Michael Levin, Member of Congress 12/8/19 Dear Mike In the next few days you will be casting a vote that will have consequences far beyond whether a President will face a Senate trial for removal from office. While it is your choice to make, as your constituent I am taking the opportunity to express my view, trusting that you will give it serious thought and then remit a timely response Senator Clinton has stated that she lost the election based on a single event, which was Director Comey's public letter to the Senate that the case against her criminal dereliction of safeguarding secret information had been breached. As far as I know this was the single article that predicted that she would lose the election because of this announcement, which I suggest you read. The writer, who happened to be me, faced unanimous condemnation for what what was an example of the group think, or the current term, bias confirmation, which resulted in a reaction that vitiated the rational thought process of the readers of this most popular liberal web site. I responded to each critical comment. yet did not get single reader to dare go on the record agreeing with my observation. This is the same dynamic that is occurring among the Democratic members of the House at this time. A virtually unanimous vote of Democrats to impeach the President will more than most examples of irrational group behavior, adversely affect the course of history. Nothing will solidify Donald Trumps grasp on power than Democrats uniting against him. I will continue to elaborate my argument on this website that I will begin right after posting this. Let me add, that if you are convinced by my argument, which happens to be informed by my obtaining a MPhil from Columbia University in Social Psychology that focused precisely the potency of group dynamics, you would have to stand alone in defying the very primal need for cohesion among the crowd. I would not be making this effort if I were not convinced that Democrats are about to make an historic mistake, one that reflects our human makeup which takes an act of rare courage to confront. Al Rodbell AlRodbell.com 760--505-1170

Fake or Biased N.Y.Times- You Decide

February 4, 2016

Yesterday, Chief Justice John Roberts discussed how partisanship is eroding the public's faith in the Court reflecting principles that transcend political ideology.  If this is a type of pandemic on our democracy, its valuable to find an example, especially when it's from a news organization respected for its legitimacy and dedication to truth.  

It's rare to find in situ a virtual laboratory controlled example of the endemic disease described by Justice Roberts that is isolated from contamination, as clear and clean as a three line paragraph that purph the email that I sent on the day of publication:

To the Public Editor of the Times:

Re:  12/20/15   Hip-Hop Stars Support Mississippi Rapper in First Amendment Case

February 4, 2016

Yesterday, Chief Justice John Roberts discussed how partisanship is eroding the public's faith in the Court reflecting principles that transcend political ideology.  If this is a type of pandemic on our democracy, its valuable to find an example, especially when it's from a news organization respected for its legitimacy and dedication to truth.  

It's rare to find in situ a virtual laboratory controlled example of the endemic disease described by Justice

The article contains this paragraph:

A divided 16-member panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, rejected Mr. Bell's First Amendment challenge. Judge Rhesa Hawkins Barksdale, writing for the majority, said the song was “incredibly profane and vulgar” and contained “numerous spelling and grammatical errors.”  “If there is to be education,” Judge Barksdale wrote, “such conduct cannot be permitted.”

The wording and context of the above paragraph strongly implies that both of the two elements of the lyrics, including "numerous spelling and grammatical errors" were aspects that were considered in deeming that the posting was not protected speech. I was surprised and shocked that spelling and grammatical errors could ever have limited first amendment protections.

On pp 3 of the PDF transcript the context was clear. Justice Barksdale's statement was appropriate, as the exact transcription of the rap lyrics was needed to evaluate aspects that could impact the case.  The quoted reference to spelling and grammatical errors was in lieu of  multiple uses of "sic" deemed legitimate -- as described in this explanation from the Columbia School of Journalism.

The New York Times appears to have trivialized and distorted the process of the jurists arriving at their decision.  If that is the case, the reporter who was tasked with reading the entire decision appears to have done this intentionally if not being grossly incompetent.

Please get back to me on this, as I presume others have contacted you on this issue.

Regards

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Given the topics that the N.Y. Times covers -- wars, revolutions, famine, disease ; their articles all fall short of perfection in squeezing complex events, sometimes breaking through the fog of war or disaster, into the allotted space on deadline.

The story described here, is nothing like those.  It is a three sentence paragraph that paraphrases a legal decision that had been published months previously, that was blatantly, beyond reasonable doubt, not only wrong, but in the refusal to acknowledge this, became what I can only describe as a secular sin, a lie --not only by the writer, but the editors comprising the institution of The New York Times. Only after my initial contact with the Public Editor did I learn that the writer of this article was Professor Adam Liptak;  by any measure of his expertise in law and journalism, along with the esteem of his peers, deserving the assumption of his having written a legitimate summary of the decision.   He wrote to me defending, not so much the accuracy of this paraphrase, but that it captured its tone.  He could have done both, but he sacrificed even a simulacrum of accuracy for conveying a tone that was invidious to the judge, that is not evident from a fair reading of the decision.

