anti_dan
1mo ago
There was no catching up on that growth after they quit wrestling. The chip on their shoulder manlet former wrestler stereotype exist for a reason. They were tricked by their coaches into peaking at 15, and sacrificed the stature of an adult and the romantic successes that come with it.
While I am sure there are nonzero examples of this happening in wrestling, you have causation backwards, unless you were at one of a few programs I doubt almost anyone else on this board could name for a very specific time scenario, no one would agree with this.
That is because wrestlers are little because its one of the sports where being little is a competitive advantage because of weight classes. And thus kids get more into it when they are sick of being shoved around by 6'4'' 300 lb guys on the football field or basketball court.
Of course, wrestling is also a much higher barrier to entry sport than either of those. The number of elite wrestlers who did not start very young (or at least in a combat sport very young) rounds to zero, OTOH there are many elite NFL/NBA athletes who picked up the game as high school freshman. This further makes it a family sport. Short dads who are concerned their kid is also going to be short encourage them to wrestle as that is a sport they will have a chance of excelling at.
And, yes, in season weight cutting does exist, but all the good programs have been managing it extremely well since the 90s. And anything from before that is just as likely to be related to anabolic steroid and other doping use. The fact is that, once you are a good wrestler, there is nothing better for your career than for you to hit a massive growth spurt and surge into the upper weight classes. They are not nearly as competitive as the middle weights from the 130-165ish range. Get above that in high school and more than half the kids you are facing didn't touch a mat until high school. I used to, as a freshman at 125 lbs, beat our starters from the 160-180 lb range (but couldn't beat most of the 130-150 range). Those guys were just kids on the football team and the football coach also was a wrestling assistant. This pattern remains into college where the heaviest classes are not as skilled, and even weight deficits are oft overcome by skills (see Kyle Dake's career).
anti_dan
1mo ago
Standards were already out of fashion at law schools, and went off a cliff with covid. There is no appetite at the schools to bring them back
anti_dan
1mo ago
But this woman is surely bright enough to realize that this stunt won't actually do anything? Ca cest coullion.
Why is everyone so confident in Skadden's HR? When I was graduating some really talented people did make it into the top biglaw firms, but so did quite a few mediocrities. 2nd/3rd year is right around washout time for those people to go to firm #2 at a bump down where again they washout before taking a federal job where they do nothing for GS-14 salary till the end of time.
anti_dan
1mo ago
While I appreciate the post summarizing the arguments, I think that with a little tweaking it could be a copypasta that we could use whenever Trump is talking about anything. Most of it isn't Canada-specific, and I actually started laughing a little during the Buchanan/McKinley/Putin portion. At that point I thought it was a copypasta and I had been successfully trolled into reading the little list.
anti_dan
1mo ago
There isn't any valuable metric that we can conclusively say has improved under the DOE's tenure.
anti_dan
1mo ago
My God.
I am replying to my own post because as I read the article I continued to find more and more problems. This person has...essentially no grasp on the reality of the situation in criminal law. Are public defenders underfunded? Maybe. When compared to the states attorneys they are up against? Not at all. The SAs have to handle every case in a courtroom, and have the burden of proof. The PD handles about half that (and in the county I worked outnumbered the SA 3 to 1) and has no real job for most of the case. In the event of trial they review the same evidence (with almost no caseload) and only need to prevent the SA from overcoming an incredibly high bar of proof.
Juries and grand juries also make basically no sentencing decisions. Those are made by judges, who are mostly just attorneys who are good at raising money. I dont think that is partisan.
DAs are elected to be hard on crime? Does this guy live in reality? This happens from time to time, but in the most crime ridden jurisdictions the pendulum swings back and forth. Sometimes hard on crime is a winner politically, sometimes soft on crime is. Either way, because this is America, the Defendant wins if he wins at any part of the case.
Mass incarceration started in the 70s? You mean the same time the CRA was kicking in, communities were being destroyed by crime and the prelude to the coke epidemic was manifesting? You dont say.
I suppose the police union part is somewhat fine, but they are far less insidious than teachers unions in my experience. The sex crimes alone are enough to end those. But his argument is flawed by comparing it to NIMBYs. Police have clearly shown that the unions aren't the real problem, it is police haters that made the unions needed (also a good indicator is that it was the 70s when such people started to take power). If cops were able to billy club thieves and then hang them without facing litigation we could field many more for far cheaper. As it stands, they are afraid to arrest a guy who hit a stop sign with a bottle a Jose Cuervo in the back seat because a judge might find the arrest was improper.
