Patterico's Pontifications

6/25/2020

Stalin’s Revenge: America Tries Out Cancel Culture

Filed under: General — JVW @ 6:10 am



[guest post by JVW]

One of the ugliest of phenomena in recent years is the rise in cancel culture whereby offensive actions, even those taken years earlier during one’s adolescence, are used to place the offender outside the bounds of public approbation, generally resulting in job loss, school expulsions, and public ostracization. The rise of social media, with years’ worth of off-the-cuff utterances and quips preserved for eternity (or, worse, screen-capped before you have a chance to delete them) make all of us easy targets for this horrid game. And given the current dominance of progressive ideology in education, media, and the corporate world, it’s those who fall afoul of conventional woke regulations who most often find themselves cancelled. Though this notion dates back for years and years — even in the pre-Red Scare days — it has certainly ramped up in our divided and digital age. Herewith are some of the notable victims and most egregious examples:

Example 1
Sue Schafer is a young graphic designer who attended a Halloween party at the home of Washington Post cartoonist Tom Toles back in 2018. Because NBC hostess Megyn Kelly had just been fired for offering a defense of wearing blackface for costume purposes, Ms. Schafer thought it would be clever if she dressed as Megyn Kelly in blackface. As the kids would say, the concept was meta. Unfortunately the partygoers did not agree, and Ms. Schafer’s costume was openly criticized much to her embarrassment. End of story? Hardly. For some reason, the Bezos Bugle decided that eighteen months later an account of Ms. Schafer’s social transgression would make for a delightful 3,000-word story which would, of course, end up getting her fired from her job. Josh Barro and Olivia Nuzzi relate the story in New York Magazine. Fun tidbit: ten different WaPo staffers tell Mr. Barro and Ms. Nuzzi that the general consensus in the newsroom is that the paper was wrong to rat on a woman who serves no public role for a noncriminal offense to public mores, yet no WaPo staffers are apparently willing to go on the record with their objections. Keep that in mind next time you hear a media type bloviate about speaking truth to power or afflicting the comfortable or some other such nonsense. At heart they are mostly self-interested cowards.

[UPDATE: Corrected the spelling of Mr. Barro’s last name. Thanks to Dana for noticing.]

Example 2
In the aftermath of the George Floyd killing, MIT’s Tech Catholic Community chaplain Father Daniel Moloney (disclosure: my alma mater, and I spent a bit of time with TCC during my undergrad days and donate money to them annually as an alumnus) sent out a rather ill-advised email message to TCC members which reminded the community that Mr. Floyd “had not lived a virtuous life” (this is largely true, if perhaps a harsh thing to say as the body cools in the morgue) and asserted that we could not yet say definitively that his death was an act of police racism or that police departments have an inherent problem with racism. Fr. Moloney did point out that nothing Mr. Floyd may have done was enough to justify taking his life, and reminded TCC members of Church teachings on the evil of racism and the need for solidarity with our fellow man. Once upon a time in an academic setting like MIT we might have expected Fr. Moloney’s controversial message to have spurred a great and vigorous debate across students, faculty & staff, alumni, and the greater campus community, but here in 2020 agitated parties cried out about the pain and fear that a Catholic priest’s email message had engendered within them, and prevailed upon the historically incompetent Archdiocese of Boston (with a significant assist from the cowardly MIT administration) to remove him as chaplain. Fr. Moloney resigned his position a few days later, almost certainly at the behest of the Archbishop.

Example 3
Famed author J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame has earned the enmity of the loud, powerful, and vindictive transgender lobby because she refuses to adopt the trendy decree that one who believes strongly that one is a woman is by definition a woman, no matter if the biological realities suggest something different. Ms. Rowling has actually been expressing this belief for the past several months, much to the chagrin of the dogmatic trans lobby, but given recent developments it makes perfect sense that this battle be reengaged at this opportune moment when imperious leftist thought is ascendant. An obviously talented writer, Ms. Rowling has shared her thoughts on her personal blog. For straying outside of groupthink the activist community has demanded that Ms. Rowling be dropped by her publisher and some snotty little actors whom Ms. Rowling has made phenomenally wealthy have taken to publicly criticizing her for the crime of — you guessed it — intolerance. Though Ms. Rowling is far too much of a money earner (at least for now, though the Harry Potter books will probably always be a cash cow, insipid though they may be) to be dropped by big publishing or Hollywood, her case shows that even the incredibly influential (Ms. Rowling surpassed Her Majesty the Queen as the wealthiest woman in England a few years back) are subject to attempts to silence their nonconforming opinions. And in reading about Ms. Rowling’s case it is sickening to contemplate how the trans lobby in England has used favorable court rulings and laws inimical to free speech to dominate the so-called science of transgenderism to the degree that any dissenting voices are automatically ruled out of order.

Example 4
We’re back to the nonsense about the White Power/OK sign. A worker for the San Diego Gas and Electric Company, Emmanuel Cafferty (who self-identifies as Mexican-American by the way), was driving in his SDG&E truck when he realized he was being followed by a fellow motorist. The motorist snapped and posted to Twitter a picture of Mr. Cafferty (shown at the link) with his left hand dangling out of the driver’s side window and his fingers arranged in that configuration where your thumb and forefinger touch while your remaining three fingers are mostly extended and splayed. Neo-nazi groups claim that the three fingers form the letter “W” while the other two work in tandem with the wrist and forearm to create a “P,” giving us the overall effect of “WP” for “white power.” The rest of us recall it as the universal symbol for “OK,” and Mr. Cafferty claims to have been cracking his knuckles at that moment. Back in the carefree Twenty-teens this would have had all of us rolling our eyes in boredom, but in 2020 it is enough to have Mr. Cafferty first suspended and then dismissed from his job. SDG&E says that they performed “a thorough investigation” and perhaps there is more to the story than we are privy to, but absent a convincing account of the menace of Mexican-American White Nationalists in the greater San Diego area and assuming that Mr. Cafferty is preparing to file suit against SDG&E for wrongful termination, I’m going to assume that this is just the typical overreaction by a utility that is answerable to weak-kneed politicians and a public with far too much time on its hands.

Example 5
Joyce Kenner is the principal of Whitney M. Young Magnet High School in Chicago, a prestigious institution with a long waiting list of high-achieving kids who would love to enroll. The demographics of the school are roughly 50% black and Latino and 50% white and Asian. Principal Kenner is herself African-American and as an eleven-year-old girl participated in protest marches after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. She has also raised a son in Chicago, so she is well aware of the tensions that young black males often have with law enforcement. When the George Floyd protests geared up she sent out a message to her COVID-secluded students sharing her sadness at the senselessness of Mr. Floyd’s death but encouraging them to avoid engaging in violent and illegal acts during protests. She has also continually resisted calls for removing armed Chicago Police officers from the school, citing the problems with gangs and school shootings as adequate reasons to continue requiring their presence. For her commonsense approach to running an high-performing urban school, Ms. Kenner is now the subject of petitions seeking to have her removed as principal, alleging that she is trying to silence student activists who support Black Lives Matter and that she continues to enable systemic oppression of black and brown students at the school. African-American parents further complain that a school that was once majority black has become more diverse (ironies abound, eh?) as the Latino population of Chicago increases and as whites and Asians apply for coveted slots at the school, factors which can hardly be blamed on the principal. Fortunately, Ms. Kenner does not appear to be willing to back down, and is fighting to retain her job. But given the current climate, I can only wish her much luck in the battle.

Over at National Review Online, Zachary Evans and John Loftus are compiling a handy list of all of the attempts to drive a person, living or dead, out of the public square. It includes, I believe, all of the examples cited above as well as dozens more, with the list sadly growing every day. Very depressing indeed, though somewhere in hell Joe Stalin and Mao Zedong are smiling in appreciation.

– JVW

169 Responses to “Stalin’s Revenge: America Tries Out Cancel Culture”

  1. Thank you for posting about the SDG&E employee.

    This happened over a week ago and it’s downright delusional.

    One thing tho, if you’re going to post about the white supremacist OK signal, you should also mention The Circle Game and 4Chan.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_gesture
    _

    harkin (9c4571)

  2. One thing tho, if you’re going to post about the white supremacist OK signal, you should also mention The Circle Game. . .

    Ha! I actually was going to mention this, but then my distant memory told me that you didn’t necessarily need to have your three fingers extended in the circle game, you could just cup all four fingers opposite the thumb. Isn’t that the case or am I misremembering my boyhood?

    JVW (ee64e4)

  3. I am afraid this will only get worse, especially if Biden gets elected and the Senate flips to the Democrats.

    Democrats have created this and only they can stop it. But they won’t for it is a tool to maintain power over the populace. Their only problem is ensuring it can’t be used against them by the their left-wing vanguard.

    Hoi Polloi (dc4124)

  4. My daughter is just starting college now, and the one thing I’ve been very relentless about when we discuss career choices is to pick one where she won’t have to say thanks to no man for a job.

    nk (1d9030)

  5. And it was not Democrats who ran HUAC and the McCarthy hearings and the blacklists.

    nk (1d9030)

  6. Hoi Polloi (dc4124) — 6/25/2020 @ 6:34 am

    Their only problem is ensuring it can’t be used against them by the their left-wing vanguard.

    If the past is any indication this will be a big problem. Marxists like to purge the ranks and D’s are some of the worst offenders here.

    frosty (4c16b4)

  7. nk (1d9030) — 6/25/2020 @ 6:38 am

    Because HUAC was the inspiration for Mao’ cultural revolution. The leaders of the Khmer Rouge were known to be big fans, cited McCarthy, and kept pictures of him on their walls.

    frosty (4c16b4)

  8. Meanwhile, as predicted we have a sudden burst of Covid infections about one incubation period following a series of demonstrations that ignored all social distancing rules. And, as predicted, the reported cause of this burst is the relaxing of the lockdown, not the close contact of the maskless demonstrators.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  9. HUAC was ordered due process compared to this lynch mob.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  10. Although I am waiting for AOC to start waving a list of hundreds of card-carrying Nazis in the Trump administration.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  11. nk (1d9030) — 6/25/2020 @ 6:38 am

    BTW; don’t you know people can look this stuff up.

    Chairman of HUAC:

    Martin Dies Jr., (D-Tex.), 1938–1944
    Edward J. Hart (D-N.J.), 1945–1946
    J. Parnell Thomas (R-N.J.), 1947–1948
    John Stephens Wood (D-Ga.), 1949–1953
    Harold H. Velde (R-Ill.), 1953–1955
    Francis E. Walter (D-Pa.), 1955–1963
    Edwin E. Willis (D-La.), 1963–1969
    Richard Howard Ichord Jr. (D-Mo.), 1969–1975

    I count 6 D’s and 2 R’s on that list.

    frosty (4c16b4)

  12. African-American parents further complain that a school that was once majority black has become more diverse (ironies abound, eh?) as the Latino population of Chicago increases and as whites and Asians apply for coveted slots at the school

    No, no, no! “More diverse” means blacker. 100% African-American is most diverse.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  13. How’s that honest and open dialogue on race going?

