2020 Election Commentary

[GameDaddy]

I particularly love how "The Democrats are incompetent" is somehow now seen as compatible with "The Democrats pulled off a conspiracy in 8 states simultaneously to change the federal election". Though somehow they couldn't pull off that same fraud, with those same ballots, to get the Senate or increase their seats in the House or the State legislatures. Because...reasons.

It makes as much sense as the idea that the Russians intervened in the 2016 election, but not 2018 or 2020. Did they just get bored with US politics?

Actually, no. Cyberspace Command shut down the Russo-botnet networks about five weeks before the election and totally f&%ked the Russian plan to flood the internet with Pro-trump propaganda.  I think they are disappointed their man in the white house is going down. The Chinese, however, ever more subtle, are quite pleased with how the elections turned out.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/cyber-command-trickbot-disrupt/2020/10/09/19587aae-0a32-11eb-a166-dc429b380d10_story.html

and Microsoft is fighting too becuase the Russkis love using their crappy OS software to jack everything up...
https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2020/10/12/trickbot-ransomware-cyberthreat-us-elections/

[Mercurius]

Even if creaky old Joe wins

Oh good. Progress!

Towards what? I've pointed out that the election isn't over until the electors are selected and they cast their votes. Biden is not the President elect.

"President-elect" is not an official term, at least according to Wikipedia. But to 80% of the US population--and 99% of the world--yes, he is.

[jeff37923]

"President-elect" is not an official term, at least according to Wikipedia. But to 80% of the US population--and 99% of the world--yes, he is.

Your math is wrong......

[jhkim]

Oh fuck, I'm on the opposite side of an argument from Elfdart using fap emojis - that's the universe telling you there's no reason to doubt!

The counter-arguers:

Lincoln Project crushees

Fact-checking analysts who believe the phrase "head on a pike" is not a metaphor

Assorted leftists more gleeful than any time since before they learned what "catfishing" was

Elfdart, more gleeful than any time since before he learned he could no longer catfish them

Yes, I think with opposition like this I need to reconsider RIGHT NOW before all the facts that could be, are put before a court

It seems to me that different people have different positions that fall along a spectrum, rather than just us-vs-them. Specifically about fraud, at one extreme, RandyB believes that there were over 40 million fraudulent votes cast for Biden. I'm not sure who is the other extreme on this forum - but there are certainly some liberals in general who now reflexively dismiss claims of fraud without critical thought -- just as there are some conservatives who reflexively believe claims of fraud without critical thought.

-

Also, I think I'm the one being called out over the "head on a pike". For the record, I agree that it was metaphorical, but I don't think that makes it acceptable. Specifically, I was responding to this article posted by shuddemell that calls out liberals for making metaphorical death threats:

https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/26/7-open-leftist-threats-that-political-terror-is-coming-to-america-whether-trump-wins-or-not/

I agreed with the article that the metaphorical death threats by liberals was wrong. (ref)

[Ghostmaker]

Oh fuck, I'm on the opposite side of an argument from Elfdart using fap emojis - that's the universe telling you there's no reason to doubt!

The counter-arguers:

Lincoln Project crushees

Fact-checking analysts who believe the phrase "head on a pike" is not a metaphor

Assorted leftists more gleeful than any time since before they learned what "catfishing" was

Elfdart, more gleeful than any time since before he learned he could no longer catfish them

Yes, I think with opposition like this I need to reconsider RIGHT NOW before all the facts that could be, are put before a court

It seems to me that different people have different positions that fall along a spectrum, rather than just us-vs-them. Specifically about fraud, at one extreme, RandyB believes that there were over 40 million fraudulent votes cast for Biden. I'm not sure who is the other extreme on this forum - but there are certainly some liberals in general who now reflexively dismiss claims of fraud without critical thought -- just as there are some conservatives who reflexively believe claims of fraud without critical thought.

-

Also, I think I'm the one being called out over the "head on a pike". For the record, I agree that it was metaphorical, but I don't think that makes it acceptable. Specifically, I was responding to this article posted by shuddemell that calls out liberals for making metaphorical death threats:

https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/26/7-open-leftist-threats-that-political-terror-is-coming-to-america-whether-trump-wins-or-not/

I agreed with the article that the metaphorical death threats by liberals was wrong.

I nominally agree, but you're unspeakably naive if you think those threats are merely metaphorical.

Witness the reaction to the recent march in DC by Trump supporters, and how BLM/Antifa groups acted.

[Ratman_tf]

Even if creaky old Joe wins

Oh good. Progress!

