ymeskhout
2mo ago
@Dean and I have gone round and round on this issue for literally years where he continues to insist that I am ignoring blockbuster evidence, but then simultaneously he'll write very long posts articulating why he's justified in refusing to mention this blockbuster evidence I'm ignoring. A sample of responses to my (many many many) requests:
- "I'm not particularly interested in trying to feed you sources to be judged by you on your standards on credibility to consistency standards you impose that helpfully weed out things other people might care about and could even be true."
- "I am uninterested in providing you sources on other people's positions given your conduct on this topic."
- "Can I? Sure. Will I? A waste of time when you are involved, given your pattern of conduct which has been noted repeatedly over the years even if you have also repeatedly denied the feedback."
Dean is intelligent, knowledgeable, and articulate on a wide array of topics (particularly in the realm of geopolitics). The only topic I'm aware where he has maintained this years-long stonewalling vow is on the 2020 election, and the only explanation that makes sense to me is that he's concerned that I'd eviscerate his supposed blockbuster evidence. I admit the weakness in this explanation is that I don't understand how someone who is otherwise intelligent could compartmentalize to this degree without self-awareness.
ymeskhout
3mo ago
If I'm making an argument about TTV, it would be nice if the responses are about TTV so I don't see what's irrelevant about that. I can't control what people say but my interest here is wanting to avoid time-wasting Gish gallops and motte-and-bailey diversions, because an unfortunately common rhetorical trick used by some when they encounter arguments inconvenient to their position is to try and change the subject.
You're welcome to suggest an alternative disclaimer wording, and you're also welcome to challenge my premise for why I even included a disclaimer.
ymeskhout
2mo ago
What do you believe are my motte and bailey positions on this topic?
could you defend the election stolen viewpoint?
It all depends on what viewpoint we're talking about, which is why I keep asking for specifics. I already believe that some fraud happens in every election but not enough to make a difference, so I can defend that viewpoint against whoever out there happens to believe that electoral fraud does not exist. The overall problem with this topic is the inverse correlation between how defensible vs how consequential an allegation is, which is why there's a see-saw oscillation between "millions of fake ballots were cast for Biden" and "one guy in Nevada filled out his dead wife's ballot".
ymeskhout
2mo ago
but with him everything turns into a trial where you have to prove everything beyond reasonable doubt.
Patently false. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having confidence qualifiers to any of one's beliefs, I myself do this when I express a conclusion I'm unsure about. It's perfectly fine/commendable for someone to acknowledge that they lack ironclad evidence for their belief. The problem is making confident assertions without the ability to back them up.
This is the place for folks to "test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases" after all. We could all save a lot of time if people were more transparent about their foundations.
ymeskhout
2mo ago
I agree this is a concern though we might disagree on how widespread it is comparatively speaking. The best guard against this phenomenon is for the sane actors to disavow the retarded versions of their arguments. I'm someone who has long supported BLM's policy positions (at least the Campaign Zero ones released in 2016) and I'm not shy about acknowledging the retards who are nominally on my camp, or otherwise acknowledging reality and facts adverse to my positions.
ymeskhout
2mo ago
The blog post is dated Nov 5, 2020 and it was just a copy of one of my motte reddit post. I don't recall the issue with the Philadelphia observers being kept behind barriers, but either way that's not the claim the Trump lawyers went with in court. I also don't recall what exchange you're referring to, I was able to dig up this conversation where I tried to ascertain the worst-case scenario from the Georgia water main incident, but that doesn't seem to be what you have in mind.
It's a good example of what Dean has been complaining about -- you are coming off as a dishonest interlocutor here to anyone who followed events at the time and maybe went to the trouble of digging up links for you.
I take allegations of dishonesty very seriously! That's why I keep offering my full motte archives for others to scrutinize. If I'm ever being dishonest or whatever (as Dean constantly insists I am) then it should be effortless to demonstrate this. You're citing an exchange that you claim to be a good example of my dishonesty, but it's based off your memory. If you're remembering correctly, then I will acknowledge error and issue a public apology. But if you're misremembering, I would appreciate an apology from you.
ymeskhout
2mo ago
Because in that case, they think those are the guilty parties?