    As Eric Holder put it we are “a nation of cowards”, and probably for good reason.

    beer ‘n pretzels (fbad48)

  14. Thanks for posting this. I’d be nice if people like David French, Rich Lowery, and Jonah Golberg were against “Cancelling” people, but they seem pretty cool with it. Free Enterprise Bro.

    rcocean (2e1c02)

  15. JVW, what’s the the hate for the Harry Potter books? They’re not perfect but kids LOVE them. Anything that get’s kids to read 3000+ pages is worthy of a least a little respect. Come one, show some love. 😀

    Also, she’s given HUGE sums of money to charities trying to find homes for orphans. That deserves a mention.

    Time123 (daab2f)


  16. JVW, what’s the the hate for the Harry Potter books? They’re not perfect but kids LOVE them.

    It’s a tongue-in-cheek aside. I find them to be a pale imitation of The Lord of the Rings for millennials who can’t handle strong violence or religious imagery in their literature. But I know that lots of kids and even some adults love them.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  17. Example 6
    Melissa Rolfe, the stepmother of fired Atlanta Police officer Garrett Rolfe who was involved in the shooting death of Rayshard Brooks, was dismissed from her HR job at Equity Prime Mortgage a couple of days after a conservative Congressional candidate Tweeted out a message she received from Mrs. Rolfe which referred to the outrage over the killing of Brooks as “non-sense” [sic]. The company justified the move by claiming that Mrs. Rolfe “violated company policy and created an uncomfortable working environment for many of our employees” and that “she ultimately lost the confidence of her peers, leadership, and many employees who no longer felt comfortable engaging with her.” Apparently loyalty to one’s family is a fireable offense these days.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  18. UPDATE: Corrected the spelling of Mr. Barro’s last name. Thanks to Dana for noticing.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  19. There’s even guilt by association, or perhaps punishment of relatives (this at least for a possible crime, not words)

    https://www.foxnews.com/us/stepmother-of-atlanta-cop-in-rayshard-brooks-shooting-fired-from-job

    The stepmother of the Atlanta police officer who fatally shot Rayshard Brooks was fired from her job as human resources director at an Atlanta-based mortgage company for allegedly violating company policy and creating an uncomfortable working environment for fellow employees.

    I had a thought that since human resources departments tend to do that sort of thing, perhaps she got what she deserved, Perhaps she herself fired somebody unjustly for similar reasons. Let’s hope so. Perhaps it is what they call karma. But that needs investigation.

    From the story it’s not that she went out of her way to defend her stepson. Apparently she defended him online. They were first going to merely give her a leave of absence (because of personal interactions) but then they discovered she had left some comments online.

    https://www.11alive.com/article/news/local/atlanta-based-equity-prime-mortgage-fires-garrett-rolfes-stepmother/85-1bf87b01-0a71-45d7-af0b-e70f29a756a7

    According to a statement from EPM, Melissa Rolfe, the human resources director for the company, was terminated as the result of some of her social media comments.

    The company released a statement that said, in part, “Melissa Rolfe’s termination was a direct result of her actions in the workplace and violation of company policy. While working with Melissa as she transitioned to a leave of absence granted by our organization, we discovered she violated company policy and created an uncomfortable working environment for many of our employees.”

    EPM said that they were co-founded by people of color committed to building a better future by “bringing diverse cultures into the conversation.”

    Sammy Finkelman (3102d6)

  20. An update from the link in Example 4:

    NBC 7 spoke to the man who originally posted the picture on Twitter. He has since deleted his account and said he may have gotten “spun up” about the interaction and misinterpreted it. He says he never intended for Cafferty to lose his job.

    This is sad.

    DRJ (aede82)

  21. Apparently loyalty to one’s family is a fireable offense these days.

    JVW (ee64e4) — 6/25/2020 @ 7:36 am

    God or family can’t come before the State.

    DRJ (aede82)

  22. Whitney Young is the UCLA of high schools. An exceptional public high school to begin with, which progressed to the point that it only competes with the hoitiest-toitiest of private schools. We know of a couple, both doctors, from suburban Naperville, the 19th richest city in the nation, who moved to Chicago for four years so their son could go there.

    So, yeah, Chicago parents whose kids are forced to settle for hellholes like Lane, Lincoln Park, Latin, or St. Ignatius are kind of upset at the new competition from the newcomers, like parents whose kids are turned down by UCLA and have to settle for Harvard, Yale, or some such other horrid place.

    nk (1d9030)

  23. “God or family can’t come before the State.”

    She was fired from a private company, the state wasn’t involved.

    Davethulhu (9921df)

  24. 14. rcocean (2e1c02) — 6/25/2020 @ 7:02 am

    I’d be nice if people like David French, Rich Lowery, and Jonah Goldberg were against “Cancelling” people, but they seem pretty cool with it. Free Enterprise Bro.

    What do you mean> They’re against this:

    https://twitter.com/davidafrench/status/1168977415852429313?lang=en

    David French
    @DavidAFrench
    ·
    Sep 3, 2019

    Fighting cancel culture requires a two-front fight:

    1. Against dishonest, unfair attacks from media/others.

    2. Against employers/institutions that don’t stand by their people. Stop. Canceling.

    https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/heres-one-way-to-stop-cancel-culture-stop-canceling

    https://twitter.com/richlowry/status/1271115085348470785

    Sammy Finkelman (3102d6)

  25. If her co-workers liked her to begin with, she wouldn’t have been fired. She would have been supported. I suspect that it’s a case of the apple not falling far from the tree, or is “birds of a feather flock together” more nearly suitable for stepmoms?

    nk (1d9030)

  26. God or family can’t come before the State.

    The State is Mother. The State is Father…

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  27. https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/cancel-cancel-culture

    He says it all stated with Huckleberry Finn.

    I think that’s not the same thing. It started with things that truly are not good, but were done off the job.

    It has gotten to the point – and this is the real problem – that nobody is allowed to disagree with anything they say. That creates real problems.

    Sammy Finkelman (3102d6)

  28. Davethulhu

    I was commenting on cancel culture in general. The goal is to put secular values ahead of God and family.

    DRJ (aede82)

  29. Speaking of which:

    Coronavirus being exploited to undermine democracies, former world leaders warn

    London (CNN)The outbreak of Covid-19 and subsequent pandemic has led to an alarming uptick in authoritarian behavior by governments across the globe, who are using the crisis to silence critics, an open letter signed by more than 500 former world leaders and Nobel Laureates claims.

    The letter, organized by the Stockholm-based Institute for Democracy and published Thursday, highlights that in the wake of the crisis, both authoritarian and democratically-elected governments the world over have used emergency powers to arrest protestors and sidestep democratic norms.

    Yes, CNN posted this.

    https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/25/europe/coronavirus-authoritarian-threat-open-letter-intl/index.html

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  30. “I was commenting on cancel culture in general. The goal is to put secular values ahead of God and family.”

    Whether that is true or not (I disagree), all of the actions described are by private individuals.

    Davethulhu (9921df)

  31. 27. nk (1d9030) — 6/25/2020 @ 8:06 am

    I suspect that it’s a case of the apple not falling far from the tree, or is “birds of a feather flock together” more nearly suitable for stepmoms?

    The little bit I saw quoted doesn’t look likw it comes from a thoughtful person.

    The case against Garrett Rolfe, is not “nonsense,” or even if she meant the totality of what is being said, it is not simply to be dismissed as nonsense, since there’s an avoidable death included in it.

    Sammy Finkelman (3102d6)

  32. Remorselessness. Did your father teach you the Polish word for “walrus”, Sammy?

    nk (1d9030)

  33. It is as good sign to see conservatives recanting their behavior towards Ward Churchill and others.

    john (cd2753)

  34. He was kidding sammeh.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  35. DRJ (aede82) — 6/25/2020 @ 8:16 am

    The goal is to put secular values ahead of God and family.

    It’s much more ambitious than that.

    The goal is to get into a position where nobody is allowed to disagree with whatever the people doing the cancelling say.

    People need to be fearful. That;s why it is so extreme.

    That’s why they’re insisting it was a noose. I could have told you the instant I heard the allegation it wasn’t true. The whole noose thing is urban legend. Let cancel culture go too far and you won’t be able to say that.

    The New York Post has an editrial comparing two flse alegatons:

    https://nypost.com/2020/06/24/nascar-noose-nypd-poisonings-were-bogus-but-look-what-happened-next/

    Sammy Finkelman (3102d6)

  36. 34. nk (1d9030) — 6/25/2020 @ 8:29 am

    Remorselessness. Did your father teach you the Polish word for “walrus”, Sammy?

    No. Although he used to sing some songs that were in Polish late in life. He also told me that Yiddish was not actually his first language (he was orn around World War I)

    Sammy Finkelman (3102d6)

  37. I make it a point to not attempt a rational discussion with anyone who simply insults whoever they disagree with, rather than dealing with the issues involved. So let’s try considering an important issue…rationally, without rancor, or name-calling.

    Let me begin this hopeful debate by pointing out that I am not a master chef, not a trained auto mechanic, not a physician, and certainly not a certified psychiatrist. However, I know when an omelet’s been burnt, when a finger is broken, when my car’s brakes don’t work, and when a person is mentally deranged.

    Naturally, I might very well be wrong in any or all of these instances. I could be in a restaurant in France, where I’m told that omelets are typically reheated and browned on the bottom. That “broken” finger may simply be a congenital condition with no serious consequences. I could, and have, accidentally put my foot on the wrong pedal. And the object of my “analysis” could simply be clowning.

    But, should actual experts in any of these fields make such “diagnoses at a distance”? That is a serious question, which is a crucial one in these troubled times. Here goes my attempt to answer it.

    Not being a psychiatrist, I see no reason why I can’t state unequivocally, and based entirely on his tweets, speeches, interviews, and his public statements, that President Donald Trump is mentally ill.

    But, should a professional psychiatrist make such a statement about our President? My answer is “yes”. Diagnosis at a distance by professionals in their field of expertise is ordinarily, at the very least, an absurdity. But, as in many instances in this life, actions which may be flat-out wrong in most instances could, under extenuating circumstances, be essential.

    Since Donald Trump is clearly one of the most powerful persons on earth, can order someone killed without being held to account, may even plunge us into war through his position as Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces…public recognition of his fragile mental condition by psychiatrists is not only acceptable but even required.

    It has been some years since I’ve read Gulliver’s Travels, but I do remember that the protagonist did what would ordinarily be regarded as an unpardonable act…as having made use of his giant stature and the contents of his bladder to urinate on the Lilliputian monarch’s palace. But it was on fire, and that was the only water readily available.

