US Politics: Help Me Vladimir!!! Xi Wants Me to Lose!!!

[DMC]

6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Did you just cancel someone I previously really liked? 

That's what you get for liking people.

[Darth Richard II]

Who wants to explain to the new guy what DMC does for a living?

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Who wants to explain to the new guy what DMC does for a living?

He drinks and tells other people he knows things

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

He drinks and tells other people he knows things

A fairly accurate description of lecturing and grading.  And even trying to publish, for that matter.

[butterbumps!]

22 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

I don't think it's exculpatory either, but she has been consistent in how she's described this, and it's been well established that she likely filed the complaint (on harassment) in the wrong place. I feel like Biden asking for something to be released that we know isn't there is what seems problematic. 

Reade has a lot of corroborating evidence on her side, and a lot of the things we are told hurt her claims are the typical ways that survivors of sexual assault are often dismissed. They are dismissed for not reporting in a way that people think they should have reported (why didn't she come out sooner, why didn't she report it when she reported the harassment, why do her memories of the event seem to shift, etc.) One positive thing I thought might come from the Blasey-Ford testimony is how infallible and unreliable memory truly is. We treat memory as though it records events, but events we remember vividly and clearly often did not happen the way we recall, sometimes didn't even happen to us (these are minor moments, not significant ones). All that to say, if a person reports an assault from the 90s, it is not only normal, but completely understandable why she might not remember where she filed a report, who she talked to in the campaign, etc. It's also highly plausible for people who say "they don't remember her talking about this" actually not remembering this.

I've seen people ask why her mother didn't say sexual assault or tell the story to Larry King, which to me seems like something not even worth validating (why a mother wouldn't describe her daughter's sexual assault in the early 90s, in a public forum, against a powerful man--all likely trying not to ruin her daughter's career). 

What I find truly frustrating about all this, is that I have little doubt that the next time a Republican is accused (with good or little evidence), these Democratic leaders will go back to "all women must be heard." They will likely deflect why they treated Reade's case differently, and to me, that's not only Moscow Mitch level bullshit, in some ways it's worse. I mean, at least the worst piece of shit senator in the history of the U.S., when asked if he would vote to confirm a supreme court justice in this election year, has said, "Of course." He's said it would be ridiculous to assume otherwise as he's a Republican. 

The biggest problem of all, however, is that by ignoring this about Biden, we are setting ourselves up to give people a valid, and important reason to not vote in November.

Another thing, I think is worth considering in all of this is something that comes from the NYT article I linked yesterday that talks about the very true issue of broadcast media refusing to book time with Reade (except for Fox News). In the article, the author writes, "CNN, NBC and MSNBC, whose DNA — even in a pandemic — is politics, have covered her on their websites and on air but haven’t put her on camera." I want to highlight MSNBC, specifically. They not only won't comment on why they won't have Tara Reade on air (which she has requested), but now they have given voice to the man she has accused while refusing to talk to her. I don't see how that is not a huge problem.

How many men and women might not go to the polls in November because of what at least appears to be an effort to not actually listen to or hear Reade in the same way he have heard her accuser? 

Well for what it’s worth, I don’t think she’s been fully consistent, but I also don’t think that negates the veracity of the claims.  I’m operating as though the incident of assault happened more or less the way she says.  There’s aspects of this that nag at me, but it’s not a hill I’m willing to die on.  It’s not like accusations of multiple refrigerators are coming out of the woodwork (jokes, jokes)

Has it been established that she did file a complaint (for something other than sexual assault) through mistaken channels?  

Also, the second bolded was something that actually threw me off a bit.  The call was anonymous and didn’t reference anyone directly, so I’m sort of confused by what motivation her mother would have to downplay the poor treatment her daughter received at the office.  Especially in light of how she spoke about not saying anything “out of respect for” the [unnamed] senator, and spoke pretty mildly about the whole thing.  No one was identified in the call, so why not keep that vaguely and speak about behavior more closely aligned with what’s being alleged now?  I’m not suggesting this discounts anything, but I don’t think that call is tremendously strong corroboration.

[Fez]

21 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Wait what? Did you just cancel someone I previously really liked? 

Gladwell and Paterno: https://www.newsweek.com/malcolm-gladwell-joe-paterno-backlash-1484882

Gladwell and Epstein: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-high-society-contacts.html

Gladwell claims he didn't know who Epstein was and it was a strange coincidence that he ended up on his plane. Maybe that's true, who knows. But the Paterno comments are public record.

[Freshwater Spartan]

21 minutes ago, Fez said:

Everyone should hate Malcom Gladwell. He's the worst kind of faux-intellectual who Dunning-Krugers himself into pretty much every possible discussion topic.