If they think the election authorities are in on it, why would they bother filing a complaint with them only to retract it when the authorities asked for evidence? And if they had evidence, why would they ask their lawyer to lie in court and say they didn't have evidence? I posit it's because they're lying.
ymeskhout
2mo ago
I admit I don't understand your meaning of weakman. I tried to sketch out how to define the term a while ago and Julian Sanchez's description seems the most fitting:
With a “weak man,” you don’t actually fabricate a position, but rather pick the weakest of the arguments actually offered up by people on the other side and treat it as the best or only one they have.
I don't see how weakman would fit for TTV unless I'm using them to somehow make a claim about all stolen election allegations. I'm not doing that and I already said that would be an invalid argument.
ymeskhout
3mo ago
Truth the Vote is the group that provided the data and the allegations outlined in the Dinesh D'Souza 2000 Mules documentary, which is by virtually any measure the most popular and talked about expose into stolen election claims. The film was watched by millions of people and received widespread media coverage and promotion within conservative media, and also was extensively endorsed by Trump (for what it's worth) and continued to be regularly cited by politicians and other stolen election believers. This wasn't just some obscure fringe group.
ymeskhout
3mo ago
These guys seem to exaggerate fudge provable fraud.
Why do you think TTV has been so resistant with offering evidence? I think it's because they were lying about having any and that their primary interest was grifting rather than actually uncovering fraud. Is there any part that you disagree with?
Edit: Merrick Garland timeline, and MAGA grandma below
I really appreciate the specifics in your response! I'll go point by point first, from the standpoint of how unusually Ray Epps was treated:
Factor 1: Epps encouraged others to enter the Capitol
It's true that Epps 1) repeatedly encouraged others to go into the Capitol "peacefully" (whatever that means) and 2) did not enter the Capitol himself. Moreover, he's captured on video trying to calm protestors down. I agree #1 is a negative factor for sentencing, but would you agree that #2 is a positive factor for sentencing? I don't know if the two factors exactly cancel each other out but it's fairly routine for the legal system to have drastically lowered penalties for criminals who change their mind at the last minute.
Besides that, both Alex Jones (though he did say "We are peaceful" and "we need to not have the confrontation with the police") and Nick Fuentes ("Keep moving towards the Capitol! It appears we are taking the Capitol!") encouraged others to march towards the Capitol but did not enter themselves, and unlike Epps neither of them were charged with any crimes.
Because far more prominent individuals who encouraged others to go to the Capitol and were not even charged, while Epps was charged with misdemeanors, this particular factor does not indicate that Epps was treated unusually. What do you think I'm missing?
Factor 2: FBI's most wanted
It's true that Epps was put on an FBI "Seeking Information" list as Photograph #16. He still shows up on Twitter, but no longer on the official list, but lots of other photos have also been taken down from that list (they're numbered sequentially so if you start at the beginning you'll see it goes 1, 2, 5, 9, 13, etc). I don't understand how this is indicative of unusual treatment if the FBI is removing dozens (hundreds?) of other photos.
Regarding the timing of charges, it's true that Epps wasn't charged until a mere 3 days after Merrick Garland was asked about him. [Edit: I hadn't looked closely when I posted this, but Merrick Garland was asked about Ray Epps by Thomas Massie on 9/20/23 and charges against Ray Epps were actually filed two days prior on 9/18/23. Epps appeared virtually in court on the 20th to plead guilty, which heavily indicates the plea was negotiated a couple of months prior]. The timing could be more than just a coincidence, but in what direction? You could argue that Epps was treated unusually harshly if you compare his conduct to Jones and Fuentes (who have not been charged) but you're arguing the opposite and I don't understand how.
Factor 3: Undercharged relative to others
It's true it's difficult to draw a direct comparison about conduct regarding what the "baseline charge" should be, but you're begging the question by saying Epps was undercharged "relative to other major J6 figures". Regarding his specific conduct (and not the attention he's garnered) why should Epps be considered a major figure to begin with? To conduct any comparison it would be helpful if you can identify an illustrative example of a J6 defendant who acted similarly to Ray Epps but was charged/sentenced much more harshly.
