Author: Spocko

I’m stressed out waiting for the nuclear tweet

by Spocko

Are you stressed out? I know I am. I’m sitting here, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Tomorrow might bring news of indictments from Mueller. That should be good news, but will it be the announcement that leads to horrible news–Trump’s nuclear tweet?

We know now how Trump responds to bad news. It reminds me of stories from people with rageaholic parents. They needed to walk on tiptoes so they won’t set off dad. They changed their behavior, because they have no control over the parent’s.

What should you do if you know something is coming that will trigger a dangerous, irrational act in someone? If you are a child there isn’t much you can do, you’re usually powerless. But what if you are part of a group of adults whose duty is to check the misuse of power?

Psychiatrists often need to make determinations about a patient’s mental state. They ask “Is this person a danger to themselves or others? ” If the answer is yes, the doctors are supposed to act in a way that protects both the patient and the people who might be harmed. It’s their duty.

If you know someone is going to lash out with a massive lethal response, shouldn’t you prepare for it? What should you be doing now? For example, should you take steps to remove their easy access to weapons?

General Jack Keane, sits on General Dynamics Board of Directors

According to General Jack Keane last Thursday, Trump is “dead serious about the potential use of a military option.”

BTW, Fox News doesn’t tell you but my friend Lee Fang did, Keane has been on board of directors since of General Dynamics since 2004 and, according to the company’s most recent proxy statement, received $257,884 in compensation (including “stock awards”) in 2016. Keane is also a special adviser to Academi, the contractor formerly known as Blackwater. It was founded by Betsy Devos brother, Erik Prince.

We know cornered or wounded animals are dangerous, especially to the people in their vicinity. But their violent response is local. Humans who are cornered or wounded can also be dangerous and their response can cause destruction over great distances because of the tools we have created.

Trump is dead serious about military action in North Korea

In time travel movies the idea is that if you can travel to the past and make a change, it can change the future.  But you don’t have to be a time traveler to predict how some people will act, just a good observer.

Right now the President is a danger to others. We don’t follow the precautionary principle here in the US. We allow the tragic incident(s) to happen and then say, “Nobody could have predicted.”

I’ve correctly predicted how certain politicians will respond and I patted myself on the back. But my friend Cliff Schecter said it’s actually pretty easy to predict the future, it just doesn’t get you anything, unless you use that insight to change the outcome.

Yet people HAVE predicted how Trump will react. Now they are just trying to control the timing of his reaction. The GOP is rushing the tax bill through hoping it will pass and get signed before Trump’s inevitable nuclear tweet.

They have a duty to act, but they haven’t. They want the crisis to happen so they can take advantage of it.  Disaster capitalism is a real thing. Should the people who fail to act, knowing the harm they are causing others, then profit from their failures?

They can if we let them.  The darkest timeline should apply to them too, especially since they brought us to it.

A few thoughts before the next accusation breaks 

by Spocko

I was listening to Howie Klein on the David Feldman show today.

They were talking about the Kentucky legislator Dan Johnson who committed suicide on Wednesday night following accusations he molested a member of his church when she was 17.

I had been following the stories of multiple sexual harassment cases in the Kentucky Legislature for weeks with stories like this:

• Sexual harassment claims against lawmakers were secretly settled out of court.
• Payoffs to the women involved came from private donors. 
• Four of the representatives involved lost chairmanships of committees, but are still state reps. 
• House Speaker Jeff Hoover stepped down but is  still a representative. 

So I knew about the Dan Johnson case, and I also knew that it was much more than a single accusation. There was a seven-month investigation based on more than 100 interviews and more than 1,000 pages of public documents. Read or listen to, “The Pope’s Long Con” the investigative series from the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting and Louisville Public Media.

Rep. Dan “Pope” Johnson singing with the Heart of Fire ‘Gun Choir’ from Guns. Com video.

But unless you read that story you will probably only hear about the most high profile or most recent accusations.

Feldman asked Klein about the case. Howie is never shy about stating his opinions about politicians, including Democrats. Dan Johnson was a gun toting, bible thumping, Republican Kentucky senator, not someone Howie would have a kind word for. I liked his response.

“I believe in due process, I really do. I mean he’s accused, I mean I’m not the judge, I’m not the jury I don’t even know all the facts.”