Towards what? I've pointed out that the election isn't over until the electors are selected and they cast their votes. Biden is not the President elect.

"President-elect" is not an official term, at least according to Wikipedia. But to 80% of the US population--and 99% of the world--yes, he is.

Don't you mean 104 percent?

[SHARK]

Greetings!

WAIT, WHAT?

We have Antifa members going up and executing Trump supporters in Portland by shooting them; In Austin, Texas, we have BLM thugs firing bullets into a car, attempting to murder the driver; We have BLM thugs shooting a young WHITE mother to death because she said "All Lives Matter"; In Seattle, Washington, we have BLM mobs take over parts of the city entirely, where murder, violence, and rape is celebrated; Trump supporters are pulled from their vehicles and stumped on by swarming groups of BLM thugs; Just this last weekend, a black woman and BLM member stole a Trump supporter's American flag, and then drew a knife, and threatened to kill everyone around her.

But some cuck bitch is worried about metaphors for "Putting their heads on pikes"?

You have to be fucking kidding me?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

[shuddemell]

Is he still calling himself "Doctor"?

While it is a bit pretentious, Gorka does have a doctorate in Political Science. Strictly speaking, he isn't wrong.

He's a "doctor" like Tom Parker was a "colonel":

Haaretz

Stop Calling Him 'Dr.': The Academic Fraud of Sebastian Gorka, Trump's Terrorism 'Expert'

The only formally qualified examiner for Gorka's Ph.D. on a panel packed with personal friends was an extreme right-wing Hungarian MEP who recently advocated putting pigs heads on a fence on the Hungarian border to keep out Muslims

Early on a mustache-twirling villain emerged as the face of the Trump White House. With the mannerisms of a pompous English B-movie baddy, Sebastian Gorka is to Donald Trump what the Sheriff of Nottingham was to King John. The malevolent sidekick.

Dr. Gorka styles himself as the crusading academic. A Kissinger for our troubled times. The brilliant scholar of terrorism who has taught at elite colleges and published groundbreaking research. He often reminds the imbeciles of the press that as a man of great learning only he truly comprehends the threat of Muslims.

But experts have listened to Gorka's advocacy of the Muslim ban, attacks on the media and sterling defence of Trump's "well-oiled' administration and wondered how could such a well trained academic make such baseless and ignorant claims about topics he purports to be an expert on? In March he became embroiled in a remarkable spat with a Republican National Security consultant, Michael S. Smith. Gorka is flailing widely – tilting at enemies real and imagined.

I started digging and it didn't take long to find out that Gorka is a fraud – a charlatan of the most brazen hue – a snake-oil salesman whose supposed Ph.D dissertation would have never passed muster in America or Britain and to put the cherry on the cake was approved by an fraudulent panel of examiners. The polar opposite of Lt. Gen H.R. McMasters' celebrated dissertation awarded by UNC Chapel Hill.

Gorka is Hungarian-English. He gained an American passport in 2012. His nationalist parents fled to London from Budapest in 1956. His dissertation – Content and End-State-based Alteration in the Practice of Political Violence since the End of the Cold War: the difference between the terrorism of the Cold War and the terrorism of al Qaeda: the rise of the "transcendental terrorist, was apparently granted in 2007 by Corvinus University of Budapest.

The tract is long on Islamophobia and the unsubstantiated claims of the polemicist but short on theory, evidence or academic rigor. Corvinus is not an institution with a profile, so I looked: sadly it doesn't even make the top 1,000 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

Even Gorka's attendance poses a mystery. When exactly was he a graduate student at the university? Did he take classes? Did he receive any training in Islam or Islamic studies? His CV notes that he left Hungary in 2004 to work for the U.S. Defense Department in Germany and then in 2008 relocated to the U.S. There is no evidence that he ever returned to live and study in Budapest.

The dissertation is online and includes the 'evaluations' of three referees who each presented a page of generalized comments – completely at odds with the detailed substantive and methodological evaluations that I've seen at every Ph.D defence I've been on over the last twenty years.

Two of the three referees did not even have a Ph.D. One was the U.S. Defense Attaché at the American Embassy in Budapest at the time, while the other was employed at the UK's Defence Academy and just had a BA from Manchester University awarded in 1969.

This 'neutral' examiner had published a book in Hungary with Gorka three years previously. While graduate students sometimes collaborate with their advisors the independent external examiners must have no nepotistic ties with the candidate.

More important, a basic principle of assessing educational achievement is that your examiners have at least the degree level of the degree they are awarding. Undergraduates do not award Ph.Ds.