Factor 4: Victim of Conspiracies
This is a recursive argument. The judge at his sentencing said "While many defendants have been vilified in a way unique to Jan. 6, you seem to be the first to have suffered for what you didn't do". I don't deny that's a unique situation, but to establish that Epps was treated uniquely generously you need a baseline to compare against. I don't know the grandma you're referring to [Edit: Found what I think is the grandma, who entered the capitol and got 2 months in jail], so all I have to compare against is the fact that Epps avoided jail just like 37% of other convicted J6 defendants.
Maybe if we had a hypothetical Ray Epps Two who was the subject of similarly intense conspiracy theories but whose sentencing judge did not acknowledge his suffering then you could argue that Ray Epps One was treated unusually generously, but if it's not reflected in sentencing why would that matter?
Factor 5: Epps' suit against Fox News
I don't understand any of this. Why is the suit shameless? How could the DOJ possibly stop Epps from suing Fox News? Even if somehow they charged him with triple-digit felonies, he would still be able to sue (almost a quarter of federal lawsuits are filed by prisoners!). This is a baffling point.
TL;DR
- Other people also encouraged others to go to the Capitol and never even got charged
- Other people were also put on the FBI "Seeking Information" list and later removed
- To argue he was undercharged, you need to provide a comparable example
- I fail to see the relevance of a judge acknowledging Epp's unique status as a victim of conspiracy theories
- DOJ cannot "allow" Epps to sue Fox News
ymeskhout
4mo ago
Epps was charged with a misdemeanor, uniquely leniency for J6 protesters...
Given his uniquely generous outcome...
What is your standard for what counts as uniquely lenient/generous? 40% of all J6 defendants (505 out of 1,265) plead guilty to only misdemeanors. 37% of all convicted J6 defendants (282 out of 749) did not receive any jail time. Of those sentenced to jail time, the median appears to be 45 days.
ymeskhout
9mo ago
Ohio Republicans' Inexplicable & Baffling Abortion Blunder
I support expansive abortion access purely as a matter of practical considerations because of how legal prohibitions encourage horrific black market alternatives. I part ways with the pro-choice crowd when they respond to a difficult morality question with flippant dismissal. So at least from that standpoint, I sympathize with the earnest pro-life crowd because they're helplessly witnessing what is (by their definitions) a massive genocide made worse by the fact that it's legally-sanctioned.
So if you're in that unenviable position, what are your options? The major practical problem is that abortion restrictions have been and continue to be extremely politically unpopular. The Dobbs decision generated a lot of what basically amounted to legislative reshuffling at the state level. Some states had trigger laws banning abortions, that awakened from their long slumber only for courts, legislatures, or voter referendums to strike them back down to sleep.
Ohio's law banning abortions when a fetus heartbeat could be detected (typically occurs within 6-7 weeks of pregnancy) was struck down by a court last year, and so currently abortions there are legal up until "viability" (typically understood to be 22 weeks). On top of that, a referendum was set to be voted on this upcoming November election which would solidly enshrine abortion access within the Ohio state constitution (worth noting that this is the only referendum on the ballot). Given where public opinion is at on this issue, the amendment is virtually guaranteed to be approved by voters. What can you do to stop this train?
Ohio Republicans responded in a very bizarre and inexplicable manner (part of a pattern it seems). Apparently aware that the November referendum was going to be a shoe-in, they organized a whole special election in August as a preemptive maneuver to increase various thresholds for constitutional amendments, including raising the passing percentage from 50% to a 60% supermajority. That measure failed in the special election held yesterday, with 57% of voters against it.
Where to start? First, asking voters to vote against themselves was always going to be a challenge, and Elizabeth Nolan Brown notes the rhetoric supporters of Issue 1 had to resort to:
One talking point has been that it protects the Ohio Constitution from out-of-state interests. (For instance: "At its core, it's about keeping out-of-state special interest groups from buying their way into our constitution," Protect Women Ohio Press Secretary Amy Natoce told Fox News.) Another has been that it signals trust in elected officials to safeguard citizen interests, rather than letting a random majority of voters decide what's best. (The current simple-majority rule for amending the state constitution "sends the message that if you don't like what the legislature is doing, you can just put it on the ballot, and soon the constitution will be thousands of pages long and be completely meaningless," Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, told Politico in a prime example of this tack.)