It’s important to have investigations, due process and accountability for all. Republicans, Democrats, men and women.

The Kentucky political harassment cases in particular interest me because I want to know what happened after the stories about the settled lawsuits came out. Is losing your committee chair the appropriate response?  Who decides?

There are multiple other charges that we know about Johnson that are true.  What would have been the legislative response to them? Lost of chairmanships?

Johnson’s wife is running for his seat. What are her qualifications? We shouldn’t tie the actions of the husband to the wife. But we should ask, what did she know and when did she know it?  Again, this is not a story about a single accusation in a vacuum. They show a pattern.

If there needs to be more investigations to prove it to the public, that should happen.

Epic takedown of RW conspiracy theory of why Jones won

by Spocko

This epic takedown of a conspiracy theory that they bused in voters from Mississippi to vote for Doug Jones is from John Rogers, one of the creators and writers of Leverage, one of my favorite TV shows.

I am hearing rumors that black voters from MS were encouraged to cross over into AL and vote. Anyone else hearing this? Anything to it? That might explain the 30% turnout higher than population percentage. Just reporting the rumor.

— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) December 13, 2017

1/ Okay, you racist hack, apparently I have to do this every time. Like all conspiracy theories, this falls apart as soon as one asks “How?” https://t.co/oksvKlmCVI

— John Rogers (@jonrog1) December 13, 2017

2/ Let’s just go with the most popular right-wing conspiracy, George Soros (because, of course, you blame a Jew, you fucks) bussed in enough out of state black people to win Doug Jones the election.

— John Rogers (@jonrog1) December 13, 2017

In this piece at Think Progress they list the tweets Rogers explains they would need 800 buses and 40,000 fake IDs to being in the voters.

I put it together in a Twitter Moment

⚡️ “Epic takedown of RW conspiracy theory on why Jones won -by @jonrog1”

It’s good to tear down conspiracy theories from the right. It’s better to stop the actual process of voter suppression the right has been engaging in for years.

Each time there is a story about voter suppression, it’s an opportunity to suggest fixes. But how does that work? Who do we elect, pressure? What laws need to be changed?

When we have a success we need to build on it. What’s the opposite of Voter Suppression? Voter Encouragement? Voter Emancipation? Voter Restoration?

My friend Laura Packard, @lpackard, had some suggestions:

Automatic voter registration nationwide. Same day voter registration nationwide. Online voter reg etc etc. Voting rights restoration for returning citizens. Early voting (including weekends) for at least 2 weeks, everywhere, and an early voting site in every county.

Repeal draconian voter ID rules. Make all colleges & universities send voter reg paperwork to enrolling students. Make sure there is at least one precinct on every campus. Make sure there is equity in polling place sites & booths/staffing in both rich and poor areas. Make sure polls are open from say 6am to 9pm so shift workers can vote.

Because of the “tweetcycle” (which has replaced the newscycle) voting suppression is ignored until the next election. For example, what is going to happen with digital records in Alabama next year? That really needs to be fixed, but I’ve moved on to the next outrage. To keep it in the public’s eye, each state needs someone pushing tweet hooks of voter suppression and what is being done to fix it.

George Soros really shouldn’t have to pay for all those buses to bring in fake voters from blue states in 2018.

Who’s Happy About The Tax Bill?

by Spocko
I’m depressed. Watching a video of a conservative focus group making excuses for why they are voting for Roy Moore pushed me, an emotionless Vulcan, to the edge. I needed help. I needed to see some videos of happy people to cheer me up.

So I went looking for videos of people who were happy about the future. Somebody must be, right?

Maybe there were videos of the the people who wrote the Republican bill that restructured our tax code.  Surely those people are happy.

I figured I would find videos of lobbyists talking about how happy they are with the part of the bill they wrote and got inserted into the bill.

But which ones? I had over 6,200 to chose from.

“In all, 6,243 lobbyists have been listed on lobbying disclosure forms as working on issues involving the word ‘tax’ through the first three quarters of 2017, according to Public Citizen’s analysis of a massive data download provided by the Center for Responsive Politics (www.opensecrets.org)

Vox says the big four corporate lobbyists were, Comcast, Microsoft, Altria Group (formerly Philip Morris), and NextEra Energy. Maybe NBC has video of Comcast lobbyists popping champagne and explaining how the tax bill is good news for the network. But I couldn’t find any.