In Gorka's case the only examiner who lists a doctorate was György Schöpflin – an extreme right wing Hungarian Member of the European Parliament who recently advocated putting pigs heads on a fence on the Hungarian border to keep out Muslims. I have been told that Schöpflin was a family friend. Both Schöpflin and Gorka's father fled from Budapest to London in the 1950s and both moved in exile right-wing nationalist circles.

If that is true, we are left in sum with a degree that was awarded in absence – on the basis of a dissertation without basic political science methodological underpinnings – and apparently from an examining committee of two of Gorka's diplomat friends, with only BA degrees; along with an old family friend, Schöpflin.

In sum, Gorka's Ph.D is about as legitimate as if he had been awarded it by Trump University. Facts matter, but so does the gathering, synthesizing and creation of knowledge that is what we call 'education.' If you fake a Ph.D you are faking your credentials. He delivers provable untruths to the American public but is believed by many because he presents himself as an esteemed scholar of Islam. Gorka would never have got away with such chutzpah in the UK.

Experience and scholarship work in harness to produce answers to questions. When you have neither experience nor training you are likely to not merely get the answers wrong, but not even have an inkling of which questions to ask.

Clearly Gorka yearns to be taken seriously and he uses the "Dr." credentials in a way that no one who earned the degree would ever do. In his 2016 screed, Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War, he is Dr. Sebastian Gorka on the front cover.

Tacky or just an alternative fact? This is the man we have as a chief national security advisor to the President. That may not change, but lets give him the professional respect he deserves and stop calling him 'Dr.'

Andrew Reynolds is a Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Follow him on Twitter: @AndyReynoldsUNC

So Gorka earned his PhD the way Elvis earned his blackbelt?  LOFL!

Strange isn't it, how out of all the right-wing thinkers, the ones that attract the biggest following are crackpots (Marvin Olasky, Jordan Peterson), frauds (Gorka) or outright Nazis (Charles Murray).

Interesting if true, but then I'll have to vet the author of this "takedown" as well. After reading around the link you provided, I am skeptical that the person that wrote this opinion piece is even remotely unbiased. You may not respect his doctorate, but ostensibly he does have one. I do agree that very few (not a medical doctor would actually call themselves a doctor) would use this title, and as I mentioned I find it tacky. Though I have had professors that insisted on just that, so it's not unheard of. Not sure where you get the notion that Murray is a Nazi. Sam Harris certainly doesn't think so, nor do I. Just because he has examined some politically incorrect subjects is no reason to slander the man. Secondly, the only real Nazi's basically died out 75+ years, so hyperbole aside, what's your beef with Murray? As to the crackpots... that's an opinion, and it's pretty obvious your biases are showing. I would wager Peterson has published more cited publications than you have read in your lifetime, perhaps not, but I'll trust the prevailing opinion in lieu of yours.

[SHARK]

Is he still calling himself "Doctor"?

While it is a bit pretentious, Gorka does have a doctorate in Political Science. Strictly speaking, he isn't wrong.

He's a "doctor" like Tom Parker was a "colonel":

Haaretz

Stop Calling Him 'Dr.': The Academic Fraud of Sebastian Gorka, Trump's Terrorism 'Expert'

The only formally qualified examiner for Gorka's Ph.D. on a panel packed with personal friends was an extreme right-wing Hungarian MEP who recently advocated putting pigs heads on a fence on the Hungarian border to keep out Muslims

Early on a mustache-twirling villain emerged as the face of the Trump White House. With the mannerisms of a pompous English B-movie baddy, Sebastian Gorka is to Donald Trump what the Sheriff of Nottingham was to King John. The malevolent sidekick.

Dr. Gorka styles himself as the crusading academic. A Kissinger for our troubled times. The brilliant scholar of terrorism who has taught at elite colleges and published groundbreaking research. He often reminds the imbeciles of the press that as a man of great learning only he truly comprehends the threat of Muslims.

But experts have listened to Gorka's advocacy of the Muslim ban, attacks on the media and sterling defence of Trump's "well-oiled' administration and wondered how could such a well trained academic make such baseless and ignorant claims about topics he purports to be an expert on? In March he became embroiled in a remarkable spat with a Republican National Security consultant, Michael S. Smith. Gorka is flailing widely – tilting at enemies real and imagined.

I started digging and it didn't take long to find out that Gorka is a fraud – a charlatan of the most brazen hue – a snake-oil salesman whose supposed Ph.D dissertation would have never passed muster in America or Britain and to put the cherry on the cake was approved by an fraudulent panel of examiners. The polar opposite of Lt. Gen H.R. McMasters' celebrated dissertation awarded by UNC Chapel Hill.