Some of the TV ads the supporters ran were so incoherent. I don't know how representative this particular example is but the 30-second spot avoids saying anything at all about abortion and instead argues that voting yes on Issue 1 would somehow...protect kids from trans drag queens in schools? The fuck? I guess they knew that "vote yes on Issue 1 to keep abortion restricted" wasn't going to be a winning message so this tangent was the only option.
Even if somehow Issue 1 had anything to do with gender identity indoctrination in schools or whatever (if anyone can explain this please do!) it bears repeating that the only referendum on the ballot in November was about enshrining abortion access. Voters are dumb but they're not that dumb.
Just this last January Ohio Republicans passed HB 458 which eliminated almost all August special elections, but then they insisted on passing another law walking that back specifically to make sure Issue 1 got its very own election. The gambit apparently was to help its chances by leveraging low voter turnout in special elections. This too is baffling, because the timing gimmick very likely energized the "Democrats' highly educated neurotic base" as my boy Yglesias so eloquently put it. Also, the type of voter that is willing to show up to a special election is not going to be the type that is inclined to wrest control away!
None of these decisions made any sense. By investing into a preemptive referendum to raise the threshold, they loudly advertised they knew their issue was going to lose in November. By carving out an exception for an August election, they demonstrated they knew they couldn't win unless they act like a Turkish ice cream man with voters. By conspicuously avoiding talking about abortion, they're acknowledging their policy position's unpopularity.
I'm again acknowledging that the pro-life crowd faces an unenviable challenge in advocating for their position, and clearly their attempts at persuasion over the last several decades have not been panning out. But who actually thought the blatant gimmickry described above was actually going to work? All it did was showcase how weak they must be if the only tool in their arsenal was comically inept subterfuge.
ymeskhout
2mo ago
That's fine if that's the version of 'stolen' you want to argue, the word is ambiguous enough. I was primarily interested to hear from people who have stridently accused me of weakmanning the overall genre and hoping to hear from them about what they believe are the strongest claims I've allegedly ignored or unfairly dismissed.
ymeskhout
2mo ago
This is a coherent and testable theory and I appreciate you raising it. If anyone wants to either build on this or argue that it's the strongest 2020 stolen election claim, I'm happy to talk to them.
ymeskhout
3mo ago
Oh wow, yeah that's my bad. I did not know details about this incident and just repeated what Newsmax/AP said in their article. I looked up the court of appeals decision that reversed the contempt finding and it describes an absurdly vindictive district court judge. The judge granted a preliminary injunction which is based on emergency arguments, but the judge included a requirement to disclose the identity of individuals involved and then almost immediately spun up contempt proceedings before anyone could get their bearings. Contempt findings are fairly rare, contempt jailings are extremely rare, and this is one of the most bonkers contempt jailings I've ever heard of.
I agree with you completely that this incident is too weird to tells us much of anything about TTV and their honesty. I edited my post above to reflect that.
ymeskhout
3mo ago
I haven't looked into this in a very long time so I don't know if and what part of the FBI's conduct was illegal. The "illegally spy on an opposition candidate" part was too ambiguous for me to parse, compared to "several members of Trump's campaign were surveilled". Everyone is entitled to editorialize, although I would caution about using verbiage that leaves a misleading impression because the involvement between Trump associates and Russia that kickstarted the surveillance is very well-documented and resulted in multiple convictions and didn't come from nowhere. You're of course still absolutely and completely free to argue it was politically-motivated persecution.
ymeskhout
3mo ago
As expected, you bring the scalpel that I look forward to these discussions. I want to first clear up distinct questions that seem to get conflated:
- Was Ray Epps an informant or otherwise working for the government?
- Was Ray Epps treated with unusual leniency compared to other J6 defendants?
- Are J6 defendants treated with unusual harshness compared to other defendants?
My post focused exclusively on #2, I didn't touch any of the rest. I did not find the informant allegation interesting enough to investigate further because even if it's true, so what? My suspicion is the reason Ray Epps received so much attention was as a bid to find a scapegoat for the violence and chaos that day. That theory is too incoherent to evaluate properly because it requires simultaneously assuming 1) J6 protestors had no plans to engage in violence and 2) J6 protestors could be prodded to commit violence (See previously Overkill Conspiracy Hypothesis).