Maybe someone identified the lobbyist who hand wrote the page that Elizabeth Warren talked about in this video.

I couldn’t even find the name of the person, let alone a video of them happily explaining their success getting their change into the bill. My Google fu had failed me.

Maybe it would help me to find out who these people are, why they are doing what they are doing and what they believe. Out of those thousands of lobbyist I’ll bet there are a bunch that are working for the people. Environmental lobbyists. Lobbyists working to make sure the tax code doesn’t hurt widows and orphans.

The Vox story points out NextEra Energy lobbied to keep solar energy credits. That seems like a good thing to fight for. If I looked hard I could probably find a story about lobbyists who help people other than the super rich.  What if we found out that 20% percent of them are lobbying for good causes?

What if I found out that the good lobbyists messed up the bill on purpose, causing it to be delayed, so the truth of the bill would come, therefore out scuttling it. Wouldn’t that be great?

But I couldn’t find that any of that. So instead here is a video of happy women singing a Christmas song. Merry Christmas!

How the Right Weaponizes Accusations to Destroy People and Institutions

By Spocko

I was listening to Sam Seder and Digby on the Majority Report talking about the various political sexual harassment cases in the news last week.  Sam talked about the fear the GOP will weaponize them.  Of course they will, they have in the past.

I expect more allegations of misconduct on the left to pop up. Not because there are numerically more, but because the right will actively seek out cases on the left to push to balance out their own woman-grabbing elephant in the room.

When I started this piece on Thanksgiving weekend 2017, I anticipated cases of false allegations coming from the right.

On Monday I read the story of a woman who manufactured an allegation against Roy Moore and tried to get the Washington Post to run with it. The woman worked for James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas.  (I was right again, but since I didn’t publish Sunday I don’t expect a cookie this time.)

A false allegation that is reported as real by the liberal media–then revealed to be false–would be great for the right. It lets them defend their own while demonizing women and the media.  “See?” they would crow, “Women LIE! You shouldn’t believe them! The liberal media lies too!”

Project Veritas: Bad Actors Hiring Bad Actors 

It’s important to know that James O’Keefe is a wannabe thespian.
Project Veritas is a bad theater group pretending to be a non-profit muckraking journalist group. He’s a bad actor in both meanings of the phrase.

Conservative spend millions on groups like O’Keefe’s to damage people, groups and institutions that they see thwarting their agenda. It also gives the volunteers and paid operatives an opportunity to “stick it to the libs.”  One right wing conservative group, called Turning Point USA, is currently using the O’Keefe model to attack teachers and universities.

The good news is that the MSM is getting better at detecting O’Keefe’s tricks and turning the tables on them. However, not all groups or institutions targeted have the ability to thwart the scammers before they do damage. That is why we have to educate ourselves in order to help the groups under attack. It is possible to prepare for them, and, if they miss the opportunity to thwart the attacks, how to seek redress afterwards.

O’Keefe’s incompetence allows us to see the method to his mendacity. This story from Jane Mayer in the New Yorker describes his attempt to sting Open Society Foundation, a George Soros pro-democracy group. Listen as he unwittingly leaves a voicemail describing his entire plan to the person he was targeting at the Open Society Foundation.

1) They distribute a mix of lies and manufactured evidence with some facts

One of the important things I learned at James O’Keefe University (AKA a seminar in an airport hotel), is that while their most damning “evidence” is usually manufactured, sometimes they do catch real people, breaking laws, violating the rights of others or just not living up to the stated values of the group.

Groups that are under attack don’t always respond rationally in a crisis.  One mistake is firing or demanding the resignation of the people accused before the full story can come out. When this happens the right wing attackers win.

In some cases it is absolutely correct to fire someone or to demand a resignation. But the attacking groups count on an instant response, usually from someone caught on camera, off guard and while in public.

If you are in this position when first hearing an allegation, ask to see the results of the full investigation of everything, including the source of allegations

2) O’Keefe teaches groups to hold back some supporting evidence to use after the story first breaks in the MSM.

O’Keefe is hoping the media (or an organization) will defend the accused before seeing the entire story. If they do, he then rolls out some new information that supports the first revelation.