    Maybe now is indeed the time when psychiatrists must commit what would ordinarily be an inexcusable offense, which consists of diagnosing a person at a distance. However, this time the subject is a person who could do, and has already done, irreparable damage to others, to this country, and even to the world.

    And, perhaps, psychiatrists are even justified in analyzing at a distance anyone who can casually overlook the evidence that President Donald Trump is clearly showing signs of a serious mental illness.
    John A. Broussard broupome@hawaii.rr.com

    John A. Broussard (f30f93)

  38. You play tennis with gene gu?

    Narciso (7404b5)

  39. Two airstrikes on syrian positions, one strike against russian mercs in syria.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  40. 24, the beef about Joyce Kenner probably stems from West Side blacks who have probably seen their 2 to 3 freshman seats per CPS elementary school 8th grade get whittled down to 1. Westinghouse (now a selective) is more like Original 70s Whitney Young (black with a smattering of Pilsen/Lityle Village/West Town hispanics)

    urbanleftbehind (e46e71)

  41. It is as good sign to see conservatives recanting their behavior towards Ward Churchill and others.

    Ward Churchill claimed false ancestry and parlayed that into a tenured position. Conservatives should recant though LOL.

    beer ‘n pretzels (afaa43)

  42. Private individuals choose their values, and they can choose to put secular values first.

    DRJ (aede82)

  43. Black Lives Matter Protests, Social Distancing, and COVID-19
    This study uses newly collected data on protests in 315 of the largest U.S. cities to estimate the impacts of mass protests on social distancing and COVID-19 case growth. Event-study analyses provide strong evidence that net stay-at-home behavior increased following protest onset, consistent with the hypothesis that non-protesters’ behavior was substantially affected by urban protests. This effect was not fully explained by the imposition of city curfews. Estimated effects were generally larger for persistent protests and those accompanied by media reports of violence. Furthermore, we find no evidence that urban protests reignited COVID-19 case growth during the more than three weeks following protest onset. We conclude that predictions of broad negative public health consequences of Black Lives Matter protests were far too narrowly conceived.

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  44. @21-
    Nobody likes HR.

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  45. It is as good sign to see conservatives recanting their behavior towards Ward Churchill and others.

    Ward Churchill also passed off bogus scholarship, reproduced artwork which he claimed was his own, and lied to CU about being offered a position at another university. He may have come to everyone’s attention due to what he said about the September 11 attacks, but it was clear that he was a phony-baloney scholar who had no business holding a tenured position at any institution, let alone a publicly-funded one.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  46. Kevin M@8-
    Given that the COVID-19 hot spots are in states without significant protests, like Texas, Arizona, Arkansas, Tennessee, Utah, Oklahoma, and Alabama, to name a few, it’s hard to blame protests where they did not occur.

    And we will see the community spread from Trump’s Arizona and Tulsa rallies in a couple of weeks.

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  47. Trump and Barr are worried about fictitious mail-in ballot fraud when they should be worried about this:

    More than $1.4 billion in stimulus checks went to dead people, the Government Accountability Office said
    The Trump administration delivered more than a million stimulus payments worth about $1.4 billion to dead people in a rush to pump money into the economy this year, the Government Accountability Office said on Thursday.
    …..
    “The agencies faced difficulties delivering payments to some individuals, and faced additional risks related to making improper payments to ineligible individuals, such as decedents, and fraud,” the report said.

    ……I.R.S. lawyers “determined that I.R.S. did not have the legal authority to deny payments to those who filed a return for 2019, even if they were deceased at the time of payment,” the report found.
    ……
    The G.A.O. recommended that the I.R.S. find ways to notify ineligible recipients of the payments how to return them, though it did not explain how that would work with regard to those who are deceased.
    ……
    The report also criticized the C.D.C.’s counting of coronavirus tests, which combines tests for an active infection and those that detect antibodies. This practice inflates the percentage of Americans that appear to have been tested and gives an unreliable picture of the way the virus is spreading around the country, according to the new report.
    ……

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  48. We conclude that predictions of broad negative public health consequences of Black Lives Matter protests were far too narrowly conceived.

    Yeah, because academics and their studies have been absolutely infallible during the pandemic. Especially when studies like this are conducted by economists and not epidemiologists, and they are done in the immediate aftermath of the protests, not months from now when we’ll have a far better idea of what if any effects there truly were.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  49. Thanks for posting this. I’d be nice if people like David French, Rich Lowery, and Jonah Golberg were against “Cancelling” people, but they seem pretty cool with it. Free Enterprise Bro.

    rcocean (2e1c02) — 6/25/2020 @ 7:02 am

    Unintentionally hilarious how you’re rejecting someone for offending you in a totally unfair way.

    Dustin (e3a6ae)

  50. Texas pauses its reopening and moves to free up room in hospitals as cases rise
    ……
    (Texas) has recorded more than 130,000 cases and nearly 3,000 deaths. More than 4,300 people with the virus are hospitalized across the state, more than double the number at the beginning of June.

    (Gov. Greg) Abbott issued an executive order suspending elective procedures in hospitals in four counties. Businesses that had already reopened can continue to operate, but any further reopening is halted, he said in a statement.
    ……
    In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis gave no indication that the state would roll back its economic opening, but he urged residents to avoid closed spaces with poor ventilation, crowds and close contact with others. Florida reported 5,004 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, its second-highest tally for a single day.

    Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, continued to attribute the rising infections, especially in cities, to younger people who have started to socialize in bars and homes, in spite of rules in many municipalities prohibiting group gatherings. He pressed older people to keep staying home as much as possible, and pleaded with young people to be responsible.
    ……
    They don’t call Florida “God’s Waiting Room” for nothing. Trump’s convention should be interesting.

    Mr. DeSantis, a Republican….. pleaded with young people to be responsible.

    Young people responsible in Florida? Surely you jest!

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  51. @11.ROFLMAO Don’t you know you can look this stuff up, icepick?!

    You count poorly; start w/Martin Dies; a nortorious and well-known conservative particularly in Tinseltown circles back in the day. Hear no evil; see no evil, eh.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  52. Rest easy, culture warriors; ankle-walker Jerry Lewis was a popular export to France and the Krauts adore David Hasselhoff.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  53. @53. Defiantly wielding muskets but refusing to wear masks didn’t work at the Alamo, either.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  54. https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2020/06/25/yahoo-news-lets-face-time-cancel-star-spangled-banner/

    Keep on supporting those who are trying to destroy our history and remake it in the name of socialism.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  55. Not surprising…just look at the truly diverse police blotters in the NWI “Region” part of his state:

    http://news.yahoo.com/senate-republican-bucks-party-president-law-enforcement-immunity-000652468.html

    urbanleftbehind (e46e71)

  56. Devin Nunes Can’t Sue Twitter Over Cow and Mom Parodies, Judge Says
    ……….
    Mr. Nunes, a California Republican, had sought $250 million in the suit filed last year against Twitter, the strategist and the owners of the accounts over statements he said were defamatory. One account pretended to be Mr. Nunes’s mother; the other pretended to be a cow.

    But on Wednesday, Judge John Marshall of the Henrico County Circuit Court in Virginia said Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a federal law that says social media companies are not liable for content posted on their platforms, provides Twitter immunity in the suit.
    ………
    The lawsuit from Mr. Nunes last year noted at the time that @DevinCow had 1,204 followers. In the days after the suit, the account’s following rose to over half a million. It now has more than 735,000 followers.
    ……..
    Thanks for the free advertising! Moo!

    Rip Murdock (e7189f)

  57. Counter-revolutionary title of post is attempt by bloody assassins of proletariat to cancel Comrade General-Secretary Stalin!

    “Whenever I hear the word ‘culture’, I reach for my revolver.” – Hermann Goering

    Dave (1bb933)

  58. Seeing Ward Churchill mentioned reminded me of a research paper someone wrote about his claims that representing someone else’s work as his own was actually OK.

    In discussing WC’s behavior overall, you get the feeling as a lefty he really was ahead of his time.

    “Churchill’s own principled support for free speech appears to end at the tip of his nose. He has been prosecuted in federal court for obstructing Italian-American pensioners from marching in Columbus Day parades. Churchill holds that his Ninth Amendment right to be offended by a Columbus Day parade somehow supersedes the elderly paraders’ First Amendment right to gather and celebrate.”

    Ward Churchill’s Twelve Excuses for Plagiarism

    https://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/plag/5240451.0002.004/–ward-churchills-twelve-excuses-for-plagiarism?rgn=main;view=fulltext
    _

    harkin (b5e7fd)

  59. Example 7
    Is it time to cancel Nikole Hannah-Jones, the lead author on the New York Times’ horrid 1619 Project which captured the imagination of the leftist media and academic world and was awarded a truly undeserved Pulitzer Prize? Ms. Hannah-Jones, who gave us every sign of being a garden-variety-critical-race-theory-trained grievance monger, turns out to have spewed out some generally witless anti-white talking points in a letter to the editor to the Notre Dame campus newspaper which she submitted a quarter-century ago as a college sophomore. Her letter includes the requisite Farrakhan-inspired lunacy, making reference to “white devils” and asserting that African peoples had sailed to Mexico well before Europeans did, as attested to by the presence of pyramids which have been attributed to the Aztec people but had actually been a friendly collaboration between the two cultures. And naturally in her imaginary history the Africans sailed back home after a chummy visit because no colonizers were they. And I suppose they were so environmentally conscious that they didn’t leave behind any traces of their presence either.

    No, Nikole Hannah-Jones shouldn’t be cancelled because of her views 25 years ago, but people who ought to know better really should stop trying to convince us to take her seriously as a historian and scholar. This sort of thing is instructive in helping to trace the origins of her crazy Chomskyan historical revisionism. Somebody at the New York Times and the Pulitizer Committee has to be rolling their eyes at all of this, right?

    JVW (ee64e4)

  60. “ Ha! I actually was going to mention this, but then my distant memory told me that you didn’t necessarily need to have your three fingers extended in the circle game, you could just cup all four fingers opposite the thumb. Isn’t that the case or am I misremembering my boyhood?”
    _

    I only remember the thumb/finger circle, not anything about what the other fingers were doing. I just always thought it was the OK sign and either right side up or upside down.

    The 4chan reference to me is important because the amount of people who are ignorant of the white supremacy connection (Hoax-created btw) Is much greater than the amount who are familiar with the circle game.
    _

    harkin (b5e7fd)

  61. JVW wrote:

    For some reason, the Bezos Bugle decided that eighteen months later an account of Ms. Schafer’s social transgression would make for a delightful 3,000-word story which would, of course, end up getting her fired from her job.

