension, the permanent shutdown of EdLabs, and severe restrictions on his ability to advise or supervise. All this was investigated by a kangaroo court under Title IX. The recommendation for his alleged failings was sensitivity training, yet a faculty panel escalated it into career-crippling punishment. Fryer has said he was unfairly targeted because of the political inconvenience of his results. The contrast between how the academy treated these two men shows you how deep the moral rot is."

Donna-Louise on X - "This is going to be in my third article - but I am too outraged to wait to tell you. 😡 Jason Arday was never trained as a sociologist. Jason Arday has no degree, no Master’s and no PhD in Sociology. None. Zero. His entire formal academic training is in Education and Physical Education:
BA in Education Studies and Physical Education
MA in Education and Pedagogy
A second Master’s in Education
PhD in Education — specifically on peer-mentoring among student teachers training to become PE teachers
That is a doctorate in physical-education teacher training. It is not sociology. It contains no sociological theory, no sociological methods, and no sustained engagement with the core literature of the discipline. Yet within a few years the same man was:
Appointed Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Durham
Put in front of students teaching modules called Sociology of Education and Societies in Transition
Then made Professor of the Sociology of Education at Glasgow
Then made Professor of the Sociology of Education at Cambridge
Students were paying close to ten thousand pounds a year. Some of that money was buying teaching and supervision from a man whose highest qualification in the subject he was employed to profess was nothing. He had never studied sociology as an undergraduate, never taken a Master’s in it, and never written a doctoral thesis in it. The word “Sociology” appeared only in the job title. Institutions simply accepted the re-description. A PE-and-education academic was re-labelled a sociologist and students were charged elite university fees to be taught by him. That is not an academic career progression. That is a category error that successive universities chose not to notice. My mind has been blown by this revelation. No wonder his students report him leaning on desks talking about celebrities and inequality! He appears to have known absolutely nothing about the subject he was teaching!"

