US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3099

On February 24 2021 10:33 JimmiC wrote:

Trying to make a bad joke about you writing "ballet" (the dance) instead of ballot. I thought it was a funny typo.

On February 24 2021 11:35 LegalLord wrote:
I'd certainly vote to recall Newsom if I lived in California. His government's handling of the past year has been nothing short of abysmal.

Looks like the ballot would pit him against a Republican opponent for governor, though, which means his chance of actually being removed is essentially nil. Oh well, maybe he can be primaried next time around.

On February 24 2021 12:34 LegalLord wrote:

Looking into it a little more, it's not quite true. Looks more like an open election with some potential for a runoff.

It very much looks like it'd be awkward to run as a Democrat supporting replacing Newsom though, since "recall yes/no" and "who takes his place" seems to be the same ballot.

“Let’s play strip poker.”

I should have been shocked by the Governor’s crude comment, but I wasn’t.

We were flying home from an October 2017 event in Western New York on his taxpayer-funded jet. He was seated facing me, so close our knees almost touched. His press aide was to my right and a state trooper behind us.
[...]
Governor Andrew Cuomo has created a culture within his administration where sexual harassment and bullying is so pervasive that it is not only condoned but expected. His inappropriate behavior toward women was an affirmation that he liked you, that you must be doing something right. He used intimidation to silence his critics. And if you dared to speak up, you would face consequences.

That’s why I panicked on the morning of December 13.

While enjoying a weekend with my husband and six-year-old daughter, I spontaneously decided to share a small part of the truth I had hidden for so long in shame and never planned to disclose. The night before, a former Cuomo staffer confided to me that she, too, had been the subject of the Governor’s workplace harassment. Her story mirrored my own. Seeing his name floated as a potential candidate for U.S. Attorney General — the highest law enforcement official in the land — set me off.

In a few tweets, I told the world what a few close friends, family members and my therapist had known for years: Andrew Cuomo abused his power as Governor to sexually harass me, just as he had done with so many other women.
[...]
I tried to excuse his behavior. I told myself “it’s only words.” But that changed after a one-on-one briefing with the Governor to update him on economic and infrastructure projects. We were in his New York City office on Third Avenue. As I got up to leave and walk toward an open door, he stepped in front of me and kissed me on the lips. I was in shock, but I kept walking.

I left past the desk of Stephanie Benton. I was scared she had seen the kiss. The idea that someone might think I held my high-ranking position because of the Governor’s “crush” on me was more demeaning than the kiss itself.

After that, my fears worsened. I came to work nauseous every day. My relationship with his senior team — mostly women — grew hostile after I started speaking up for myself. I was reprimanded and told to get in line by his top aides, but I could no longer ignore it.
[...]
It was all so normalized — particularly by Melissa DeRosa and other top women around him — that only now do I realize how insidious his abuse was.

After my tweets about the Governor in December, two women reached out to me with their own experiences. One described how she lived in constant fear, scared of what would happen to her if she rejected the Governor’s advances. The other said she was instructed by the Governor to warn staff members who upset him that their jobs could be at risk. Both told me they are too afraid to speak out.

I know some will brush off my experience as trivial. We are accustomed to powerful men behaving badly when no one is watching. But what does it say about us when everyone is watching and no one says a thing?

Telling my truth isn’t about seeking revenge. I was proud to work in the Cuomo Administration. For so long I had looked up to the Governor. But his abusive behavior needs to stop.

I am speaking up because I have the privilege to do so when many others do not. No one should have to be defined or destroyed by this kind of sexual harassment. Nor should they be revictimized if they decide to speak their own truth.

On February 25 2021 04:08 farvacola wrote:

I saw a really good documentary on the Watts riots that went into this in detail, I'll see if I can dig it up. The long and short of it is that a lot of these cross-minority antagonisms are the natural result of competition for resources and living space, competition made all the more fierce by racist policies like redlining and the myths of the welfare queen and parasitic immigrant.

On February 25 2021 03:45 Mohdoo wrote:
I'm not sure what the right way to ask this is, so I'll just be blunt: Where does the black racism towards asians come from? Not asking what "justifies" it, since of course nothing does, similar to black-->hispanic and hispanic-->black racism, but I at least comprehend the general gist of what each race is mad about and what they blame the other race for. But I honestly don't see where asians fit into it. Again, I am not asking what justifies it, more so asking "what impressions do some people have which in their eyes justify hatred?"

One thing that is more than a little disappointing is how little information seems to be out there. It feels like this entire trend of hate crime is being...not covered up, but intentionally not addressed. I think very few news outlets want to take the risk of saying "hey so some black people are being racist" because of the immediate "how dare you".

On February 25 2021 06:17 cLutZ wrote:


Blacks have very high ingroup preference. Because we live in the United States this can seem anomalous (since Americans, and specifically white Americans have relatively low ingroup preference compared internationally), but it is not. As such, it creates racial resentment regardless of whatever poverty/prosperity/etc there is. In the case of Asians they are to blacks somewhat like what Jews have historically been in Europe: High achieving, thus making the other group feel they have been cheated somehow by some sort of conspiracy or the like.

On February 25 2021 06:37 GreenHorizons wrote:

Is this something put forth by sociologists/theoreticians or something you are postulating?

On February 25 2021 06:17 cLutZ wrote:


Blacks have very high ingroup preference. Because we live in the United States this can seem anomalous (since Americans, and specifically white Americans have relatively low ingroup preference compared internationally), but it is not. As such, it creates racial resentment regardless of whatever poverty/prosperity/etc there is. In the case of Asians they are to blacks somewhat like what Jews have historically been in Europe: High achieving, thus making the other group feel they have been cheated somehow by some sort of conspiracy or the like.

On February 25 2021 07:13 cLutZ wrote:



The ingroup bias is a sociologically known thing. The rest is speculation based on the known thing.

Among tens of thousands of people who completed the Black-White IAT, approximately 80% of White participants showed evidence of pro-White bias, whereas only 40% of Black respondents showed evidence of pro-Black bias (Nosek et al., 2002).

Asians they are to blacks somewhat like what Jews have historically been in Europe: High achieving, thus making the other group feel they have been cheated somehow by some sort of conspiracy or the like.

On February 25 2021 07:54 Mohdoo wrote:


FWIW, I think Hispanics have extremely high ingroup preference as well. Its possibly slightly less than blacks, but not by a lot. Lots of pressure in Hispanic families to merry Hispanic. My family loves my wife but I know they all wish she was Hispanic. The fact that she tries to learn Spanish helps her a lot, but I know it would be ideal if she was Hispanic.