The goal of this action is not just to embarrass the liberal media, but to keep the scandal going for another news cycle. O’Keefe has learned that he can offer the unedited raw tapes, but no one has  time to go through them all. (A line used by O’Keefe on Sam Seder.)

Although O’Keefe’s tricks are now known by national media, a group using O’Keefe methods can still push a story forward in regional media especially if they aren’t aware of the group’s methods and intent.

In addition, while O’Keefe and other groups still crave the attention of the MSM, they now go straight to YouTube with their narrative, which is then promoted on social media to their base.

Ask that all evidence to be seen, sourced and vetted, but expect it won’t happen in a timely fashion.

Prepare your own social media response until the media can weigh in. 

3) They want allies of the person/group under attack to either disavow or defend them

The mainstream media will go to the allies of the group under attack looking for a comment after an allegation. If you are under attack, brief your allies ASAP.  They especially like to go to government officials because the media quote them.

 Remind your allies that other media will call. They need to be prepared. I’ve found that not all allies are equally sophisticated when it comes to talking to the media. The attackers often pitch the story to RW media with a list of people and organizations to call. They are looking for the weakest link.

Allies: Get the facts before you react.

 I don’t like burning up the keyboard talking about O’Keefe, Turning Point and their mendacious moles, but it’s very possible you or a friend in a progressive organization will be under attack from them and will need to respond.

 The right counts on people being unaware of their tricks and the MSM to act a certain way. But as the Washington Post has shown, it is possible to turn the tables on them and flip the narrative.

Coming next: You’ve been attacked by O’Keefe’s moles, now what do you do?
Answer: Sue.

Update on Church Shooter: No Charges, Keeps Gun and Carry Permit

by Spocko

TELLICO PLAINS, Tenn. — An 81-year-old man who accidentally shot his wife and himself at church while showing off his gun won’t face charges or lose his carry permit, police said Friday.

Wayne Reid shot himself in the hand and his 80-year-old wife, Kathy, through the abdomen around 1 p.m. ET Thursday while showing off his Ruger pistol to a fellow parishioner at First United Methodist Church.

“As far as I know, he’ll get to keep it,” police Chief Russ Parks said of the firearm. “No one who was in the church is wishing to press charges, and we in the police department think they’ve suffered enough.” USA Today

After a church shooting congregations talk about what should be done to prepare. They talk about the benefits and costs of various responses.

Congregations in different parts of the country choose different solutions. For example, The River at Tampa Bay Church, choose to be heavily armed.

If you are a member of a church discussing the issue this week, you should look at all the costs and benefits of various responses. In addition to talking to experts in safety and security, you should contact your insurance agent AND your legal counsel.

I’ve been contacting insurance companies this week wondering what they recommend to congregations. Off duty police? Licensed private security? Their own security force composed of people with concealed guns?

I’ve asked them how they calculate the risks and then the premium costs for the different configurations.

In the meantime I’ve been looking at other costs. I don’t know all the details of Wayne Reid’s case in Tennessee. Maybe he’s a super rich guy with great insurance, but I wonder:

• Who pays for that 50 mile helicopter flight to Knoxville for his wife?  The average patient bill from Air Methods, according to an analysis of national research in Consumer Reports, rose from $13,000 in 2007 to $50,000 in 2016.  (Tennessean )

  If they are on Medicare, how much of this flight is covered? 

• Did the man have extra insurance because he is carrying a concealed weapon in public? Doubtful. Remember, gun owners aren’t required to have any liability insurance.
• Does the Church have liability coverage? 

Maybe the entire community is fine with absorbing the medical costs instead of putting the financial responsibility back on the man who brought his gun to church, or on the church that decided to allow this person, with his level of training, in the church while carrying a gun.

Praise the Lord and pass the collection plate!

How would Rove/Hughes Cover Up A Trump Pee Tape?
by Spocko
Earlier today Digby posted about the report that in preparation for the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow, a Russian told Trump’s bodyguard, Keith Schiller, he could “send five women” to Trump’s hotel room. Schiller said he told the Russian, “We don’t do that type of stuff,” sources told NBC.

The story of Trump and the 5 women in Moscow got me thinking. What if you worked for Trump and knew the real story about this entire incident, as well as the rumors. How would you clean this story, or knock it down? I asked myself, What Would Karl Rove and Karen Hughes Do? WWKRKHD?