    “For some reason”? The reason was because someone wanted her fired. Eighteen months ago, Miss Schafer’s transgression might not have gotten her canned, but now that the left are all woke the f(ornicate) up, and the editors of the Post are deathly afraid of antagonizing the #BlackLivesMatter idiots, it’s a transgression that would get her unemployed.

    The left have absolutely no sense of humor, and they take themselves so deathly seriously; no stone must be left unturned, and no transgression given a pass.

    Almost 2,000 years ago, some guy said that when you pray to God, you include, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.” Today’s woke have forgotten that — if they ever knew it — and are bound and determined to squeeze every last drop of penance and penalty they can, seemingly convinced that they are, themselves, without sin.

    The Dana in Kentucky (6df47f)

  62. they should change the name to guevara and lumumba, e pleb nista,

    https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/06/student-activists-demand-removal-of-abraham-lincoln-statue-at-uw-madison/

    narciso (7404b5)

  63. Mr 123 wrote:

    JVW, what’s the the hate for the Harry Potter books? They’re not perfect but kids LOVE them. Anything that get’s kids to read 3000+ pages is worthy of a least a little respect. Come one, show some love. 😀

    Miss Rowling managed to perfectly capture the mind of an adolescent boy; no easy feat for a middle aged woman. The books are brilliantly written, and I was perfectly happy to read them when I was in my fifties.

    The Dana in Kentucky (6df47f)

  64. Have none of the left read 1984?

    I guess that the ones who have see themselves as brave Winston Smiths, but for every Winston Smith, O’Brien waits right around the corner.

    The Dana in Kentucky (6df47f)

  65. True confession: I have made hangman’s nooses!

    In Mrs McCarren’s seventh grade English class, I sat by the windows in the old Harrison Avenue building at the now closed Mt Sterling (Kentucky) Junior High School. The building dated from somewhere around 1900, and being built before air conditioning, it had high ceilings and tall windows. There were long shades, with long cords, on these windows.

    Well, seventh grade English class was boring, and, to have something to do, I knotted the thirteen-twist hangman’s nooses in the cords. This was well before I had any knowledge about lynchings, and, to me, hangman’s nooses were about old Westerns, a staple of 1960s television. (I was in the seventh grade during the 1965-1966 school year. Yes, I’m older than dirt.) I guess that I just wasn’t #woke enough 55 years ago.

    The Dana in Kentucky (6df47f)

  66. No, Nikole Hannah-Jones shouldn’t be cancelled because of her views 25 years ago, but people who ought to know better really should stop trying to convince us to take her seriously as a historian and scholar.

    20/20 + Change

    If it was over 20 years ago or you were under 20 years old and it’s not relevant to the person you are today i don’t get worked up over it.

    If it was 20 years ago but you’re still being a racist tool then maybe the fact you were a racist edge lord in high school is relevant and people should pay attention to the stuff you did.

    Time123 (daab2f)

  67. Those are interesting examples, but also very much not the same.

    I am not generally a cancel culture fan. (and I’m really really not a fan of purity culture, which seems to go hand in hand with cancel culture)

    However, actions one takes professionally are different than actions one takes privately and actions one takes as a public person are different than actions one takes as a private person.

    In general, I think if a person is speaking as a professional person in their professional role and a person believes that they have, in fact, acted unprofessionally than that person had the right to complain to their boss. It is then the boss’s job to decide if that person has acted professionally or not.

    If a person is not speaking as a professional person in their professional role and they are a private person, I don’t think it should be anyone at their company’s business. If the person attended the protest in Charlottesville or a riot dressed in antifa gear, unless they get arrested, they are on their own time and it’s not their boss’ business.

    If a person is not speaking as a professional person in their professional role, but they are a public person speaking in their role as a public person, then they are still, in effect, speaking as part of their professional role. If they use their platform to promote a set of widely supported concepts and get lauded for that, they also have to accept that if they use their platform to promote more controversial concepts, then there might be negative consequences for that. If, however, they are not speaking as a public person, the public should mind their own business (if, for example, JK Rawlings had DM’d her opinion to a friend directly or she was posting as Jroll instead of JK Rawlings.)

    In all fairness, though, I do speak as a person who works under a morals clause that I find wholely objectionable. What I do (or could have done in the past) on my own time, even things that are absolutely both legal and ethical, even under an assumed identity, on the internet or elsewhere, even if it happened 20 yrs ago, before I worked in a school, could get me fired.

    Nic (896fdf)

  68. @69,
    It was 100% a hangman’s noose.

    But it wasn’t directed at Wallace.

    I think a hangman’s noose is almost always creepy. I made one once when I was bored. I was a boy scout so i was good with rope. It took some time but was much easier then a monkey’s paw.

    But if it’s racist depends on context. Same thing for if it’s threatening. Did you leave it hanging where a black guy you’re mad at will find it? That’s pretty racist, and threatening. Did you leave it hanging where a white guy you’re mad at will find it? That’s pretty threatening, but not racist. Like leaving a jack-o-lantern with a knife stuck in it on someones porch. It’s a threat.

    Did you tie it as a pull down for a garage door? Well that’s a bit creepy, but probably not racist or threatening. But if a black guy who recently said something that upset a lot of people sees it when they open the door, they’re probably going to think it’s directed at them.

    Time123 (daab2f)

  69. 20/20 + Change

    Hmm, that’s an interesting way of evaluating things. I’m not against drawing a direct line from someone’s views when they were a high school or college kid to what they believe in today, but I object to getting bent out of shape over inflammatory language used in the flower of youth (and I would deliberately not try to place a end-date on that category). The only interest I have in Ms. Hannah-Jones’s weird sophomoric (quite literally) musings is that they demonstrate that she has spent at least the last quarter-century immersed in this weird world of radical black grievance, and thus any historical analysis she provides today is to me just a continuation of the Chomsky/Zinn/Farrakhan bullcrap that she internalized in her youth.

    By the same token, if someone were to read my historical analysis from one-score years and conclude that I have always been an insufferably cynical curmudgeon then I wouldn’t have the confidence to argue against that analysis.

    (Though since we’re talking about what we believed in our formative years, here’s a confessional anecdote: I was cleaning out my closets during the COVID-inspired boredom and I came across a file folder of some papers that I had written back in college. In reading through them I was struck by the fact that 19-year-old college freshman JVW wrote an essay for a political science course in which I expressed confidence in governments at all levels to provide honest and cost-effective services to the citizenry. What the hell was I thinking back then?)

    JVW (ee64e4)

  70. Oh, I forgot, people shouldn’t be cancelled 25 yrs later for a thing they wrote in college. People write all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons in college. I once wrote an entire term paper from spite, knowing I wouldn’t get anything better than a C, just because I thought my professor was a dick who was wrong beyond all imagining. (The topic wouldn’t get me cancelled, even in today’s culture, and I did get a C, but I’d known that starting out. It was worth it.)

    Nic (896fdf)

  71. @71, I think the fight is about the overton window of acceptable disagreement. I get what you’re saying about people having a right to be themselves away from the office, but again there’s a limit to that. I’d be pretty comfortable if my company had a policy that no active members of NAMBLA were on the pay role for instance. The left and right both want to fine the center of ‘normal’ around their personal definition.

    Time123 (daab2f)

  72. @69 and @72 The word “noose” trips the nanny net at school, so every year during certain US history units we get flooded with self-harm alerts. 😛

    Nic (896fdf)

  73. @71. You lived in Europe; so have I. The concept of “American Culture” is decidedly, if not laughably ‘foreign.’ Every 20 years, fresh plastics and a change of the bulbs in the golden arches. 😉

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  74. I’m not against drawing a direct line from someone’s views when they were a high school or college kid to what they believe in today, but I object to getting bent out of shape over inflammatory language used in the flower of youth (and I would deliberately not try to place a end-date on that category).

    I agree, but it needs to be there. If someone is arrogant and classist growing up and has continued to insult and demean people who lack their money as an adult then the video of them being terrible ‘in the flower of youth’ is relevant. If they outgrew it then it’s not. You’re right about it being a guideline and not a hard and fast rule…but I wouldn’t hold a drunken brawl against a 60 year old man that happened when they were in their 30s. Provided it wasn’t part of who they had been for a long time.

    Time123 (daab2f)

  75. @72. “Fake noose.”

    But hey, NASCAR tires are mostly black.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  76. @75 Why? If, frex, you worked at a PVC piping company, what would difference would it make to their performance of their duties of they belonged to NAMBLA or any other objectionable organization?

    @77 Lets just say that having experienced a number of cultures gives one a broader base from which to select one’s preferred cultural standards IMO. 😛

    Nic (896fdf)

  77. Are you it wasn’t a noose?

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  78. However, actions one takes professionally are different than actions one takes privately and actions one takes as a public person are different than actions one takes as a private person.

    Nic, I anticipated that someone might point out the public versus private behavior difference, and I’m kind of surprised it took as long as it did for that aspect to emerge. Thanks for mentioning it.

    I agree with large chunks of what you write, though in the end I still think all of my examples constitute true cancel culture. Examples 2 (Fr. Moloney) and 5 (Principal Kenner) are the two best examples of job-related issues raising the ire of the cancel crowd. (Example 4 with the SDG&E is an on-the-job thing too, but, honestly, I think it is so stupid and trifling a matter — a hand dangling our of a car window — that it isn’t worth discussing. Apparently the complainant did as well, and that is party why he has closed his Twitter account after expressing remorse that Mr. Cafferty was fired.)

    In Example 2, Fr. Moloney’s email was sent out in his capacity as a chaplain at MIT (salary and benefits paid for, by the way, by donations from TCC members and the Archdiocese, not by MIT). So the fact that it apparently caused angst among a certain high-strung woke subset of the community makes it a job-performance matter, I will gladly stipulate. But what exactly is Fr. Moloney’s role in the TCC other than to provide spiritual guidance in accordance with Church teachings? As I said in my write-up, I think his message was ill-advised and badly-timed, but the content is entirely defensible with respect to Church teachings. Trying to catch him on some weird technicality that he didn’t “honor the dignity of George Floyd” is to me specious, as Fr. Moloney laments his killing and refers to it as unjust. It’s just that he wasn’t willing to sign on to the weird deification of George Floyd and recite the catechism of how racist cops roam the streets looking to snuff out black lives, and how Derek Chauvin in particular obviously had hate in his heart which led him to take Mr. Floyd’s life that fateful day. As a priest, as a religious leader, this is an entirely legitimate argument to make, and if not for the fact that people are continually on the lookout for reasons to overreact to words they don’t like then this could have been the start of a very interesting debate from which all sides would benefit. But, alas, Fr. Moloney’s job was sacrificed to the mob.