Also, he was friends with Jeffrey Epstein and has called for Penn State to restore Joe Paterno's statue on campus. Which is maybe a coincidence, but makes me rather suspicious.

Not sure I agree with him on the status but I believe it was a part of a larger point on how pedophiles are really good at deceiving people. People's default setting is to trust people so we shouldn't be overly outraged at folks who trusted and believed the lies of monsters like Sandusky. I hope you have a litany of reasons to hate Gladwell  besides this.  I would consider it poor judgement to despise and cancel a person over one statement. Not that it's a good idea to hate a person in general.

We're probably getting off topic though. Unless we we're linking it back to Trump and Biden's sexual accusations.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

10 minutes ago, DMC said:

A fairly accurate description of lecturing and grading.  And even trying to publish, for that matter.

I would have gone with trying to corrupt young, influential minds, but why bicker about small details.

[Fez]

1 minute ago, Freshwater Spartan said:

Not sure I agree with him on the status but I believe it was a part of a larger point on how pedophiles are really good at deceiving people. People's default setting is to trust people so we shouldn't be overly outraged at folks who trusted and believed the lies of monsters like Sandusky. I hope you have a litany of reasons to hate Gladwell  besides this.  I would consider it poor judgement to despise and cancel a person over one statement. Not that it's a good idea to hate a person in general.

We're probably getting off topic though. Unless we we're linking it back to Trump and Biden's sexual accusations.

I don't know anything about his personal life, and I'm not really trying to cancel him over this.

However, I really do quite dislike Gladwell a lot. I used to listen to him a lot when he was a guest on Bill Simmons podcast. And I think he has an entirely undeserved sense of smug self-regard and thinks that he has incredible insights that he is gracing us with on any number of topics. When in truth, he usually doesn't know anything beyond what 5 minutes of prep googling will get you.

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I would have gone with trying to corrupt young, influential minds, but why bicker about small details.

That's just a bonus.  The rewarding feeling you get at the end of the semester and students demonstrate they've been successfully indoctrinated.

[IheartIheartTesla]

Gladwell, Niall Ferguson, Murray (the Bell curve guy) are all part of this cabal of people who like to elevate contrarian ideas and claim everyone else is wrong because of some piece of analysis they did, but it's never clear cut the way they describe it. I mean, I am no fan of following the herd when it comes to research, but they take it to excess. A long winded way of saying I hate anyone counterfactual promoting doofuses.

ANYWAY.....there are some polls showing Trump weakness in swing states against Biden. And the few Arizona polls have him in trouble there. But still, its early days. I do wonder if some of those polls were during his slight bump and his situation is actually a bit worse. I wish the Democrats had a stronger candidate though, I cant take too many more of these 50/50 elections.

[Darth Richard II]

Not sure if this is the right thread or not but have you all seen Elon Musks twitter meltdown? Hooooly shitballs.

[DMC]

Just now, Fez said:

And I think he has an entirely undeserved sense of smug self-regard and thinks that he has incredible insights that he is gracing us with on any number of topics. When in truth, he usually doesn't know anything beyond what 5 minutes of prep googling will get you.

I never listened to Simmons' podcast, but I remember watching Simmons' short-lived show on HBO.  I got the same feeling - about pretty much almost the entire show.  But particularly the one with Gladwell and I think Mark Cuban.

[Liffguard]

4 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Gladwell, Niall Ferguson, Murray (the Bell curve guy) are all part of this cabal of people who like to elevate contrarian ideas and claim everyone else is wrong because of some piece of analysis they did, but it's never clear cut the way they describe it.

See also Steven Pinker.

[IheartIheartTesla]

1 minute ago, Darth Richard II said:

Not sure if this is the right thread or not but have you all seen Elon Musks twitter meltdown? Hooooly shitballs.

Well, I was also going to post about Musk in the COVID thread, but yeah. I lost the respect I had for him after his leaving his factories open and his promoting of dubious science around the importance (or lack thereof) of the virus. He also linked to those two doctors who were using bad statistics to argue the mortality rate of COVID-19 was lower than stated and financially profiting from it. Someone called it "quantitative BS" where he snows you down with data and charts but its all garbage.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

14 minutes ago, butterbumps! said:

Well for what it’s worth, I don’t think she’s been fully consistent, but I also don’t think that negates the veracity of the claims.  I’m operating as though the incident of assault happened more or less the way she says.  There’s aspects of this that nag at me, but it’s not a hill I’m willing to die on.  It’s not like accusations of multiple refrigerators are coming out of the woodwork (jokes, jokes)

Has it been established that she did file a complaint (for something other than sexual assault) through mistaken channels?  