War criminal, his wife, Karl Rove

War criminal, Karen Hughes, some guy, war criminal

There are multiple ways to discredit this story, and the media covering it.  You are already seeing some of them in the story from NBC,

In a statement, Schiller’s lawyer said “the versions of Mr. Schiller’s testimony being leaked to the press are blatantly false and misleading. “

“We are appalled by the leaks that are coming from partisan insiders from the House Intelligence Committee,” said Stuart Sears. “It is outrageous that the very Committee that is conducting an investigation into leaks — purportedly in the public interest — is itself leaking information and defaming cooperative witnesses like Mr. Schiller. The Chairman and Ranking Member should investigate and hold accountable whoever is responsible for leaking false and misleading versions of Mr. Schiller’s testimony. This conduct is indefensible and calls into question the credibility and motives of the Committee’s investigation.”

Out of Context and Hair Splitting
Any versions of the testimony leaked can correctly be labeled “false and misleading”  because anything that it isn’t the word for word transcript, in complete context, can be categorized as misleading. If anyone gets a single word wrong, it can be called false.

(By the way, this was a technique of Rumsfeld, if someone paraphrased a comment he made he could say, “That’s not what I said.” the reporter often didn’t have the text in front of him. Rumsfeld could also say, “That’s out of context.” which gave him room to push a different interpretation.)

One Bad Detail Spoils the Whole Bunch
Another method to scuttle this story is to find and discredit one detail of the story which will be used to discredit the rest of the story. Remember how Dan Rather and 60 Minutes got busted  over a type font?

True Details in a Faked Document
The other method is to fabricate a piece of evidence then get it to the “liberal media.”  If the media outlet is cautious, they won’t run it until it’s vetted. They might see that it’s too good to be true and hold back, but not all media will wait.  After one runs it, the others will need to acknowledge it.  This plays into the media’s desire for a scoop and gives them an opportunity to comment without taking sides for a “both sides do it” story.

The key to this method is to make the fake evidence and sources look really good.   So for example, they could have real information, like the names of the women who were offered by Putin to go to Trump’s Room. But the document it is on is forged     Then someone tips off a blogger named Buckhead who just happens to know what to look for to prove that the email was forged . Third party experts will be brought in to confirm that document is false.

This tactic is a twofer.  It gives right wing media an opportunity to attack “the liberal media” for promoting “fake news” during their witch hunt against Trump and if more evidence shows up later, it can be dismissed as another fake.

True Details, Real Evidence from a Compromised Source

What if you know that evidence with real details will eventually be dug up?  Get it to someone who is already compromised or seen as crazy. Expose the problems with the source. Get others to disavow the source, which taints the story.

Is there anyone in the Trump White House who can plan three steps ahead, understand what the media wants and how to manipulate them,  use cut outs so their fingerprints aren’t on the fake evidence  and then implement it without being caught?   I don’t know. I do know that these kind of people exist. They work for law firms, PR firms, and intelligence agencies –both foreign and domestic.

You don’t have to be playing 11 dimensional chess to use some of these tactics, smearing sources and crying “fake news” is easy.  But when dumb, inexperienced people try to pull off these tactics they can be busted by people who are paying attention and know what to look for.  And there are a lot of dumb inexperience people in the Trump White House.

Candy’s for Closers! Trumpian Halloween Tricks

by Spocko

Don’t have money for Halloween candy? Hate giving away Halloween treats and love Halloween tricks?

Hate the new office tradition of cube to cube trick or treating?
(h/t Val Rodham)

Think that people who give things to others, without making a profit or getting a big tax deduction, are suckers?

Think that using people in crisis to make money is just smart business?

If so, follow these simple steps for a profitable Halloween.  They are based on observing the human who has won the most powerful position on your planet. Since it worked for him, other humans can emulate him to live long and prosper by following his method.

• Put out a BIG empty bowl with sign over it that says, ‘Help yourself.” or “These are big, take only ONE!” h/t David Feldman  
  

• Next to the empty bowl put a milk carton covered with orange construction paper. Write on the paper “Trick or Treat for UNICEF!”

  

When people see that there is nothing in the bowl, complain about greedy co-workers who must have taken all the treats while you were gone.

When asked what candy you had, mention the favorite candy of your office rival.

“I’m not saying he took it, but you might want to notice what candy he is eating over the next few weeks.”