Overall, I find this article linked to be incorrect from my personal experience as an attorney in a large major metropolitan area who has worked in criminal law.
anti_dan
1mo ago
What Trump likely hasn't foreseen is the likely response to this. I consider the Incentive Problem at the Heart of the American Justice System one of the most important articles written about America in the last decade. It's worth reading in its entirety; but the tldr is something like this: the tension between spending their own money and other people's money has created the disaster that is modern American policing, sentencing, judging and confinement. States don't want to pay for the operation of their own prisons at the same time they want to spend less on policing, so they'd rather give it up to for-profit prisons or shove it off to federal responsibility while enacting a weird kind of anarcho-tyranny.
I want to talk about one of the first points in this article.
Beccaria argued that punishments should be intended primarily to deter future crimes rather than retaliate for past ones, and further, that three factors influenced the deterrent effect of punishment: its certainty, swiftness, and severity, in that order. Beccaria reasoned that increasing severity of punishment produced sharply diminishing returns on deterrent value, because people will simply become desensitized to severe punishment and have difficulty weighing it rationally when conducting a cost-benefit analysis of their decision to commit crimes.
I know this makes sense and has data backing it with regards to deterrence. But I want to talk about a vastly under-discussed part of incarceration, which is incapacitation.
As a bit of background, I am an attorney who has worked as a prosecutor as well as many other parts of the law over a mid sized career so far.
The argument about punishment is wrong, because the goal isn't just punishment, the goal is no more crimes by that specific individual during that specific time period that he/she is incarcerated. You see this most importantly IMO with people who are serial thieves. They will have an MO. Its either retail theft where they keep going to Macys and stealing something like perfume or $90 shirts, or they go into a grocery store and steal booze. Others have the MO of following Amazon trucks and hoovering up delivery boxes. The point is, often these people will have 3+ pending cases at once, then they take a plea, get a short sentence, then are back out thieving a year later, get 3 more cases, take a plea. Repeat for 30 years.
Prison can solve this problem. First, we can have legislatures eliminate sentences running concurrently for multiple offenses. Commit 3 thefts, get 1 year on each, that is 3 years instead of 1 (under the current system). Thats still a deal for the defendant because they are now facing a max of 18 instead of 6 years (or whatever the math is for your specific state). Second, bring back strikes laws. You do some time, next time you do more, third time there is release even if it is just nonviolent theft. These crimes do significantly impede the law and order of communities.
side note, this sort of pattern, while common with theft, is not only relating to theft. I have seen rap sheets where people have committed 5+ burglaries, went in for a year, then committed 3 more plus a kicker charge for drugs/guns and still got out in time to be back in court a year after that second sentencing. In fact, it even happens with violent crime. I recall one case where a person's rap sheet had over 5 armed robbery convictions on it within 5 years of being back in court on another armed robbery. This sort of sentencing structure defies anything resembling sanity.
So, my conclusion is that we probably need more policing as everyone generally suggests. Boots on the ground both deterring and investigating crime. BUT we also need people to just not being allowed back into society. At this point, mere incarceration is not enough. We also need to expedite the death penalty not just for murder and sex crimes, but for all common law crimes wherein the defendant has a previous felony common law conviction. This is a cost saving measure. The whole anti-death penalty bar needs to be put in a corner. There shouldn't even be sentencing hearings at some point. Just ask 12 people did this person commit this crime. If yes, 100 days later the defendant gets to walk the plank. Literally. We should also bring back public hangings to assuage the deterrence-inclined folks.
anti_dan
1mo ago
Since when has the FBI, or any intelligence agency, been able to contain anti-Trump leaks? They are so bad at infosec WRT Trump that they leak fake stories about him, invent their own fake stories about him, etc.
anti_dan
1mo ago
This seems pretty damning.
It seems damning if you accept the paragraph you laid out as true, which it is not. There is fairly on point historical precedent in the case of Schlesinger v. Holtzman. In that case, no less than a Supreme Court justice ordered the executive branch to stop bombing Cambodia. They proceeded to continue to bomb Cambodia through all of the court proceedings until his absurd order was vacated, as this order will eventually be if it continues to be pressed, because like the Holtzman order, it is comically illegal for the judge to attempt to do what he did.