Also, the second bolded was something that actually threw me off a bit.  The call was anonymous and didn’t reference anyone directly, so I’m sort of confused by what motivation her mother would have to downplay the poor treatment her daughter received at the office.  Especially in light of how she spoke about not saying anything “out of respect for” the [unnamed] senator, and spoke pretty mildly about the whole thing.  No one was identified in the call, so why not keep that vaguely and speak about behavior more closely aligned with what’s being alleged now?  I’m not suggesting this discounts anything, but I don’t think that call is tremendously strong corroboration.

Yeah, I'm not sure what her mother's goal was either, and since she's dead it's hard to say. I think it's unfair to make judgments about the call without the mother being able to discuss it, but for me, this just functions as more corroboration that Reade was telling people at the time (which has been something claimed she didn't do--early on in this process). For me, if I were to call into a national news program about something like this, those kind of phrases like "out of respect for the unnamed senator" would be methods of hedging to protect the person I was talking about. I think the mother trying to keep her and her daughter anonymous is understandable, even if it meant obscuring things. It's hard to get the full context without having access to the video, so I feel like people attacking that is unfair.

As for it being strong or weak in terms of corroboration, this is always the problem with sexual assault reports, isn't it? I mean, no matter how many people come out and say Reade talked to them at the time, there will always be questions unless it is someone who was not personally acquainted with her. Yet, to think that a neutral party might have received info about this from Reade at the time is unlikely no matter what because of the complex range of emotions and trauma that survivors of sexual assault go through.

Where the corroboration for you is not strong, it may be strong for enough people to not vote and impact the election. I suppose so long as the story appears to be given unfair consideration, this only exacerbates the problem. I want to be clear that I have no clue how to fix this aside from Biden stepping aside and someone else stepping in. But that brings up a whole other can of worms. 

Either way, when the defense of Biden boils down to "well, he was definitely handsy, but not that handsy," the Democratic party is not providing a suitable path for defeating Trump. I wish we had immediate, obvious solutions. While I have never liked Biden as a candidate, before Reade, I planned to do the whole "hold my nose and vote" thing. I don't know how easy that will be now.

I guess this VP pick is a test he can't fail. I do believe a lot of people could vote for his VP given Biden's age. I think that's an argument I can ethically make not only to myself, but to people who are on the fence.

Maybe, come November, it'll turn out to be a non-issue, and Biden will smash Trump. But Trump is such a threat that going into November with this kind of baggage hanging over our candidate is a real problem.

Part of me wishes Hillary could just step in. That bullshit email fiasco seems like absolutely nothing (though for me, it always did). 

One more thing, I think the Majority Report clip posted a page or two back might be the best, most logical approach for how we reconcile this issue with voters.

 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

17 minutes ago, Fez said:

I don't know anything about his personal life, and I'm not really trying to cancel him over this.

However, I really do quite dislike Gladwell a lot. I used to listen to him a lot when he was a guest on Bill Simmons podcast. And I think he has an entirely undeserved sense of smug self-regard and thinks that he has incredible insights that he is gracing us with on any number of topics. When in truth, he usually doesn't know anything beyond what 5 minutes of prep googling will get you.

Yeah, I used to try Gladwell's podcast, and I think it was the episode about the acceleration issue in Toyota vehicles that led to several accidents and deaths where he said it never really happened, it was all user error, when I figured he wasn't a guy worth listening to.

[Freshwater Spartan]

Hillary stepping in is the last thing we need. I don't mind her but man folks in the Midwest hate her. Agree with Simon's point on the importance of the VP pick but I am uncertain who the perfect pick is.

[Kalbear]

This is pretty interesting. I don't know that it's predictive, but it makes me hopeful somewhat.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/5/1/21243143/elizabeth-warren-vice-president-joe-biden-2020-poll

 

[Freshwater Spartan]

3 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

Yeah, I used to try Gladwell's podcast, and I think it was the episode about the acceleration issue in Toyota vehicles that led to several accidents and deaths where he said it never really happened, it was all user error, when I figured he wasn't a guy worth listening to.

Of course no better plausible explanation fits. I am Michigan man born here and will die here. My Grandpa worked for GM. We were all hoping for some real diet on the Japanese to improve our fortunes. But it looks like Toyota wasn't an engineering monster conspiring to take the lives of their customers. People in unfamiliar cars just didn't know what pedal they were pushing. It turns out people can be confused easily.

Man I didn't think I was going to wake up this morning to be Gladwell's defender.