When you go to other desks, bring your Trick Or Treat for UNICEF carton. Don’t take any of their candy explaining, “I don’t want what happened to me, happen to you.”  Then tell the story of the great candy you were going to give out but couldn’t because of someone else.

Casually point to your UNICEF milk carton while talking about this. Mention how much you loved Audrey Hepburn as a kid and how she inspired you.  Nobody can say no to Audrey Hepburn! Watch people fill the carton!

PROFIT!
 
The day after Halloween use the donated money to buy discounted candy for yourself!

But wait, there’s more!

Leverage the lie!

Tell everyone you donated what you collected to UNICEF plus a significant amount of your personal money.  Here’s the Trump Trick: Don’t give the money! No one ever checks!  (It’s not like David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post is checking up on your donations.)

A few weeks later post a signed photo of Angelina Jolie, praising your generosity.  Again, nobody checks!  CNN is not going to call Jolie and ask if she really talked to you on the phone.  (White House admits Trump fabricated phone call from Boy Scout leaders, Mexico president–Fox News)

Expand the Lie!

Now claim a cash donation to UNICEF on your taxes. Name multiple charities like The Salvation Army — since no one can track where the cash in the buckets came from.

(Your taxes won’t be investigated by your coworkers.  It’s not like David Corn is asking you to release your tax returns!)

Continue to point out your rival is STILL eating the candy you accused them of stealing. Suggest that maybe there should be an investigation.

Keep using this trick for years.

Make sure all the new people in the office think your rival is a candy thief.

Repeat rival’s nickname every time he is seen eating candy. “Look, it’s Sticky Fingers McCoy!”

Make a joke about your rival every time anyone has an empty bowl at their desk. “Uh, oh, it looks like Sticky Fingers McCoy was here!”

If pressed say, “If Dr. McCoy claims he didn’t take the candy, I take him at his word.” Now switch to stories of thievery in other areas.

Reinforce the lie!


Steal food from the office refrigerator then suggest your rival took it. According to my observations, co-workers will repeat the old false accusations even if they defend the rival.

“Look, I’m new here, I personally never saw Dr. McCoy take anything. He seems great, if a little emotional, and I don’t know why we call him Sticky Fingers McCoy. But just to be on the safe side let’s lock all the food up, and stop our tradition of giving out candy, okay?”

Happy Halloween!

Signed,
Evil Spocko

How Sexual Harassers Quash Storiesby SpockoThis piece by Lloyd Grove in the Daily Beast gave me the chills. It describes the attack strategy attorney Lisa Bloom used during her time as Harvey Weinstein’s paid defender.  The example given is how Bloom went about discrediting Rose McGowan. This story explains how even when women do speak out, they can still have their story suppressed.
Clients Turn on ‘Champion for Women’ Lisa Bloom After Her Scorched Earth Crusade for Harvey Weinstein

When you go up against a person who has money and power they aren’t just going to roll over. They will fight back. Sometimes viciously. They will use multiple intimidation tactics, including hiring lawyers to make subtle and not so subtle threats to control the narrative.

They will use carrots and sticks to achieve their goals. Big sticks. These threats are designed to scare the crap out of most people. At least if there is the possibility of a payout, some people can get the kind of lawyers who will take the case.

We often don’t see details about many harassment cases because of the intimidation of journalists and their publishers.

Hiring lawyers and PR fixers to intimidate people is the method used by the rich and powerful. Harassers who don’t have money use other methods to intimidate before and after the fact. It is helpful to be prepared for these actions. People often ask what they can do to help when they see someone being harassed. Keeping track of details you witnessed, and helping with hard evidence to support claims later, is one way to help.

I’m not an expert, but I’ve seen things…

It also helps to think like a prosecutor or an investigative journalist when trying to help. “How good is the evidence?” “How many sources can we get on the record?”

If you have good sources, you still need to understand how they will be attacked, discredited or dismissed. This is another reason why you don’t read more of these stories. To defeat people at this level you need to think like a defense lawyer and a security professional. “How will they respond to my source? What will the rational attacks be? What will the irrational attacks look like?”

If you are prepared for them, you might be able to use the attacks against them. But most people aren’t prepared to gather evidence and also think three steps ahead. People don’t want to live that way, they just want it to stop.