Once again a familiar pattern is emerging in this Trump administration, just as in the first: Many norms are being broken, but almost never by Trump, it is almost always the response to what Trump is doing that is unprecedented. Attempting to exert control over international relations at 8 PM on a Saturday from a DC court is, again, another norm-breaking act by Trump's opposition.
anti_dan
1mo ago
Because all of that is expensive. Expensive in your own time because you have to go to the store every day instead of once a week; expensive because the shops can't be megastores on relatively cheap land, and instead have to be studio apartments that sell bread or parsnips; expensive because the stores have to get their food delivered somehow, and if there is no road, that has to be done with some alternative, slower, more expensive implement than a truck.
anti_dan
1mo ago
The opinion, when read in full, makes it clear that the SCOTUS composition at the time was not believing this tale.
There was also lots of evidence that there was intentional racial discrimination baked into the results.
There was no reason SCOTUS had to make a ruling about disparate impact when one objectively evaluates the case. They wanted to make that ruling. Which makes sense, because that court was one of the the most overreaching courts in US history, and they also happened to be extremely left wing.
anti_dan
1mo ago
They said that the company said they weren't . They clearly did not believe them. Said court was that eras equivalent of Sonia Sotomayor, but 6 of them.
anti_dan
1mo ago
Griggs is a case where the defendant company was just using the tests to cover up intentional discrimination, which is one of many reasons that it is bad law. The trope of bad cases = bad law is common, and that is one. The more important part is that it substantively was written into the CRA in the early 90s as well, which makes overturning a sub-holding from a really dumb case only one obstacle.
I do agree that its not common in private practice, and wouldn't quickly become so to administer tests to applicants. That is too expensive. Instead, industries and unions would step in and have industry wide tests and/or union entrance exams. This diffuses the costs significantly so you aren't administering 100 tests to fill 3 positions. Instead, an aspiring machinist takes the Wunderlich, or something similar and then every possible employer in the country can see his machinist potential.
anti_dan
1mo ago
Here is why I think Nate is wrong:
The difference this time, I’d argue, is that a shutdown would have put Trump and Musk in a highly awkward position. They’ve been arguing that all these governmental services are wasteful and unnecessary. Then there’s a shutdown, and notable voter-facing operations like National Parks and air travel are affected. People get really mad.
Actually, that is what happens when Republicans try to shut down the government when a Democrat is President and his cronies are running all of the departments. This, combined with the mainstream corporate media being overwhelmingly Democrat-aligned means this generates a very effective public pressure campaign that gets all but the most rock ribbed Republicans to soil themselves and cave.
Given that Musk has already been going around chopping off bits of the government without affecting anyone not employed directly by those programs, we have a proof of concept that a Republican-run shutdown could easily be ignored for months by the general public. THAT is a disaster for Democrats. If Trump were a Rand Paul level deficit hawk (which Silver correctly notes he is not) he would have intentionally played this chicken game HARD, and probably won decisively. As it is, he got a minor win without taking much risk.
anti_dan
1mo ago
You are telling on yourself. Twitter isn't maga, Twitter is the lack of left wing censorship
anti_dan
1mo ago
If you are certifying Ibrim Kendi there is no bar to clear. He's literally just a random guy who wrote a bunch of unsupported nonsense that supports left wing politics.
anti_dan
1mo ago
I find this post to be generating a sentiment I generally agree with, and I also would point to there being a very important sub-portion of government that the split between liberals and conservatives seem to be fracturing around: Education.
If you are a conservative and went to public schools, you generally think a minority of your teachers were good and fair. If you are a progressive, the opposite is generally true. From 1st -12th grade I had 2 teachers total I would put in the category of good and fair. The vast majority were either unfair or bad, and a solid 70%+ were both.
This is all while I am a solid A student for all these years. I did not think these teachers were bad or unfair because they gave me bad grades, they were bad and unfair based on my other judgements. Usually how they treated other students, or how they expected ridiculous things from me like constantly pairing me in group projects with dumb/violent kids. Progressive kids I think generally like teachers. I think a lot of that is that they got good grades. Whence we are seeing the large M/F gap in both college attendance and partisanship. Girls keep getting good grades that are unearned in K-12, boys consistently over-perform on standardized tests now. Girls are getting more progressive, boys less so. Boys are seeing this unfairness more and more. On both ends. The 4.0 boy and the 2.0 boy are both being massively discriminated against in the most public facing institution in our government, the schools. And that is being reflected in poll results.
anti_dan
1mo ago
This is insulting to What is a Woman. The depiction of trans advocates in that movie is entirely honest and without hyperbole.
anti_dan
1mo ago
If you are only seeing white identity politics, then that is what you are looking for.