    The situation with Principal Kenner strikes me as pretty straightforward. The school, under her leadership, has reached and maintained a level of excellence. Students thrive in its environment. Of course in a role like hers there are bound to be people who think that the school could be even better if things were done differently, or that some students and/or teachers are not reaping the full benefits that others are. But the complaints against her seem to me to be pretty weak. Ms. Kenner believes that students who go out to protest ought to avoid violence; her opponents find that to be somehow triggering. Ms. Kenner believes that having armed police providing security increases safety; her opponents believe that somehow it makes the school less safe. Ms. Kenner encourages her students to conduct their activism with good faith, compassion, and honesty; her opponents believe that she is silencing black voices. In an honest world, her opponents would be thanked for submitting their thoughts, then their suggestions would be immediately chucked into the trash can once they departed the room. Yet the article makes it seem like weak-kneed administrators might just take the complainers seriously. This to me smacks of cancel culture: hop aboard the current political zeitgeist, no matter how ill-advised or foolish, else we will ruin your career.

    Thanks again for bringing this matter up. I look forward to reading any thoughts you might have about my arguments (though that might have to be later tonight as I do have some errands to run right now).

    JVW (ee64e4)

  79. Very depressing indeed, though somewhere in hell Joe Stalin and Mao Zedong are smiling in appreciation.

    Is not to be so smug, comrade capitalist.

    Once was many beautiful statues of Comrade Stalin across Soviet Russia and fraternal socialist republics in Eastern Europe. Where are they now? Cancelled! History erased, everywhere!

    And not just Joseph Vissarionovich. Many statues of Comrades Lenin, Marx and Engels is have been removed from Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, Latvia, etc as well. Where will madness end?

    Is sad. Such is life.

    Maybe Comrade nk is tell joke to lighten mood.

    Dave (1bb933)

  80. They still have proud, glowing with pride statue of Lenin up in Chernobyl, Dave.

    Dustin (e3a6ae)

  81. @82 You’re welcome. 😛

    I don’t disagree that they are all cancel culture, I just think some of the situations are more egregious/unwarranted/out of bounds than others.

    Personally I think that Moloney and Kenner both were within their professional boundries in speaking out, but both might have chosen their words more carefully.

    In Moloney’s case, he definitely should have been more aware of his audience, but he was within his role of chaplain in telling his community to be careful of rushing to judgement. I do not, personally, think the archdiocese should have moved him, but I can see the calculation of the archdiocese that if a certain percentage of his community had lost trust in him, a move might be necessary given that his entire job involves being considered trustworthy by the community. Even with that, however, they probably should have waited to see if this was a temporary outrage or a long-term problem.

    Kenner is one that is a little close to home for me, frankly, so just grant that I have a biased opinion here. Educators have an odd, liminal, pseudo-familial role. We have a lot of jobs that are often parent-like (or parent-lite 😛 ). This can create a certain tension within ourselves and sometimes between educators and parents. We care, and we have to care, about our students well-being in general, which is part of our job, and often about specific students in particular that we work with a lot, which is part of being human. We want our students to be safe and successful.

    It is very very easy for me to see Kenner writing that email and meaning, basically, “I’m worried about you and I want you to be safe. Please, be safe and make good choices.” (this year esp is very heavy one the “be safe, be safe, please please be safe” emotions of all of us in the education side of things. The kids are often not doing well with any of this and we are all very worried about our students.)

    It’s also very very easy for me to see parents feeling that the way she said it is overstepping and usurping the moral instruction role of the parents. And everyone’s emotions are elevated right now, which doesn’t help.

    Kenner’s superintendent should be the reasonable voice in here, telling parents that Kenner’s message was professional and that she just wants the students to be OK, but I don’t know if that will happen. Some superintendents are very good at standing their ground while acknowledging and listening to parent concerns, others aren’t.

    Nic (896fdf)

  82. So according to this post noody has a problem with replacing confederate statutes with Nat Turner, John brown and Malcolm X. Right?

    asset (df0abc)

  83. I’m cool with John Brown. That guy doesn’t get enough credit.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  84. ETA, should make sure to recognize the violence he used though.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  85. It is said (but Allah is All-knowing) that once there were two statues in a park, those of a man and a woman, standing face to face, their right hands outstretched to each other, their fingers not quite touching, their eyes gazing longingly into each other’s.

    And such was their beauty, due to the alabaster from which they were hewed and the artist’s skill, that the Almighty Himself was touched, and He bade the Prophet Sulayman (Peace Be Unto Him) to descend to Earth and bring the statues to life for one hour.

    Whereupon the Tamer of the Djinn did as commanded and having brought the statues to life explained unto them: “Things of Beauty, the Compassionate has granted thee life for one hour. Spend it as you please.”

    The statues’ eyes flashed with joy, and they ran, hand in hand, behind some nearby bushes, and Sulayman heard much rustling of branches accompanied by exclamations of delight.

    Half an hour later, they came back, still hand in hand, their alabaster faces rosy with joy, both grinning from ear to ear, and Sulayman told them: “You have another half an hour left.”

    So the male statue turned to the female statue and said: “Wanna do it again?”

    And the female statue said: “Sure, but this time you hold down the pigeon and I’ll poop on him.”

    nk (1d9030)

  86. So according to this post noody has a problem with replacing confederate statutes with Nat Turner, John brown and Malcolm X. Right?

    Sure. As long as nobody has a problem with me and my friends attacking and toppling the statues on a regular basis, I suppose. Tit for tat, right?

    JVW (ee64e4)

  87. Soviet joke, for Comrade Dave.

    One early morning in Moscow, Boris happens upon a line of people waiting patiently to enter into a building. The line is guarded by numerous soldiers holding automatic weapons. Boris sees his friend Vladimir queue up at the back of the line, so he sidles up behind him.

    “Greetings, comrade,” Boris says to Vladimir. “Why do you wait in this line?”

    Suddenly a guard approaches clutching his weapon tightly, a visage of annoyed anger rising on his face. Vladimir gives Boris a look as if to silently tell him to keep quiet.

    “Hey,” Boris thinks to himself, “with all of this secrecy and security, I’ll bet this is a line for something really great, like maybe a meat ration or perhaps a new winter coat. I will join in with the hopes of getting something good to bring home to my family.”

    So they wait in line for hours and hours slowly creeping their way forward, the guards keeping stern watch over them all the while forcing them to keep silent. People pass by but only a few others join the line. Boris continues to dream of the treasures that are located just beyond the door: perhaps chocolates, perhaps a television set, perhaps caviar, perhaps Western wines — his imagination runs wild.

    Finally, as the late afternoon shadows stretch along the pavement and the two men work their way up close to the building entryway, the guards step away for a moment to have a smoke. Vladimir immediately spins on his heels and confronts Boris.

    “You fool!” he hisses, “This is the line for dissidents who will be processed and shipped off to the Gulag. Get out of this line now, idiot!”

    Boris thinks about it for a moment.

    “But I’m almost at the very front. . . “

    JVW (ee64e4)

  88. @89

    Good one, nk.

    Your joke brings to mind something that William F. Buckley once said about John Simon, a notoriously hard-to-please film critic for National Review. Buckley said that Simon reviewed movies much like pigeons review statues.

    norcal (a5428a)

  89. JVW, the hypothetical didnt specify that the confederate statues had been removed forcibly or without process.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  90. Nic (896fdf) — 6/25/2020 @ 3:22 pm

    @75 Why? If, frex, you worked at a PVC piping company, what would difference would it make to their performance of their duties of they belonged to NAMBLA or any other objectionable organization?

    A bit actually. If he’s interested enough to join the org I’d be concerned he’s active enough to be in danger of being arrested. Which means suddenly unable to work and also creating some bad PR. Even if I didn’t care about the threat he posed to the community I’d be concerned about the position he’d put the company in.

    frosty (452103)

  91. @94 That’s the same logic as any cancel culture, though. It’s “Bob is a member of the NRA so maybe he collects illegal weapons and could be arrested and cause us bad publicity.” logic.

    Nic (896fdf)

  92. Are you it wasn’t a noose?

    Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/25/2020 @ 3:23 pm

    It was a garage door pull down. What were you hanging, squirrels?

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  93. NJRob (eb56c3) — 6/25/2020 @ 6:16 pm

    Now that I’ve seen it I can’t unsee it. It’s the perfect knot for hand pulls. It’s easy to grab and gives you something to grip while distributing the pressure around your hand. It seems like all pull ropes should be tied like this.

    Instead NASCAR will mandate that all ropes end in some piece of plastic made in china with a granny knot to keep the plastic on the end of the rope. The granny knot will slip, the plastic will wear out, and instances of hand injuries for crew members will skyrocket.

    frosty (452103)

  94. Nic (896fdf) — 6/25/2020 @ 6:09 pm

    It’s possible you don’t know this but having sex with underage boys is illegal. It is not mentioned in any of the bill of rights and has not yet had a prenumbra of the constitution extended over it.

    frosty (452103)

  95. Nic (896fdf) — 6/25/2020 @ 6:09 pm

    You got cancel culture right though. It’s generally a bunch of people who think pedophiles represent an oppressed lifestyle choice and the NRA is about collecting illegal guns.

    frosty (452103)

  96. I thought it was a plain loop, myself, such as one might use for a better grip on a rope door-pull, before I saw the picture. Now, I can see that it’s really a semi-aquatic egg-laying mammal native to Australia.

    It’s a hangman’s knot! Turn that gaslight back up!

    nk (1d9030)

  97. NASCAR president Steve Phelps says NASCAR conducted a “thorough sweep of all 29 tracks where they race, and 1684 garage stalls, they found only 11 total ropes that had a pulldown rope tied in a knot, and just one noose: The one in Bubba Wallace garage.”

    https://twitter.com/MartySmithESPN/status/1276194402302640129

    Davethulhu (9921df)

  98. I thought it was a plain loop, myself, such as one might use for a better grip on a rope door-pull, before I saw the picture.

    Yeah. I’m no expert in knots, but I am struggling to understand why the main loop on the knot needed those six or seven wrap-around loops. Seems excessive.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  99. @98 The discussion point wasn’t about performing a despicable illegal act, it was about belonging to an despicable organization. Is it illegal to belong to an organization the supports the legalization of something currently illegal? Even if it is an illegal thing that we all despise? Or is freedom of association, which is protected by the constitution.

    Nic (896fdf)

  100. Davethulhu (9921df) — 6/25/2020 @ 6:49 pm

    This just confirms that the crew members are idiots. Even a simple knot would be more effective. I’ve got a knot on my attic pull for just this reason. But only 11 people were smart enough to tie a knot. I’m actually starting to think this is one guy who has used 11 different garages at various times. We need to find this NASCAR supergenius.

    frosty (452103)

  101. Nic (896fdf) — 6/25/2020 @ 6:53 pm

    You asked

    what would difference would it make to their performance of their duties

    I answered. All of this new stuff in @103 is what? The original thread wasn’t even about illegal. It was about being fired.

    frosty (452103)

  102. My perspective based on the facts as they appear to stand: It was definitely a noose. Nooses aren’t standard garage pulls. This noose had been there for a while, but there was no way for Wallace to know that. It wasn’t unreasonable of him to get upset.