Following these latest revelations of men doing horrible things, and the people helping them, you will start to see stories of people who have been falsely accused. Yes, these actually happen. But what you won’t see is a sense of proportion of real stories to false accusations. This is because of the media’s idea of a 50/50 “balance” to all stories.  The fixers for guilty parties will take advantage of this “balance” format. Watch for it.

Who will run these “balanced” stories the most? The mainstream media.  Right now the media is actively seeking out these stories so they can claim balance. Here’s the twisted part–they will get experts and survivors to provide them.

I can almost hear an NPR reporter asking the expert, “Are there false accusations? What about women harassing men?”

The reporter is doing what they see as their job, getting “both sides” of the story. The expert might have 100 stories of  convicted male harassers and one false accusation story. I can guaran-damn-tee they will be asked for the false accusation example. The interview or story will then include two male harassment stories and one story of a false accusation harasser. We might get a story of a female harasser thrown in for good measure. (“Hey wasn’t Jennifer Aniston a harasser in that movie about bad bosses? Let’s see if we can interview her!”)

Experts need to anticipate this and flip it back on its head when talking to the media. Give a ratio, emphasise the majority stories but know what the media will ask for. It’s part of their due diligence process that they have internalized. It’s also part of their need for novel stories and the exception proves the rule mindset. As a sophisticated reader of news you will notice this pattern, but others won’t.

So what’s the excuse for people who aren’t in the news business, why will they bring up the false accusation stories and reversed gender harassment stories?

Men don’t want to be lumped in with harassers.  Some might start bringing up false accusation stories or stories of female harassers they hear. They will say, “Not all men!” “Sometimes women lie! It’s true! Look at this data!”  They will want to be heard. How do you respond? Let me mansplain my response.

One time, decades ago, I found one mistake a female co-worker had made while keying in 10’s of thousands of numbers. I was excited to find it and point it out because I had been the source of multiple mistakes.  When I brought the print out up to her she acknowledged the error and said,  “My one to your one hundred, Spocko. My one to your one hundred.”

She acknowledged the fact, pointed out the ratio and reminded me again who was the main source of the problem. Me. I was the one who needed to do better, not her.

Of the 515 injured in Vegas, how many have health insurance?

by Spocko

Here’s a few questions for the media to ask on Wednesday, after they complete the basics about the shooter and his lack of terroristness — by virtue of his whiteness.

1. How many of the injured have health insurance?
2. How many have supplemental insurance to pay for recovery not covered by insurance?
3. How many of the people will lose their jobs and their health insurance because of their injuries?
4. If the Graham Cassidy bill had passed, would the people shot be denied new health insurance because they would now have a pre-existing condition?

Under the ACA, insurance companies can not deny people health insurance if they have a pre-existing condition.

The costs of gun violence go way beyond the emergency room costs and hospitalization.

Hospital expenses for 100,000 shot annually reach $2.8 billion  

More than 100,000 people are shot each year in the US at a total cost of $2.8 billion in hospital expenses, a study published on Monday has found. If lost wages and hospital expenses are considered together, the authors said, the annual cost of shootings in the US could be as high as $45 billion.  – Jessica Glenza, @JessicaGlenza The Guardian

Report  “Previous studies just focused on the mortality, but ignored the larger chunk of people who don’t die but are affected by this issue.” Photograph: vm/Getty Images

And private insurance only picks up a fraction of the tab. 

More than two thirds of gunshot victims admitted to American hospitals are covered by Medicaid, or don’t have health insurance at all.

—Kate Masters, The Trace @teamtrace

These findings anchor one of the most comprehensive studies of the cost of gunshot hospitalization in the United States to date, an examination of 336,785 hospital admissions by public-health researchers at the University of Iowa, published in the July edition of the journal Injury Epidemiology.

I read the study and the price of that care is staggering:

“The average annual cost per admission for a firearm assault injury is $20,989, more than twice that of a typical hospital stay.”

BUT, as big as that number is, it does NOT include the cost of the emergency room visit! I don’t know about you, but when I’m shot, on 21st century Earth in the United States I go to the emergency room.

Yes they will treat me, but if I need follow up I’m in trouble because they don’t take quatloos.

I’m used to the civilized policy of Starfleet, where the only “cost” of treatment is having to deal with emotional humans in sick bay.