Knowing my claim had to surmount Professor Liptak's prestige, I went to considerable efforts to validate it.  A stroke of luck was my connection with a person with equal legal accomplishments and prestige of the the writer, Professor Eugene Volokh, who when he read my email to the Times Public Editor, shot back his agreement, and that he planed to write about this in his column in The Washington Post.  In it, he surgically dissected Liptak's summary:

I think some readers could perceive “such conduct” that “cannot be permitted” as referring to the song’s being “incredibly profane and vulgar,” and to its containing “numerous spelling and grammatical errors.” But the majority (Judge Barksdale) was arguing that what cannot be permitted is “threatening, harassing, and intimidating a teacher,” not off-campus profanity and vulgarity as such. (“At the very least, this incredibly profane and vulgar rap recording had at least four instances of threatening, harassing, and intimidating language against the two coaches: ….”)

And the reference to spelling and grammatical errors in Bell’s version of the song was even less connected to any explanation of why Bell’s conduct “cannot be permitted”:

My own research, surveys and focus groups  that recreated the perception of a naive reader of the Time's article,(details in my long version) showed that Volokh had been too generous in his evaluation of the degree of distortion in Mr. Liptak's summary of the decision. The misconception by the readers were not something that "could," happen, which means only possibly, but "would happen," meaning universally misleading.

This has consequences, which I explored in my long version of this report, made more severe by the century and half reputation for integrity of the N.Y. Times.  Let's call this an abstract, with my invitation to those interested to go to the long version for a more detailed personal backstory and an exploration how this "infection" of a great newspaper can be staunched.


Al Rodbell
Encinitas CA   
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Comprehensive Working Papers including email exchanges among all parties.

 

Banned from community of liberal blogers

My Dailykos.com experience / banned from my community Dailykos is the premier liberal public website dedicated to advancing the Democratic party. It was founded in 2002, owned and controlled by lawyer-activist Markos Moulitsas, known as Kos, reflected in the eponymous website's name. I had been a member since 2006, posting over 700 essays (called diaries) and perhaps ten times this number of comments. At times this makes for interesting dialog, however there are implied, and sometimes explicit limits on the deviation from acceptable discussions as defined by the owner. The rewards for the members are not pecuniary, but in the satisfaction of having an online community with a common political orientation. The "remuneration" is in the form of Recs, or recommendations that may elevate a diary to featured position for several days, with extensive readership and dialogue. Conversely, deviation from their prescribed extreme left political position in specific issues or on Party consensus, can result angry responses, or no comments at all, a "cold shoulder." by the community. From the beginning I had walked that line between joining the chorus of prescribed ideology and expressing independent views that deviated from this party line. This resulted in various forms of management sanctions that were mediated by members who were given the authority to "flag" a diary or a comment. Over time cliques of members connected, so they could alert the posse to an outlier's presence, and have a comment removed and the diarist admonished. Unbeknown to me, these admonitions did go on my "record." So, on Feb 1, of 2019 when I posted this essay- top of list, that accumulated hostile comments without rebuttal, after being called away for a few hours, when I attempted to engage in a dialog with the community, to my shock, my membership had been revoked. Knowing that I had been careful to follow the guidelines and regulations for member's participation, I sent an immediate appeal, expecting that this would be reconsidered, as Kos had said was done on occasion. I made my case, even humbling myself by apologizing for not being more sensitive to the community's feelings, after several exchanges with staff, I was simply cut off, without any claim of not following the specified principles for members essays and comments. Further details: formal rules of the website along with statements by users on my "career" adherence to them along with the unfairness of the banning on this are available by contacting by email at alvrdb-brt@yahoo.com This was one of the comments on the diary that triggered my banning. Stephen Dreyfus gramofsam1 February 04 · 01:02:19 PM I am befuddled and mystified. I didn’t know the writer was banned, and I still don’t know why. Was it because he defended Northam? Was it because he criticized Democrats? Did he state something overtly racist that went over my head? Where is the boundary between banning inappropriate comments and diaries, and censoring ideas that are too uncomfortable to contemplate? I am guilty as charged for recommending his diary. I did so because I followed the first link to the New York Times article which I read in full, along with dozens of well-meaning and thoughtful comments from readers both black and white, some of whom were convinced he should resign, and some who weren’t so sure. (I also read an article on Nation that called for his immediate resignation.) I was simply trying to acknowledge that this diary had a thought-provoking link that was worth reading. Update 11/16/2019 As for the content of the article that got me banned, "Gov. Ralph Northan, taking a step back," the demand that he resign has been forgotten. This article six months after his condemnation ends with "But all three Democrats weathered the storm, defied calls to resign and are now poised to oversee the most dramatic change in state..laws in recent memory." In the nine months since my banning from Dailykos, much has happened personally as well as in Virginia. Shortly after the banning I explored the possibility of taking legal action based on the implied contract being entered into of my providing content while Dailykos agreed that I would have perpetual presence based on my not breaching the posted rules. I explored this with two legal scholars. The first Eugen Voloch of UCLA came to the conclusion that it would be a difficult case that he would personally not take, but that other lawyers may. I realized the difficulties, and chose not to explore it further. I accepted the principle that while my personal injury seemed unfair, the right of an individual who allows one into his home, church, or political party should not be subject to judicial review. My recourse is exactly what I am doing, which is to explore other avenues of expression such as this private website