Gorka is Hungarian-English. He gained an American passport in 2012. His nationalist parents fled to London from Budapest in 1956. His dissertation – Content and End-State-based Alteration in the Practice of Political Violence since the End of the Cold War: the difference between the terrorism of the Cold War and the terrorism of al Qaeda: the rise of the "transcendental terrorist, was apparently granted in 2007 by Corvinus University of Budapest.

The tract is long on Islamophobia and the unsubstantiated claims of the polemicist but short on theory, evidence or academic rigor. Corvinus is not an institution with a profile, so I looked: sadly it doesn't even make the top 1,000 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

Even Gorka's attendance poses a mystery. When exactly was he a graduate student at the university? Did he take classes? Did he receive any training in Islam or Islamic studies? His CV notes that he left Hungary in 2004 to work for the U.S. Defense Department in Germany and then in 2008 relocated to the U.S. There is no evidence that he ever returned to live and study in Budapest.

The dissertation is online and includes the 'evaluations' of three referees who each presented a page of generalized comments – completely at odds with the detailed substantive and methodological evaluations that I've seen at every Ph.D defence I've been on over the last twenty years.

Two of the three referees did not even have a Ph.D. One was the U.S. Defense Attaché at the American Embassy in Budapest at the time, while the other was employed at the UK's Defence Academy and just had a BA from Manchester University awarded in 1969.

This 'neutral' examiner had published a book in Hungary with Gorka three years previously. While graduate students sometimes collaborate with their advisors the independent external examiners must have no nepotistic ties with the candidate.

More important, a basic principle of assessing educational achievement is that your examiners have at least the degree level of the degree they are awarding. Undergraduates do not award Ph.Ds.

In Gorka's case the only examiner who lists a doctorate was György Schöpflin – an extreme right wing Hungarian Member of the European Parliament who recently advocated putting pigs heads on a fence on the Hungarian border to keep out Muslims. I have been told that Schöpflin was a family friend. Both Schöpflin and Gorka's father fled from Budapest to London in the 1950s and both moved in exile right-wing nationalist circles.

If that is true, we are left in sum with a degree that was awarded in absence – on the basis of a dissertation without basic political science methodological underpinnings – and apparently from an examining committee of two of Gorka's diplomat friends, with only BA degrees; along with an old family friend, Schöpflin.

In sum, Gorka's Ph.D is about as legitimate as if he had been awarded it by Trump University. Facts matter, but so does the gathering, synthesizing and creation of knowledge that is what we call 'education.' If you fake a Ph.D you are faking your credentials. He delivers provable untruths to the American public but is believed by many because he presents himself as an esteemed scholar of Islam. Gorka would never have got away with such chutzpah in the UK.

Experience and scholarship work in harness to produce answers to questions. When you have neither experience nor training you are likely to not merely get the answers wrong, but not even have an inkling of which questions to ask.

Clearly Gorka yearns to be taken seriously and he uses the "Dr." credentials in a way that no one who earned the degree would ever do. In his 2016 screed, Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War, he is Dr. Sebastian Gorka on the front cover.

Tacky or just an alternative fact? This is the man we have as a chief national security advisor to the President. That may not change, but lets give him the professional respect he deserves and stop calling him 'Dr.'

Andrew Reynolds is a Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Follow him on Twitter: @AndyReynoldsUNC

So Gorka earned his PhD the way Elvis earned his blackbelt?  LOFL!

Strange isn't it, how out of all the right-wing thinkers, the ones that attract the biggest following are crackpots (Marvin Olasky, Jordan Peterson), frauds (Gorka) or outright Nazis (Charles Murray).

Interesting if true, but then I'll have to vet the author of this "takedown" as well. After reading around the link you provided, I am skeptical that the person that wrote this opinion piece is even remotely unbiased. You may not respect his doctorate, but ostensibly he does have one. I do agree that very few (not a medical doctor would actually call themselves a doctor) would use this title, and as I mentioned I find it tacky. Though I have had professors that insisted on just that, so it's not unheard of. Not sure where you get the notion that Murray is a Nazi. Sam Harris certainly doesn't think so, nor do I. Just because he has examined some politically incorrect subjects is no reason to slander the man. Secondly, the only real Nazi's basically died out 75+ years, so hyperbole aside, what's your beef with Murray? As to the crackpots... that's an opinion, and it's pretty obvious your biases are showing. I would wager Peterson has published more cited publications than you have read in your lifetime, perhaps not, but I'll trust the prevailing opinion in lieu of yours.

Greetings!