The right wing personalities worth following are rarely universal, because most people aren't infinite polyglots. And most issues aren't appropriate for all styles of people. Matt Walsh is basically a comedian. He is best followed when discussing DEI and Transgender issues, because the appropriate level of seriousness the left wing positions on those topics deserve is mockery and scorn. Matt Walsh barely talks about climate change (except to mock someone like Greta Thunburg) because its not an appropriate issue for his style, and he luckily knows it.
Someone like Bjorn Lundberg is more appropriate for talking about climate change because, while the left wing talking points around the issue are also absurd, it is a serious issue where much more nuance is actually appropriate. If you are looking for a one size fits all solution to understanding the right, you probably will not find one that satisfies you. But if you think there is one on the left I would like to know who you think that is. I would expect I would find several positions that quickly fall apart. I mean, just look at the pathetic performance of Sam Seder on that "stacked" show (I think that is the name) that is now going viral.
anti_dan
1mo ago
There are few, but they exist. But there are also few on the left (none really that I can recall). You have Douglas Murray, Charles Murray (coincidence?), Victor Davis Hanson, and Niall Ferguson who all talk about modern issues from mostly right of center perspectives.
Then there are also some of the more pragmatic (some will be controversial and/or considered evil by many here I think) ones like John Yoo who is a very good SCOTUS prognosticator and pontificates on legal issues from a right of center perspective, in that vein we also have Steven Miller on immigration, Molly Hemingway on media corruption, Bjorn Lomborg on climate change, and some others.
Who on the left could get invited plausibly to a DNC event that talks about any major issue of the day honestly and frankly? It is hard to say. Which, again, is why it is hard for me to take Hanania and others talking about this sort of topic seriously. If "intellectual" is just code for "politely repeats left wing propaganda" then it has no real persuasive power to me.
anti_dan
1mo ago
When you add stuff to your platform that didn't used to be there, some of the people who liked the old platform will decide they don't like the new platform and depart.
Not being a Hanania follower, I don't really know what you are referring to here.
All the criticisms I've seen of him recently is of him staking out what I consider to be incoherent positions and/or fearmongering about right wing developments that would take 20 years of progression to get us to sanity, minimum, then another 20 years of continuing to get us to the "other end of the pendulum" wherein the right was as powerful and crazy as the left was in 2022 on whatever point he is droning on about. In other words, when I see him being talked about now, he generally just seems wrong and/or stupid.
anti_dan
1mo ago
Reversed stupidity is still not intelligence.
True, but entirely over-applied by centrists nowadays when talking about the right's or right-aligned responses. In fact, I most often see it deployed as a statement when a centrist is commenting on one of the issues the left is not able to articulate a right wing argument on, and because most centrists live in left wing media environments, they too cannot articulate the RW theory of the issue.
anti_dan
1mo ago
Its not just about making the outgroup angry, it is why they are angry. That reason is that they are losing money that they were deploying both as sinecures for party loyalists, and also money for straight up political activity. Every program will have its charismatic sob stories, but between USAID the Department of Education, and others, a lot of left wing money has the potential to simply dry up. I've commented a few times now, with little engagement on this point, but aren't a lot of honest left-of-center people REALLY embarrassed about how huge portions of the movement are being revealed as government funded astroturf? With that plus the ACTBlue fraud, is there any actual grassroots to the movement at all? What is the response to this? "Yes the left should be funded by the government?" That would be honest for the people angry about various cuts to say, but can they bring themselves to be honest on this point?
But the homosexual community is still struggling with the issue: Turns out they can't ignore those people and instead seem compelled to eradicate them from all public fora. And I think trans advocates are cut of this same cloth. Dissent and debate are lethal to these movements, seemingly, in very similar ways for very similar reasons. Some feelings are good for governing behaviors. Things like the feeling that touching a stovetop hurts is a very good way to avoid severe damage to your limbs. However, these more complex feelings are much more of a crapshoot. Love is notoriously ephemeral. Sexual attraction is less so, but letting attraction have a strong influence on your sexual acts is still a recipe for disaster.
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