    Davethulhu (9921df)

  103. Today’s Biden Gaffe: Lancaster, PA.

    “People don’t have a job, people don’t know where to go, they don’t know what to do. Now we have over 120 million dead from COVID.” – JoeyBee 6/25/20

    As of Thursday, there have been more than 122,000 – not million- coronavirus deaths in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins numbers.

    Idiot.

    Nothing Doing. Biden 2020

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  104. https://therightscoop.com/horrible-group-of-black-thugs-brutally-attack-white-man-with-fireworks-in-baltimore/

    More “white man bleed a lot” and things you’ll never see on the national news for $1,000 Alex.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  105. @105 But I didn’t bring up illegality, you did. You posited that belonging to NAMBLA could indicate a person likely to be arrested from a boss’ viewpoint. To which I returned that belonging to another organization could also indicate a person likely to be arrested from another boss’s viewpoint and then you veered off into a 2nd amendment argument, which I brought back toward my original point not firing people because you don’t like their personal life associates (via invocation of your point re constitutionality being applicable).

    I did deliberately pick the NRA to elicit an automatic defensive response in hopes of activating and generalizing one thought process onto a different but similar set of circumstances.

    It’s the same thought process. “I don’t like the people you hang with, so you are fired.”

    Nic (896fdf)

  106. Trump Family Will Ask Second Court to Stop Publication of Tell-All Book
    A Queens County, N.Y., Surrogate’s Court judge on Thursday rejected a request to bar President Trump’s niece, Mary L. Trump, from publishing a tell-all book about the family because the court lacked jurisdiction in the case.

    Judge Peter J. Kelly recommended that Robert S. Trump, the president’s brother, take to another court his claim that publishing the book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” would violate a nondisclosure agreement signed by Ms. Trump.
    ……..
    Charles Harder, a lawyer for Robert Trump, said he would now file suit in the New York State Supreme Court, which is a lower-level court in the state, in an effort to stop Simon & Schuster from publishing the book on July 28.

    Simon & Schuster describes the book on its website as a “revelatory, authoritative portrait of Donald J. Trump and the toxic family that made him,” written by Ms. Trump, “a trained clinical psychologist and Donald’s only niece.”
    ……..
    Trump has made Simon and Schuster rich- by publishing anti-Trump as well as Trump’s own books.

    Rip Murdock (e7189f)

  107. Nic (896fdf) — 6/25/2020 @ 7:34 pm

    To which I returned that belonging to another organization could also indicate a person likely to be arrested from another boss’s viewpoint

    This is the flaw in your comparison. Belonging to the NRA doesn’t make a person likely to be arrested. It fits the no good reason to fire someone side of the argument. You picked bad examples and you want to argue that joining the NRA points to illegal activity. That is ridiculous.

    But you asked for a valid reason for firing someone for an outside activity, namely NAMBLA, which you picked. I gave you one, e.g. the outside activity points to an illegal activity. Which NAMBLA certainly does independent of how you feel about it.

    You’re doing a song and dance with the deliberate/elicit nonsense because I was snarky. My response wasn’t based on how the employers felt about the activity. In both cases they can even approve of it and still make a rational risk assessment against employing NAMBLA members.

    frosty (452103)

  108. How Arizona ‘lost control of the epidemic’

    ……..Hospitals are filling up. Restaurants are again shutting down, more than a month after Arizona reopened its economy under the mantra “Return Stronger.”

    Arizona has emerged as an epicenter of the early summer coronavirus crisis as the outbreak has expanded, flaring across new parts of the country and, notably, infecting more young people.

    Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, is recording as many as 2,000 cases a day, “eclipsing the New York City boroughs even on their worst days,” warned a Wednesday brief by disease trackers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, which observed, “Arizona has lost control of the epidemic.”

    ……[T]he crisis was predictable in Arizona, where local ordinances requiring masks were forbidden until Gov. Doug Ducey (R) reversed course last week. State leaders did not take the necessary precautions or model safe behavior, these observers maintain, even in the face of compelling evidence and repeated pleas from authoritative voices.
    ……..
    …….. Arizona is facing more per capita cases than recorded by any country in Europe or even by hard-hit Brazil. Among states with at least 20 people hospitalized for covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, no state has seen its rate of hospitalizations increase more rapidly since Memorial Day.

    This week, Arizona reported not just a record single-day increase in new cases — with Tuesday’s tally reaching 3,591 — but also record use of inpatient beds and ventilators for suspected and confirmed cases. Public health experts warn that hospitals could be stretched so thin they may have to begin triaging patients by mid-July.

    Soon, the only option might be “crisis standards of care,” said Will Humble, a former director of the Arizona Department of Health Services. “If you’re in a bed, normally they’ll keep you for a few days, but they’re going to send you home with oxygen.”

    Ducey, speaking to reporters Thursday, said hospitals are “likely to hit surge capacity very soon.”

    “This virus is everywhere,” the governor said.
    ………
    All without community spread by protesters

    Rip Murdock (e7189f)

  109. @111 There are literally people out there who think the NRA is a pro-death organization that facilitates getting away with murder by putting fingerprint proof coating on guns. There are people who believe that anyone who belongs to the NRA is at least an advocate of various illegal weaponry and probably owns illegal weapons. If the boss is one of those people and thinks along a path similar to yours they very well might fire a person simply for belonging to the NRA and, by your reasoning, be justified.

    I didn’t pick NAMBLA, Time123 did in comment 75.

    Nic (896fdf)

  110. ‘Terrified’: As coronavirus cases surge in Mississippi, health officials provide dire perspective
    Officials with the Mississippi Department of Health are urging people to wear facial masks and social distance after releasing the state’s highest one-day total of new coronavirus cases since the pandemic began.

    The Health Department on Thursday reported 1,092 cases of the coronavirus and 532 patients hospitalized with the virus, prompting State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs to warn of an overburdened health care system.

    “It’s not just the cases. We have seen the highest number of hospitalized patients. I’m terrified we will overwhelm the healthcare system, the hospitals, the ICUs. Not in the fall, I’m talking about this week,” he said.
    …….
    ……. If we’re not careful, Mississippi will look like New York,” Dobbs said.
    ………
    Dobbs said positive cases of the virus have surged in recent weeks in (the 18-29) demographic, up to five times what has been previously recorded. Most will recover from the virus, but run the risk of exposing other older age groups who are more vulnerable.

    State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers said most of the recent uptick has been from “broad community transmission” across the state where clusters of cases are not tied to a particular event or county. …….

    Rip Murdock (e7189f)

  111. Texas man with coronavirus infects 17 relatives at surprise birthday party
    A family in North Texas was in for more than one surprise when they discovered a nephew had unknowingly infected 17 of them with the new coronavirus at a recent birthday party.

    The man, who later tested positive for COVID-19, interacted with seven others at a May 30 gathering before those family members interacted with 10 more, further spreading the virus

    Now 18 so far have contracted the illness, including two children, four seniors and a cancer patient.
    …….
    Three of those with the illness are still in the hospital: Barbosa’s 80-year-old parents and his sister with breast cancer. His dad is in the ICU on life support and close to needing a ventilator.
    ……

    Rip Murdock (e7189f)

  112. Nic (896fdf) — 6/25/2020 @ 8:26 pm

    So, your argument relies on an irrational employer totally disconnected from reality? This employer would not be thinking along a path similar to mine.

    I just got through saying the NRA argument fits the no good reason to fire someone but you somehow read that as the opposite. I gave an example of a rational risk assessment and you posit the opposite. How did you do that? Are you doing that on purpose?

    frosty (452103)

  113. @116 My argument relies on an employer’s opinion of any particular organization not being applicable. You, however, are playing directly into the cancel culture idea. You exempt your preferred organizations and are good with it in your non-preferred organizations, just like the cancel culture people, who are equally apt to rationalize their personal preferences for who to fire and who not to fire based one their opinion of a person’s personal life associations.

    Nic (896fdf)

  114. biden/mcconnell/2020

    mg (8cbc69)

  115. @117 What does

    My argument relies on an employer’s opinion of any particular organization not being applicable.

    mean?

    You’ve created a contradictory hypo. An employer isn’t justified based on an irrational decision. They can be correct or lucky but not justified. Do you seriously not see a risk difference that a rational employer could make between employees based on their likelihood of getting arrested, i.e. their likelihood of suddenly and randomly not being able to show up for work?

    Cancel culture is based on people bullying other people or groups. It used to be based on threats of boycotting a product but now it has an element of physical violence involved. It’s artificially created and depending on the job might not impact the individual’s personal productivity, i.e. they can still do whatever was going on in the PVC example. If you get arrested you can’t come to work thereby directly impacting personal productivity.

    frosty (452103)

  116. 108, ..in 2011, there was an attack on a white woman by black teens in a Baltimore in a Mc Donald’s…it turned out the woman was actually a transvestite who was thought to be a man-in-drag creep. In many respects that particular incident started the bathrooms by gender controversies of the 2010s.

    Hopefully the victim in this fireworks racial attack is not some sort of hood Jerry Sandusky and that the counter-outrage legitimizes NAMBLA.

    urbanleftbehind (124171)

  117. Re frosty/Nic discussion. Consider this… I was recently disqualified for employment with an organization (for a job for which I was slightly over-qualified but the work arrangements appealed to me) simply because I asked, given that so many corporations are doing this, IF they supported BLM or Antifa or any other organization that seeks to overthrow the US and its constitutional form of government. I simply asked this. They told me that they did not, that they supported the NAACP civil rights legal fund, but because I asked such a question, they could not hire me.

    PTw (d8ab86)

  118. DCSCA (797bc0) — 6/25/2020 @ 11:28 am

    You count poorly; start w/Martin Dies; a nortorious and well-known conservative particularly in Tinseltown circles back in the day. Hear no evil; see no evil, eh.

    Do you mean

    Martin Dies Jr., (D-Tex.), 1938–1944

    the first person on my list? The list posted in response to

    it was not Democrats who ran HUAC

    frosty (452103)

  119. Make that ‘would not hire me’. I heard later from a different office of the same company in a different city who didn’t have anything I was looking for but they wanted to stay in touch. I told them what their other office had told me. This office indicated that such a thing wasn’t a problem for them and quasi-apologized for the other office.