Yeah, Shuddemell! I have had *many* professors refer to themselves as DR--quite explicitly, as a matter of fact. What's with the quaint insistence by others that *only* Medical Doctors are referred to as "DR."? I would say most academics I have seen refer to themselves as DR. History, Philosophy, Political Science, Anthropology, and on and on.

As one Philosophy Professor told me, "I studied for 12 years and more to earn my Ph.D. So I am quite entitled to be referred to as DR, thank you very much. Courts of Law, academic institutions and more fully recognize the merit and status of DR, and those that have put in the work to achieve such a title."

I'm not sure where these people get the idea that only medical experts are doctors--they aren't. There are different specialties, but the achievement of PH.D. is still DR for whoever has achieved that status, and rightfully so. For those to insist that only medical people are DR is ignorant and pathetic, and simply not true or accurate.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

[shuddemell]

Agreed. It's a tactic used to smear someone without good reason. To suggest they don't deserve the title they worked hard to achieve. The left isn't real big on respecting their enemies, so it doesn't surprise me. I am sure it won't be long until he tells us Dr. Thomas Sowell and Dr. Walter E. Williams are not only not deserving of that title but racists to boot. Typically smear playbook. That was actually the point I was making, as I don't really follow or know much of what Dr. Gorka proposes, etc. What I do know, is that if he has a doctorate, that he earned the title...

[shuddemell]

"President-elect" is not an official term, at least according to Wikipedia. But to 80% of the US population--and 99% of the world--yes, he is.

Your math is wrong......

Tragically so, off by a factor of 2 or more... (Because if he was right, they wouldn't have had to cheat so egregiously to try and steal the election.

[HappyDaze]

Is he still calling himself "Doctor"?

While it is a bit pretentious, Gorka does have a doctorate in Political Science. Strictly speaking, he isn't wrong.

He's a "doctor" like Tom Parker was a "colonel":

Haaretz

Stop Calling Him 'Dr.': The Academic Fraud of Sebastian Gorka, Trump's Terrorism 'Expert'

The only formally qualified examiner for Gorka's Ph.D. on a panel packed with personal friends was an extreme right-wing Hungarian MEP who recently advocated putting pigs heads on a fence on the Hungarian border to keep out Muslims

Early on a mustache-twirling villain emerged as the face of the Trump White House. With the mannerisms of a pompous English B-movie baddy, Sebastian Gorka is to Donald Trump what the Sheriff of Nottingham was to King John. The malevolent sidekick.

Dr. Gorka styles himself as the crusading academic. A Kissinger for our troubled times. The brilliant scholar of terrorism who has taught at elite colleges and published groundbreaking research. He often reminds the imbeciles of the press that as a man of great learning only he truly comprehends the threat of Muslims.

But experts have listened to Gorka's advocacy of the Muslim ban, attacks on the media and sterling defence of Trump's "well-oiled' administration and wondered how could such a well trained academic make such baseless and ignorant claims about topics he purports to be an expert on? In March he became embroiled in a remarkable spat with a Republican National Security consultant, Michael S. Smith. Gorka is flailing widely – tilting at enemies real and imagined.

I started digging and it didn't take long to find out that Gorka is a fraud – a charlatan of the most brazen hue – a snake-oil salesman whose supposed Ph.D dissertation would have never passed muster in America or Britain and to put the cherry on the cake was approved by an fraudulent panel of examiners. The polar opposite of Lt. Gen H.R. McMasters' celebrated dissertation awarded by UNC Chapel Hill.

Gorka is Hungarian-English. He gained an American passport in 2012. His nationalist parents fled to London from Budapest in 1956. His dissertation – Content and End-State-based Alteration in the Practice of Political Violence since the End of the Cold War: the difference between the terrorism of the Cold War and the terrorism of al Qaeda: the rise of the "transcendental terrorist, was apparently granted in 2007 by Corvinus University of Budapest.

The tract is long on Islamophobia and the unsubstantiated claims of the polemicist but short on theory, evidence or academic rigor. Corvinus is not an institution with a profile, so I looked: sadly it doesn't even make the top 1,000 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

Even Gorka's attendance poses a mystery. When exactly was he a graduate student at the university? Did he take classes? Did he receive any training in Islam or Islamic studies? His CV notes that he left Hungary in 2004 to work for the U.S. Defense Department in Germany and then in 2008 relocated to the U.S. There is no evidence that he ever returned to live and study in Budapest.

The dissertation is online and includes the 'evaluations' of three referees who each presented a page of generalized comments – completely at odds with the detailed substantive and methodological evaluations that I've seen at every Ph.D defence I've been on over the last twenty years.