Donna-Louise on X - "Jason Arday Called the Police on Anyone Who Questioned Him -...
There is no acknowledgement of any error, no acceptance of any responsibility, and no engagement with the substance of the questions that had been raised. The resignation is framed entirely as the result of what other people have done to him. The eternal victim... Daniel Engber at The Atlantic obtained the original 2024 book proposal.
It contains episodes that do not appear in the finished book: a teenage car accident that left him in a locked-in coma for months, doctors advising his parents to withdraw life support “as an act of mercy,” and a full year relearning how to walk and talk.
The memoir says only that he spent those months finishing secondary school and sitting exams. The proposal also mentions testicular cancer, which does not appear in the finished book. The memoir itself describes Arday as having survived two brain tumours — a claim absent from the proposal...
In 2010 Arday kept a public blog of the “30 marathons in 35 days” challenge. There is no mention of a hairline fracture, a leg swollen to twice its size, or completing the final nine marathons while injured. Those details appeared years later... In the Talking Matters podcast Arday said he spent “a handful of years” at Crystal Palace as a youth player and then went on to play semi-professional football. Crystal Palace say they hold no records from that period. No semi-professional club has ever been named. The Telegraph asked directly which academy and which side; no answer has appeared. His memoir mentions neither. The only club that can be independently linked to him is Battersea Park Rangers. A Jason Arday appears on the FA’s Full-Time listings for their Vets side — an over-35s recreational team in the Southern Amateur Veterans League. This is Sunday-morning veterans football, completely outside the National League System. It is not a step on the ladder to professional football. It is the opposite end of the spectrum. A 2023 profile carried a photograph of him accepting an award on the club’s behalf in 2018 under the caption “Jason almost became a professional footballer.” The caption is doing a lot of work. Playing for a veterans recreational side in your late thirties does not constitute almost becoming a professional. It is ordinary Sunday football for men who enjoy the game. He has claimed a professional academy and a semi-professional career for years. He has never named either. When a national newspaper finally asked, he did not answer.
He has said he did even better at snooker than football, practised for seven hours a day whilst he should have been at school, won substantial sums, and was “on the verge of turning professional.” CueTracker records one match: English Amateur Championship, Round 1, 10 February 2002, against Matthew Tugby, lost 4–1. It is the only tournament and the only match on his record. There is no professional tour record... Daniel Engber in The Atlantic reporterd that in his memoir, Arday alleged that as a teenager he was beaten so severely by a group of boys at a bus stop that he developed epilepsy for which he wears a bracelet. When the attackers were arrested, he told the judge he did not want them sent to prison. Years later, while briefly teaching at an unnamed London university, two of the same young men turned up as his students. According to the memoir they had been so moved by his act of mercy that they had turned their lives around and were now coaching other at-risk youths. They hugged him; one asked him to be godfather to his child. Engber notes that the book’s fact-checker did not respond when asked whether this (and several other dramatic stories) had been verified. The 2024 book proposal also told the beating story with slightly different details (the attackers were four years older rather than the same age)... Arday has said, repeatedly, that he was diagnosed at the age of three (around 1988) with a “hybrid” of global developmental delay and Asperger’s syndrome. There are two immediate problems with that claim. First, Asperger’s syndrome was not an official diagnostic category in 1988... Second, even after it became an official diagnosis, a defining requirement of Asperger’s was the absence of any clinically significant general delay in language. The criteria required single words by age two and communicative phrases by age three. Arday’s own account is that he was non-verbal until eleven and communicated by sign language. That is the opposite of the language profile required for Asperger’s... No independent clinical records have ever been produced to support it. Arday has said, repeatedly and in print, that he was non-verbal until eleven and could not read or write until he was eighteen. He has also said he left school with only two GCSEs — PE and Textiles. How is that possible? GCSE Textiles requires a design folder with written research, annotations and evaluations, plus a written exam. You cannot complete the coursework or sit the paper without being able to read and write. The same problem applies to the BTEC that supposedly followed: entry normally requires GCSEs in English and maths, and the course itself is built on written reports and assignments. Completing either while functionally illiterate is not something that happens under ordinary rules... He has also described spending seven hours a day playing snooker instead of attending school. That may explain the two GCSEs — but it does not explain how someone with that level of school attendance and those results then progressed to a degree, two master’s degrees and a PhD... Three separate people who raised evidence-based concerns were reported to the police... The scandal is not only what he claimed. It is how long so many people chose to believe it."

Melissa Chen on X - "DEI advocates always want to have their cake and eat it too.  You cannot demand collective racial engineering via race-conscious hiring, diversity quotas and preferential pipelines and then turn around and say, "Y U NO TREAT US AS INDIVIDUALS" when something like Jason Arday dominates the headlines. You are the ones who elevated identity as a credential.  “We need more BAME professors” was the explicit slogan. “Cambridge’s youngest Black professor” was the explicit marketing line when Jason Arday was appointed in 2023.  Sorry but this is just the predictable consequence of the framework you imposed.  For white people (and East Asians), it's the other way around. Under DEI regimes that systematically disadvantage them in favor of BAME representation, a white / Asian person who still reaches an elite post has typically done so IN SPITE OF their identity, not because of it.   That raises the prior probability that they cleared a higher bar. When such a person later plagiarizes or fabricates, the failure attaches to them as an individual; it does not put “whiteness” or the legitimacy of white presence on trial because their ascent was never framed as a racial deliverable in the first place.  DEI’s central bargain was always unstable. The price of that bargain is that group outcomes, positive or negative, become fair game for judgment.  This idea that you can demand that universities treat people as racial collectives for the purpose of preferential inclusion and then COMPLAIN when a high-profile failure is treated as an indictment of the collective logic that put them there in the first place is so laughable."  
One cope is that race conscious hiring, diversity quotas and preferential pipelines just exactly cancel out racism and ensure a level playing field