    PTw (d8ab86)

  120. PTw (d8ab86) — 6/26/2020 @ 6:16 am

    I would describe that as cancel culture and say it’s wrong. My point is that everything isn’t cancel culture. This might be different from Nic’s view since he seems to accept a lot of the examples as cancel culture but focuses on the degree of egregiousness. I also noticed after rereading the thread that @71 mentions outside activity being ok until someone is arrested but @109 claims the discussion isn’t about illegality. It’s a confusing thread. If it sounds like I’m trying to excuse cancel culture by saying you can fire anyone for any reason it’s because this thread has meandered. I’m not trying to excuse it. I think it’s a cancer. But there are differences and there is a line. Where that line is has been made intentionally fuzzy lately and we like to argue that “can do something” implies that it’s rational or immune from criticism. My interpretation of Nic’s argument is that if cancel culture is bad then anything that looks like cancel culture is bad, i.e. if, of the many possible reasons to fire someone, one reason looks like cancel culture then you shouldn’t fire them even if there are other reasonable reasons. I don’t agree with that either.

    An employer can choose to not hire someone for a variety of reasons. The risk/reward and cost-benefits calculation for a potential employee from a pool is different than for an existing employee with a work record. I don’t know your case but maybe there were other equally qualified candidates who were willing to tolerate BLM. Maybe you dodged a bullet. You are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you. I’m surprised you got that reason since it would have been easier and safer to blame it on you being overqualified.

    frosty (452103)

  121. Leftist Eliot Engel got blown out in his primary by a further radical leftist that fit the newfound racial priorities of the leftist party.

    NJRob (d7bf53)

  122. you might say it’s maos revenge

    https://capitalresearch.org/article/a-terrorists-ties-to-a-leading-black-lives-matter-group/

    like ayers and bernardine doehrn rinse and repeat,

    narciso (7404b5)

  123. ULB,

    there aren’t of these episodes recently. There was the black rapper at Macy’s that beat up a white guy then lied and said he was called names. There was an unprovoked attack on an old white man that was walking in a walmart when he passed a black couple and the black guy came up behind him and beat the hell out of him. I’m sure there are plenty of others, but the media doesn’t give a darn because it doesn’t fit their racist agenda. Now if the races in the roles were reversed… front page coverage.

    NJRob (d7bf53)

  124. There are plenty of these episodes recently*

    NJRob (d7bf53)

  125. “ I was recently disqualified for employment with an organization (for a job for which I was slightly over-qualified but the work arrangements appealed to me) simply because I asked, given that so many corporations are doing this, IF they supported BLM or Antifa or any other organization that seeks to overthrow the US and its constitutional form of government.”
    __ _

    At my interview to get a job at PacBell in the late 70s, some of the questions were to weed out anti-phone company nuts (yes, back then there were some anti-phone co/anti-monopoly types who liked to damage phone co. facilities or harass the employees. That’s one of the reasons many AT&T and local phone facility buildings have no signage even today).
    _

    Anyways, the lady who interviewed me asked me questions like: “do you think the phone co. is evil or dangerous”.

    I answered: “I don’t know, Lenny Bruce said that if you are having trouble conceptualizing communism, just imagine the phone co. ran the government.

    She said: “We better not say that, let’s put down ‘no’, and moved on; I got the job.

    For the youngsters, this was back before the AT&T breakup and you basically had one choice if you wanted a phone (landline, no cells back then).

    harkin (9c4571)

  126. #124

    With respect, it is not appropriate to discuss politics in a job interview. Volunteering information like you did invited the treatment you received. I would not have stated that you had just disqualified yourself, but this would have been a big black mark, because it would have shown you were incapable of leaving your politics at home.

    Appalled (1a17de)

  127. Nj Rob:

    And thats why I am wary of nationwide Juneteenth adoption, among other things, such celebrations, particularly in the non-Chicago midwest, became notorious for “anything-but-black bear hunting”. So the question becomes does revenge by victims and almost victims get pried from the freezer following a Trump victory?

    PTw:
    I raise my morning’s coffee to you, last week I had to make sure my interns were not stiffed $60 in pay by my office suddenly declaring Juneteenth a 1/2 day holiday (full times get a paid holiday, interns do not, already not being paid for Mem Day and Independence Day). HR let them get the full day with pay, after my ask.

    urbanleftbehind (124171)

  128. Davethulhu (9921df) — 6/25/2020 @ 7:13 pm

    It wasn’t unreasonable of him to get upset.

    NASCAR is more entertainment that requires certain physical skills, and tons of money, than anything else. It’s not unlike WWE except that WWE doesn’t need as much sponsor money. It’s not surprising this was turned into a marketing spectacle.

    I probably shouldn’t be to rough on NASCAR though. Pro-football players are now crying about people honoring the flag.

    frosty (452103)

  129. NASCAR, of all the major sports, has the least plausible link to blue lives matter, given its origins in moonshine distribution during prohibition.

    urbanleftbehind (124171)

  130. JVW wrote:

    I thought it was a plain loop, myself, such as one might use for a better grip on a rope door-pull, before I saw the picture.

    Yeah. I’m no expert in knots, but I am struggling to understand why the main loop on the knot needed those six or seven wrap-around loops. Seems excessive.

    Ahhhh, but to be a true hangman’s noose, ‘twould require thirteen wrap around loops.

    So, who tied the loops? They’ve been there for over half a year, and several garage stalls had them. This sounds like the work of some low-level maintenance guy who was just bored, far more than one of the drivers of his crew. But the Professionally Offended® must always take offense.

    The Dana in Kentucky (6df47f)

  131. Mr Snowman wrote:

    NASCAR is more entertainment that requires certain physical skills, and tons of money, than anything else.

    An old work colleague of mine had the opportunity to take a NASCAR vehicle around the track, and thought that he was really burning it. After he was done, he was told that his top speed was 140 MPH . . . and NASCAR drivers make over 190 MPH.

    Cale Yarborough once said that there’s a difference between being able to drive fast, and being able to race.

    The Dana in Kentucky (6df47f)

  132. “So, who tied the loops? They’ve been there for over half a year, and several garage stalls had them.”

    This isn’t true. This was the only stall in the entirety of NASCAR garages that was tied like that. Tied loops of any sort were very rare. See my post @101.

    Davethulhu (9921df)

  133. Appalled (1a17de) — 6/26/2020 @ 7:45 am

    because it would have shown you were incapable of leaving your politics at home.

    I really wish this was the long AND short of it. My employer has decided to embrace BLM as part of its diversity and inclusiveness programs. Those programs are tied to performance reviews and promotions. We have internal BLM forums and discussion groups. Politics is not staying at home.

    frosty (452103)

  134. PTw wrote:

    I was recently disqualified for employment with an organization (for a job for which I was slightly over-qualified but the work arrangements appealed to me) simply because I asked, given that so many corporations are doing this, IF they supported BLM or Antifa or any other organization that seeks to overthrow the US and its constitutional form of government. I simply asked this. They told me that they did not, that they supported the NAACP civil rights legal fund, but because I asked such a question, they could not hire me.

    To which some guy who was Appalled responded:

    With respect, it is not appropriate to discuss politics in a job interview. Volunteering information like you did invited the treatment you received. I would not have stated that you had just disqualified yourself, but this would have been a big black mark, because it would have shown you were incapable of leaving your politics at home.

    Smart companies are searching applicants social media postings, and are not stupid enough to raise political questions — or even ask about marital status — in interviews; it’s easier to get the information legally, without any witnesses, and simply eliminate the candidate from consideration, without any written notes, if the media search turns up negative information.

    Yes, I realize, it was PTw who raised the subject, not the prospective employer.

    Were I involved in the hiring process, I would roundfile any résumé which indicated a degree in a ‘social justice’ major, or any extracurricular groups in the SJW vein, because they are walking, talking lawsuits waiting to happen.

    The Dana in Kentucky (6df47f)

  135. It’ll be interesting to see how NASCAR’s absurd SJW cucking over the fake Noose will affect NASCAR’s attendance and ratings. They’ve banned the Confederate flag, since some SJW has decided that waving the Confederate battle flag isn’t a symbol of Southern Pride but RACISM. You have to wonder what’s changed since the 1980’s when the “Dukes of Hazzard” (produced by Hollywood leftists) proudly drove their car with a Confederate flag on top.

    But today, the SJW/Left decides what is “Racism” and what isn’t. And the cucks and RINO’s just go along. But when they’ve outlived their usefulness to the Left the Bulwark Boys and the Dispatch gang will be labeled “Racist” and de-platformed – and it won’t matter how many black friends or adopted sons they have.

    rcocean (fcc23e)

  136. With respect, it is not appropriate to discuss politics in a job interview. Volunteering information like you did invited the treatment you received. I would not have stated that you had just disqualified yourself, but this would have been a big black mark, because it would have shown you were incapable of leaving your politics at home.

    ‘Appalled’, with all due ‘respect’, I qualified that in my question. The ONLY reason I raised it, and again as stated when I asked it, was as someone above stated…Back in my younger days, during the Cold War, those were the sort of questions asked to me. I have never in my 35+ years of professional life, ever thought that I would need to ask such a question of an employer. Also as such, it was a question important to me and I only brought it up because so many companies themselves were bringing politics into the equation by loudly and proudly stating that they support BLM. To me, BLM is an evil organization. I will not work for ANYONE who supports such a group of Marxist or Fascists or any other organization that seeks to use violence to bring down the US and its constitutional form of government. No job is worthy of my valuable labor if they take a dime of my productivity to contribute to such a group.

    PTw (d8ab86)

  137. Davethulhu (9921df) — 6/26/2020 @ 8:32 am

    This isn’t true. This was the only stall in the entirety of NASCAR garages that was tied like that. Tied loops of any sort were very rare. See my post @101.

    It might be helpful to separate the FBI investigation from the NASCAR investigation. The people telling us this was the only one have a vested interest in it being the only one. I am sure that none of the tracks interpreted the email asking for a noose count to mean they better untie all of the pull ropes. For that matter, it’s likely that any track maintenance people who saw the initial reporting on it went out immediately to make sure they could get a valid pull rope noose count. It was definitely the only noose in NASCAR you guys.

    The Dana in Kentucky (6df47f) — 6/26/2020 @ 8:22 am

    So, who tied the loops? … This sounds like the work of some low-level maintenance guy who was just bored, far more than one of the drivers of his crew.

    You just don’t understand the power and pervasiveness of racism and are overlooking the obvious. The racists who tied the rope a) had supernatural foresight and knew which stall to put it on b) they could arrange to have him assigned to that stall or c) have a time machine.

    frosty (452103)

  138. Well said PTw.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  139. “It might be helpful to separate the FBI investigation from the NASCAR investigation. The people telling us this was the only one have a vested interest in it being the only one. I am sure that none of the tracks interpreted the email asking for a noose count to mean they better untie all of the pull ropes. For that matter, it’s likely that any track maintenance people who saw the initial reporting on it went out immediately to make sure they could get a valid pull rope noose count. It was definitely the only noose in NASCAR you guys.”

    Dana said “several garage stalls had them”. Do you agree? Do you have any evidence to support your position?

    Davethulhu (472567)

  140. @113.