Two of the three referees did not even have a Ph.D. One was the U.S. Defense Attaché at the American Embassy in Budapest at the time, while the other was employed at the UK's Defence Academy and just had a BA from Manchester University awarded in 1969.

This 'neutral' examiner had published a book in Hungary with Gorka three years previously. While graduate students sometimes collaborate with their advisors the independent external examiners must have no nepotistic ties with the candidate.

More important, a basic principle of assessing educational achievement is that your examiners have at least the degree level of the degree they are awarding. Undergraduates do not award Ph.Ds.

In Gorka's case the only examiner who lists a doctorate was György Schöpflin – an extreme right wing Hungarian Member of the European Parliament who recently advocated putting pigs heads on a fence on the Hungarian border to keep out Muslims. I have been told that Schöpflin was a family friend. Both Schöpflin and Gorka's father fled from Budapest to London in the 1950s and both moved in exile right-wing nationalist circles.

If that is true, we are left in sum with a degree that was awarded in absence – on the basis of a dissertation without basic political science methodological underpinnings – and apparently from an examining committee of two of Gorka's diplomat friends, with only BA degrees; along with an old family friend, Schöpflin.

In sum, Gorka's Ph.D is about as legitimate as if he had been awarded it by Trump University. Facts matter, but so does the gathering, synthesizing and creation of knowledge that is what we call 'education.' If you fake a Ph.D you are faking your credentials. He delivers provable untruths to the American public but is believed by many because he presents himself as an esteemed scholar of Islam. Gorka would never have got away with such chutzpah in the UK.

Experience and scholarship work in harness to produce answers to questions. When you have neither experience nor training you are likely to not merely get the answers wrong, but not even have an inkling of which questions to ask.

Clearly Gorka yearns to be taken seriously and he uses the "Dr." credentials in a way that no one who earned the degree would ever do. In his 2016 screed, Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War, he is Dr. Sebastian Gorka on the front cover.

Tacky or just an alternative fact? This is the man we have as a chief national security advisor to the President. That may not change, but lets give him the professional respect he deserves and stop calling him 'Dr.'

Andrew Reynolds is a Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Follow him on Twitter: @AndyReynoldsUNC

So Gorka earned his PhD the way Elvis earned his blackbelt?  LOFL!

Strange isn't it, how out of all the right-wing thinkers, the ones that attract the biggest following are crackpots (Marvin Olasky, Jordan Peterson), frauds (Gorka) or outright Nazis (Charles Murray).

Interesting if true, but then I'll have to vet the author of this "takedown" as well. After reading around the link you provided, I am skeptical that the person that wrote this opinion piece is even remotely unbiased. You may not respect his doctorate, but ostensibly he does have one. I do agree that very few (not a medical doctor would actually call themselves a doctor) would use this title, and as I mentioned I find it tacky. Though I have had professors that insisted on just that, so it's not unheard of. Not sure where you get the notion that Murray is a Nazi. Sam Harris certainly doesn't think so, nor do I. Just because he has examined some politically incorrect subjects is no reason to slander the man. Secondly, the only real Nazi's basically died out 75+ years, so hyperbole aside, what's your beef with Murray? As to the crackpots... that's an opinion, and it's pretty obvious your biases are showing. I would wager Peterson has published more cited publications than you have read in your lifetime, perhaps not, but I'll trust the prevailing opinion in lieu of yours.

Greetings!

Yeah, Shuddemell! I have had *many* professors refer to themselves as DR--quite explicitly, as a matter of fact. What's with the quaint insistence by others that *only* Medical Doctors are referred to as "DR."? I would say most academics I have seen refer to themselves as DR. History, Philosophy, Political Science, Anthropology, and on and on.

As one Philosophy Professor told me, "I studied for 12 years and more to earn my Ph.D. So I am quite entitled to be referred to as DR, thank you very much. Courts of Law, academic institutions and more fully recognize the merit and status of DR, and those that have put in the work to achieve such a title."

I'm not sure where these people get the idea that only medical experts are doctors--they aren't. There are different specialties, but the achievement of PH.D. is still DR for whoever has achieved that status, and rightfully so. For those to insist that only medical people are DR is ignorant and pathetic, and simply not true or accurate.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

The only places where I've really seen the "don't call people with non-clinical PhDs doctors is in clinical settings (hospitals, etc.), and the reason is typically said to be for avoiding confusing patients. This still has some weirdness in behavioral settings with psychologists vs. psychiatrists, but both generally go with "doctor" without too much issue. What I really found weird is when you have someone with a PhD in Nursing. They're a doctor, but not a doctor (but, as a NP, they are a medical provider)... Just weird.