Accordingly there is motivation to seek out any indication that Ray Epps was indeed a fed, and absent a damning confession, the only evidence likely available is circumstantial. That's why so much focus was on the fact that Epps was never charged with a crime, but then when he was charged the focus shifted on the lack of severity. The underlying assumption is that government informants do not get punished (or at least just enough to keep up appearances) which isn't unreasonable, but as you point out that's not necessarily true. There's nothing wrong with relying on circumstantial evidence (I did the same when I investigated the street pharmacist after all) but the problem here is when two premises start a circular reasoning chain reaction: Epps was treated leniently because he was a fed, and we know he's a fed because he was treated leniently.
You put in way more work than I did in dutifully comparing the relevant charges Epps and other J6 defendants faced. You're absolutely right that finding a proper contrast is fraught with confounding variables and near-impossible to do satisfactorily, and I don't claim to have a definitive answer. I started with the big picture and zoomed in by just examining whether I would have been able to pick Epps' case out of a pile, and nothing about him stood out. If someone wants to make the affirmative assertion that Epps was treated with unusual leniency, hopefully they have some evidence to demonstrate that rather than just wishing it was true.
ymeskhout
3mo ago
Well there's two questions here and it's important not to confuse them:
- How much did Ray Epps get away with what he did?
- How much did Ray Epps get away with what he did because he was a victim of a conspiracy theory?
I've laid out my reasons for why Ray Epps does not appear to have been treated unusually when comparing his charges/sentences to other comparable J6 defendants. In terms of how much him being the victim of a conspiracy theory affected the outcome, it's hard to say because his ultimate sentence was well within the ballpark compared to other defendants. I do think it's plausible just based on the fact that this is indeed a factor in other cases, but his sentence was expected to be low anyways. You can read Epps' sentencing memo filed by his attorney for further details on how his life had been affected.
This is why a comparison to Epstein/Maxwell wouldn't make sense. The "suffered enough already" factor might sway judges/prosecutors at the margins, particularly for petty or questionable offenses, but I can't imagine a scenario where it would justify leniency for someone accused of running an underage sex trafficking ring.
ymeskhout
6mo ago
You know the answer and it's none.
I don't know if people realize how much they're aping Ibram X. Kendi with this kind of argument. Kendi's core thesis is that racial differences of any kind are ipso facto evidence of racism. Why are there more black people in prison? Obviously the only explanation is racism. Hopefully you have the awareness to see the fallacy when it's presented in this manner, as the obvious retort to this explanation is to examine whether there's more black people in prison because they commit more crimes. Similarly, the fact that Trump is the first and only former US President to face any prosecution doesn't tell us the full story. We also have to examine whether he's facing more prosecutions because he happens to commit more crimes. You can't examine the world with selective blindfolds and expect to arrive at the truth.
ymeskhout
11mo ago
That was one theory but I'm open to others, hence the question. Just because I don't mention other explanations doesn't mean I've already dismissed them as possibilities.
Why would I dismiss something as mere "vibes" if I've already brought it up to explain why the overall theory is extremely implausible? I've specifically outlined that the number of people you'd have to pay off for this conspiracy to work is implausibly high. You have a history of making up positions I do not hold and then criticizing me for holding the positions you just made up, why?
ymeskhout
2mo ago
I brought up the Defund the Police example because it illustrates the problem really well. If we're talking about the issue, it's helpful to know if someone means "literally abolish the police" or "reduce the police budget slightly by recategorizing 911 dispatchers as non-police". It would be annoying to have someone argue the 911 dispatcher accounting trick only to then turn around with "and therefore that's why we need to abolish the police" when the coast is clear.
ymeskhout
2mo ago
This is a refreshingly honest response that is coherent. Assuming it's true, I would wonder what exactly were the lower classes supposed to do. And how effective would creating false-but-exciting documentaries be in the long run if it ends up poisoning the well when it's exposed as a fraud?
I agree that election officials have a responsibility to affirmatively defend the integrity of the elections they manage. The problem is that some election skeptics are implacable and immune to evidence. They believe the only legitimate outcome is when their preferred candidate wins, and so they see a loss as presumptive evidence of fraud and they'll work backwards and credulously repeat whatever theory happens to be convenient to their narrative. It's a big problem but I don't know how you're supposed to reason with delusional people.
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