    If I owned my own company it would really piss me off if I had to let a NAMBLA member work for me.
    Personally I like guns so if I have a gun nut on the pay roll I’m cool with that.

    I get why firing people for racial / religious reasons isn’’t allowed. But firing a black guy who wants sex with little boys made legal seems reasonable.

    Time123 (7507a9)

  141. RCocean, again you’re wrong. It was a noose. Not some
    Other type of knot.

    Time123 (7507a9)

  142. Davethulhu (472567) — 6/26/2020 @ 9:08 am

    Dana said “several garage stalls had them”. Do you agree? Do you have any evidence to support your position?

    Nothing but simple common sense that tells me that out of 1684 stalls there should be more than 11. The noose I’ve seen in the picture is odd but so is the idea that only 11 other stalls had even simple knots. This sounds like the trick were people pad out their expense accounts with lots of things under the amount needing a receipt but obviously get the numbers wrong by trying to hide it with unrealistic numbers.

    On the opposite side is a self-serving claim made by a group that has a very clear reason to establish that this was a unique event.

    Given the number of fake hate crime hoaxes and especially fake noose hoaxes, it’s reasonable to be skeptical of every part of this story. Between my common sense and skepticism and your willingness to believe whatever NASCAR and Bubba tell you, I’m still picking common sense and skepticism.

    Did you notice that Bubba has product placement in his press interviews? I’m guessing he’s charging Coke for that.

    frosty (452103)

  143. “Nothing but simple common sense that tells me that out of 1684 stalls there should be more than 11.”

    So, no evidence.

    Here’s the video from 2019 that showed that the noose had been there for a while. Perhaps you can point out other nooses, or even other tied ropes.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyL4UoX2Nqc&feature=youtu.be

    Davethulhu (472567)

  144. The simple facts seem to be it was a garage door pull rope, the end loop was tied noose-fashion, it was not hanging over his car as stated on CNN and it was there last year, hence BW was not targeted.

    BLM still trying to get mileage out of it is silly. In Scouts’ knot-tying sessions all of us thought the noose was the coolest knot ever. Someone else thought the same, but because of the hysteria of the last few weeks everything is racist (see Emancipation Statue among others) so the media look at it in the worst possible light, rush to judge before the facts are in and blame white supremacists.

    The same failed process that followed the Covington Kids and which was so irresponsible that people in here wanted to punch a teen because of a smile.

    btw – our Scoutmaster kept telling us it’s not called a noose, it’s a ‘non-slip loop knot‘.

    _

    harkin (9c4571)

  145. “BW was not targeted”

    I agree. However, the initial response wasn’t unwarranted, because nooses aren’t typical.

    “BLM still trying to get mileage out of it is silly. ”

    This applies to the other side as well, with the claims that nooses are common or that BW was “another Jussie Smollett”.

    Davethulhu (472567)

  146. Davethulhu (472567) — 6/26/2020 @ 9:40 am

    So, no evidence.

    Here’s the video from 2019 that showed that the noose had been there for a while. Perhaps you can point out other nooses, or even other tied ropes.

    I’ve got just as much as you’ve got for the 11. From what I can tell those numbers aren’t from the FBI, they are from NASCAR. Am I wrong? Do you have any evidence besides your faith in NASCAR press releases to support this 11 number? I’d love to see that information.

    I’ve acknowledged that the noose is odd. On the other hand, you are arguing that in an industry of mechanically inclined people there are over 1600 ropes without even simple knots regularly used as pull ropes in tracks across the country.

    frosty (452103)

  147. “I’ve acknowledged that the noose is odd. On the other hand, you are arguing that in an industry of mechanically inclined people there are over 1600 ropes without even simple knots regularly used as pull ropes in tracks across the country.”

    Did you watch the video?

    Davethulhu (472567)

  148. I think it was some kind of backwoods hex. Witchery. The loop represents the track and the number of turns in the knot represent the position the car will finish in. It’s not enough to take it down. They should bring a priest to do a reading.

    nk (1d9030)

  149. Davethulhu (472567) — 6/26/2020 @ 10:18 am

    This applies to the other side as well, with the claims that nooses are common or that BW was “another Jussie Smollett”.

    Fake hate crimes aren’t silly. These fake hate crimes are used as justification for real crimes. There’s a lot of lying going on by people trying to establish pervasive and systemic racism. Calling this out for what it is is the preferred option over enabling it.

    frosty (23e3fc)

  150. “Fake hate crimes aren’t silly.”

    This was not a fake hate crime. The parties involved (Bubba, NASCAR) acted reasonably. Uninvolved people on both sides are fanning the flames.

    Davethulhu (472567)

  151. 136. Davethulhu (472567) — 6/26/2020 @ 10:52 am

    This was not a fake hate crime. The parties involved (Bubba, NASCAR) acted reasonably. Uninvolved people on both sides are fanning the flames.

    TGhere really was something that looked like anoose at the bottom of the rope used to close the door. Only 11 of the 184 or so doors had the rope tied at the end and this was the only one tied in the form of a noose.

    But this had been tied that way at least as far back as last October, and nobody noticed till Bubba was assigned that door.

    Now the whole idea that a noose is a white supremacist symbol or a racist threat is an urban legend. Actually I would day it is a deliberate hoax. The KKK used crosses, not nooses. It’s no more real than a horses’s head is for the Mafia.

    Sammy Finkelman (3102d6)

  152. @23. It’s a conservative/liberal conflict, not a Ds vs., Rs issue; conservtive Ds and liberal Rs do–or did- exist.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  153. 150. harkin (9c4571) — 6/26/2020 @ 10:11 am

    The simple facts seem to be it was a garage door pull rope, the end loop was tied noose-fashion, it was not hanging over his car as stated on CNN and it was there last year, hence BW was not targeted.

    Well, it could be that he wasn’t randomly assigned that garage spot. But, if so, probably not by a white supremacist.

    btw – our Scoutmaster kept telling us it’s not called a noose, it’s a ‘non-slip loop knot‘.

    Wasn’t it too close to the floor to be used as a noose? Not even Jeffrey Epstein could use that.

    Sammy Finkelman (3102d6)

  154. Davethulhu (472567) — 6/26/2020 @ 9:08 am

    I am sure that none of the tracks interpreted the email asking for a noose count to mean they better untie all of the pull ropes.

    Maybe most of the ropes were not too long. Maybe in other cases somebody simply cut the rope’s end off.

    But that’s right – somebody could have gotten rid of them before they counted.off. So we need old pictures of every rope.

    Sammy Finkelman (3102d6)

  155. Davethulhu (472567) — 6/26/2020 @ 10:32 am

    Did you watch the video?

    The first few minutes yes. Maybe it’s my screen size but I can’t make out much inside the garages. I noticed somethings that might have been pull ropes but I couldn’t be sure. Is there something specific I’m supposed to see and can you explain that?

    frosty (715336)

  156. “The first few minutes yes. Maybe it’s my screen size but I can’t make out much inside the garages. I noticed somethings that might have been pull ropes but I couldn’t be sure. Is there something specific I’m supposed to see and can you explain that?”

    The video is some guy walking around filming all the cars in the garages. The ropes aren’t the focus, obviously, but you can incidentally see a lot of them. At around 50-54 seconds you can see the noose rope, but you can also see that none of the other visible ropes have loops.

    Davethulhu (472567)

  157. Davethulhu (472567) — 6/26/2020 @ 10:52 am

    The parties involved (Bubba, NASCAR) acted reasonably are milking it for everything it’s worth. Given the current cancel culture, it didn’t take a marketing genius to see they needed to get in front of that when they’ve traditionally been seen as white and southern. NASCAR has been trying for years to “change its image” because it’s got a serious inferiority complex and is tired of being bullied by F1, rally, and pinewood derby. Time will tell if this is a good marketing gamble or get woke go broke.

    frosty (715336)

  158. Davethulhu (472567) — 6/26/2020 @ 12:11 pm

    The video is some guy walking around filming all the cars in the garages. The ropes aren’t the focus, obviously, but you can incidentally see a lot of them. At around 50-54 seconds you can see the noose rope, but you can also see that none of the other visible ropes have loops.

    I couldn’t see that level of detail. I’ll take your word for it.

    frosty (715336)

  159. frosty (715336) — 6/26/2020 @ 12:16 pm

    Given the current cancel culture, it didn’t take a marketing genius to see they needed to get in front of that when they’ve traditionally been seen as white and southern.

    I don’t think this reads how I meant it. With everything that’s happened in the last several weeks, with all of the companies falling all over themselves to pander to BLM, something like this was inevitable with NASCAR.

    An effective element of any corporate communications plan is pre-planning. Especially for crisis communications. It’s hard to effectively respond to a crisis and effectively communicate about if you are doing either one on the fly. Given the money involved in NASCAR, my guess is there is an entire bookshelf dedicated to different responses at NASCAR HQ. They were just waiting for a viable situation. The ‘Listen and Learn’ video of the NASCAR drivers reading the script reminds me of a Vietnam era POW newsreel. They don’t stay with one person long enough to see if they are blinking in morse though.

    frosty (1e87c6)

  160. @120 it means that I don’t think a person should be fired for who they hang out with outside of work unless it would effect their job performance, so it doesn’t matter if the employer approves of their peer group or not. In your stance, it does matter who they hang out with outside of work. This is one of the essentials of cancel culture, if your boss doesn’t like your friends (NRA, NAMBLA, NOW, Pro-life feminists, your motorcycle club, whoever) they should fire you.

    @122 If you phrased it like that, it’s a little confrontational for a job interview.

    @125 Yes, I think my definition is broader than yours.

    Nic (896fdf)

  161. Mr 123 wrote:

    If I owned my own company it would really piss me off if I had to let a NAMBLA member work for me.
    Personally I like guns so if I have a gun nut on the pay roll I’m cool with that.

    I get why firing people for racial / religious reasons isn’’t allowed. But firing a black guy who wants sex with little boys made legal seems reasonable.

    Is it? Obviously, if he advocates such, in public, and it comes back to harm your company, you have a perfectly valid reason.

    But if said black guy simply wants such made legal, but has committed no actual crimes, has caused no in-house hostile work environment, and made no pleas for legalization which can track back against your company, you start to get into murkier ground.

    It doesn’t take much imagination to see where an employee who wants ‘transgender girls’ to be considered real girls for the purposes of sport and bathroom access and the like would also be repugnant and you wouldn’t want him around, but some guy named Gorsuch may just have protected him.

    The Dana in Kentucky (6df47f)

  162. frosty (715336) — 6/26/2020 @ 11:35 am

    Maybe it’s my screen size but I can’t make out much inside the garages.

    A still picture was also shown for a few seconds on some television shows, like, I think, Inside Edition. There might be some video (larger size) on the Internet.

    Sammy Finkelman (3102d6)


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