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Terence Popp discusses Coup D'estate we are witnessing.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

[jhkim]

We have Antifa members going up and executing Trump supporters in Portland by shooting them; In Austin, Texas, we have BLM thugs firing bullets into a car, attempting to murder the driver; We have BLM thugs shooting a young WHITE mother to death because she said "All Lives Matter"; In Seattle, Washington, we have BLM mobs take over parts of the city entirely, where murder, violence, and rape is celebrated; Trump supporters are pulled from their vehicles and stumped on by swarming groups of BLM thugs; Just this last weekend, a black woman and BLM member stole a Trump supporter's American flag, and then drew a knife, and threatened to kill everyone around her.

But some cuck bitch is worried about metaphors for "Putting their heads on pikes"?

I'm not sure who this is referring to. Are you referring to author Stella Morabito of the article that shuddemell cited?

She specifically mentions Antifa and BLM related violence which she also complains about, but she says that the language of leaders and mobs normalizes and promotes violence. So if leaders say that Trump supporters are an existential threat or that they should be lined up against the wall and shot - that encourages violence in followers, even if it isn't meant to be taken literally.

Use of metaphor like hanging or burning Trump figures, or talk of guillotines - it's part of the pattern of encouraging extremism and violence, even if no one is actually being killed by literal guillotines.

[shuddemell]

Is he still calling himself "Doctor"?

While it is a bit pretentious, Gorka does have a doctorate in Political Science. Strictly speaking, he isn't wrong.

He's a "doctor" like Tom Parker was a "colonel":

Haaretz

Stop Calling Him 'Dr.': The Academic Fraud of Sebastian Gorka, Trump's Terrorism 'Expert'

The only formally qualified examiner for Gorka's Ph.D. on a panel packed with personal friends was an extreme right-wing Hungarian MEP who recently advocated putting pigs heads on a fence on the Hungarian border to keep out Muslims

Early on a mustache-twirling villain emerged as the face of the Trump White House. With the mannerisms of a pompous English B-movie baddy, Sebastian Gorka is to Donald Trump what the Sheriff of Nottingham was to King John. The malevolent sidekick.

Dr. Gorka styles himself as the crusading academic. A Kissinger for our troubled times. The brilliant scholar of terrorism who has taught at elite colleges and published groundbreaking research. He often reminds the imbeciles of the press that as a man of great learning only he truly comprehends the threat of Muslims.

But experts have listened to Gorka's advocacy of the Muslim ban, attacks on the media and sterling defence of Trump's "well-oiled' administration and wondered how could such a well trained academic make such baseless and ignorant claims about topics he purports to be an expert on? In March he became embroiled in a remarkable spat with a Republican National Security consultant, Michael S. Smith. Gorka is flailing widely – tilting at enemies real and imagined.

I started digging and it didn't take long to find out that Gorka is a fraud – a charlatan of the most brazen hue – a snake-oil salesman whose supposed Ph.D dissertation would have never passed muster in America or Britain and to put the cherry on the cake was approved by an fraudulent panel of examiners. The polar opposite of Lt. Gen H.R. McMasters' celebrated dissertation awarded by UNC Chapel Hill.

Gorka is Hungarian-English. He gained an American passport in 2012. His nationalist parents fled to London from Budapest in 1956. His dissertation – Content and End-State-based Alteration in the Practice of Political Violence since the End of the Cold War: the difference between the terrorism of the Cold War and the terrorism of al Qaeda: the rise of the "transcendental terrorist, was apparently granted in 2007 by Corvinus University of Budapest.

The tract is long on Islamophobia and the unsubstantiated claims of the polemicist but short on theory, evidence or academic rigor. Corvinus is not an institution with a profile, so I looked: sadly it doesn't even make the top 1,000 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

Even Gorka's attendance poses a mystery. When exactly was he a graduate student at the university? Did he take classes? Did he receive any training in Islam or Islamic studies? His CV notes that he left Hungary in 2004 to work for the U.S. Defense Department in Germany and then in 2008 relocated to the U.S. There is no evidence that he ever returned to live and study in Budapest.

The dissertation is online and includes the 'evaluations' of three referees who each presented a page of generalized comments – completely at odds with the detailed substantive and methodological evaluations that I've seen at every Ph.D defence I've been on over the last twenty years.

Two of the three referees did not even have a Ph.D. One was the U.S. Defense Attaché at the American Embassy in Budapest at the time, while the other was employed at the UK's Defence Academy and just had a BA from Manchester University awarded in 1969.

This 'neutral' examiner had published a book in Hungary with Gorka three years previously. While graduate students sometimes collaborate with their advisors the independent external examiners must have no nepotistic ties with the candidate.

More important, a basic principle of assessing educational achievement is that your examiners have at least the degree level of the degree they are awarding. Undergraduates do not award Ph.Ds.

In Gorka's case the only examiner who lists a doctorate was György Schöpflin – an extreme right wing Hungarian Member of the European Parliament who recently advocated putting pigs heads on a fence on the Hungarian border to keep out Muslims. I have been told that Schöpflin was a family friend. Both Schöpflin and Gorka's father fled from Budapest to London in the 1950s and both moved in exile right-wing nationalist circles.

If that is true, we are left in sum with a degree that was awarded in absence – on the basis of a dissertation without basic political science methodological underpinnings – and apparently from an examining committee of two of Gorka's diplomat friends, with only BA degrees; along with an old family friend, Schöpflin.

In sum, Gorka's Ph.D is about as legitimate as if he had been awarded it by Trump University. Facts matter, but so does the gathering, synthesizing and creation of knowledge that is what we call 'education.' If you fake a Ph.D you are faking your credentials. He delivers provable untruths to the American public but is believed by many because he presents himself as an esteemed scholar of Islam. Gorka would never have got away with such chutzpah in the UK.

Experience and scholarship work in harness to produce answers to questions. When you have neither experience nor training you are likely to not merely get the answers wrong, but not even have an inkling of which questions to ask.

Clearly Gorka yearns to be taken seriously and he uses the "Dr." credentials in a way that no one who earned the degree would ever do. In his 2016 screed, Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War, he is Dr. Sebastian Gorka on the front cover.

Tacky or just an alternative fact? This is the man we have as a chief national security advisor to the President. That may not change, but lets give him the professional respect he deserves and stop calling him 'Dr.'

Andrew Reynolds is a Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Follow him on Twitter: @AndyReynoldsUNC

So Gorka earned his PhD the way Elvis earned his blackbelt?  LOFL!

Strange isn't it, how out of all the right-wing thinkers, the ones that attract the biggest following are crackpots (Marvin Olasky, Jordan Peterson), frauds (Gorka) or outright Nazis (Charles Murray).

Interesting if true, but then I'll have to vet the author of this "takedown" as well. After reading around the link you provided, I am skeptical that the person that wrote this opinion piece is even remotely unbiased. You may not respect his doctorate, but ostensibly he does have one. I do agree that very few (not a medical doctor would actually call themselves a doctor) would use this title, and as I mentioned I find it tacky. Though I have had professors that insisted on just that, so it's not unheard of. Not sure where you get the notion that Murray is a Nazi. Sam Harris certainly doesn't think so, nor do I. Just because he has examined some politically incorrect subjects is no reason to slander the man. Secondly, the only real Nazi's basically died out 75+ years, so hyperbole aside, what's your beef with Murray? As to the crackpots... that's an opinion, and it's pretty obvious your biases are showing. I would wager Peterson has published more cited publications than you have read in your lifetime, perhaps not, but I'll trust the prevailing opinion in lieu of yours.

Greetings!

Yeah, Shuddemell! I have had *many* professors refer to themselves as DR--quite explicitly, as a matter of fact. What's with the quaint insistence by others that *only* Medical Doctors are referred to as "DR."? I would say most academics I have seen refer to themselves as DR. History, Philosophy, Political Science, Anthropology, and on and on.

As one Philosophy Professor told me, "I studied for 12 years and more to earn my Ph.D. So I am quite entitled to be referred to as DR, thank you very much. Courts of Law, academic institutions and more fully recognize the merit and status of DR, and those that have put in the work to achieve such a title."

I'm not sure where these people get the idea that only medical experts are doctors--they aren't. There are different specialties, but the achievement of PH.D. is still DR for whoever has achieved that status, and rightfully so. For those to insist that only medical people are DR is ignorant and pathetic, and simply not true or accurate.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

The only places where I've really seen the "don't call people with non-clinical PhDs doctors is in clinical settings (hospitals, etc.), and the reason is typically said to be for avoiding confusing patients. This still has some weirdness in behavioral settings with psychologists vs. psychiatrists, but both generally go with "doctor" without too much issue. What I really found weird is when you have someone with a PhD in Nursing. They're a doctor, but not a doctor (but, as a NP, they are a medical provider)... Just weird.

It is, and probably that's how it started and then kind of spread. Certainly the only place it would make a modicum of sense.