SectionC3

I’m not sure how much the apology helps him. As noted, if his comments were solely based on class, why add the “white” qualifier? And if there was something in the conversation not apparent from screenshots (e.g., sarcasm or an ill-advised attempt at humor), we probably would have learned of it in the apology. I read the apology as ignoring the elephant in the room, which is the question of racial undertones. He tried to sidestep the issue, and I wonder how helpful his apology will be.

Yeah I’m with you. Maybe they can suspend him or keep him out of team activities and try to let it cool down. But it’s a tough spot for him, his teammates, and the team.

A good point. Context is important. The first blush doesn’t work out well for Fromm here. Maybe, as you have suggested, there is more to the story.

To a point, yes. Maybe professional life or political life would have been better put on my end. Of course, if Franken defined his life by his Senate seat, then the broader statement would have been fair. The same logic might apply to Fromm. The kid’s life won’t be ruined if he gets fired. But his professional football career might be over before it started.

Capitalism doesn’t much care about morality. If Jake’s comments are bad for business then he will be a former employee.

EDIT: This responds to Doc’s post with respect to the possible constructions of Fromm’s text. *** Disagree. He didn’t intend the first for obvious reasons of construction. (In that event he would have said simply all whites.) He may have meant something closer to the latter, which absolutely is classist. The racial undertones appear through the use of the qualifier “white” in that context. If there were no racial undertones to the comment, then there would have been no need for that qualifier. The reference to “elites” would have sufficed as an expression of classism. So he’s left with a statement that appears to be both classist and potentially racist. Jake has some explaining to do to that locker room.

I don’t think cancel culture pertains only to choice of words, but Al Franken leaps to mind as someone who got the bum’s rush over one stupid moment in his life.

Ballots get mailed out to them after a signed document requesting the ballot is returned to the BOE with a signature similar to that on file at the BOE. The only mass mailing of the BOE is the missive inquiring whether the voter wants the ballot. Trope #1 debunked. Let’s see your evidence, big boy.

This is bad. The timing obviously is terrible. But it’s vastly different from Allen’s social media issue a couple of years ago. What Allen said was dumb, but was fairly and fairly obviously characterized as a bad joke. What Fromm said has terrible undertones. Only “elite whites” should be able to get silencers is what I understand him to have said. Not “only elites,” but only white people with money. And only white people with money should have access to a particular type (and, arguably, a particularly dangerous type) of weaponry. This, of course, after what we as a society agree was at “best” the homicide of an unarmed black man by police in Minnesota about a week ago, and maybe at worst the broad daylight lynching of that man. I don’t believe in cancel culture, and I don’t believe that one dumb mistake in choice of words should ruin someone’s life. But this is really bad, and ultimately it will be up to the locker room whether the kid sticks around.

Let’s start with the second link. What do inactive voters have to do with voter fraud?

Andrew Jackson is the President who made the White House more accessible to the public, right? And Donald Trump styles himself after Andrew Jackson, right?

The BOE keeps a list of ballots out and ballots in. That’s a problem that would be quickly identified. And the issue is highly, highly unlikely to change an election because absentees usually track the general, and because it’s unlikely that the “lost mail” would be votes for only one candidate. Besides, we already do absentees by mail and the issue you identified hasn’t been identified as a trouble spot. I suppose your point might be more of an issue in broad race, like for governor or president, if, say, a mail truck from an urban area went missing. But the mail loss concern is not nearly the danger one would think it to be. Similarly there’s no reason to argue that we can’t make it easier to exercise the right to vote. None.

It didn’t start strictly over slavery, you’re right. And you’re right about Washington and Jefferson. It’s a slippery slope there. But the monuments have to go.

Nope. You’re a hoaxer. Keep on talking about ballot harvesting, rigged elections, and whatever other nonsense you like on this point. Instigating against the loosening of the rules on absentee balloting is simply another way of helping discourage voting in larger urban areas where a voter may have to stand in line for hours before exercising his or her right to vote. I probably don’t agree with the candidates for whom the folks in Wyoming County are going to vote this year. But I will defend until the end their right to cast a vote contrary to my political preferences. And I will similarly contend that they should not be subject to any impediment, be it a backdoor poll tax or a waiting requirement, before casting that ballot. You, on the other hand, buy into contrived election protection narratives that you apparently can’t root in fact. So I guess we know where you stand on those and related matters.

Those are some fair points. I was a history major, and I’m very interested in American history and Civil War history. On the one hand, I agree with you. We shouldn’t destroy anything of historical value in the passions of the moment. On the other hand, I can’t say that I think it appropriate to literally elevate Robert E. Lee in Richmond. Maybe there’s a better way to do it without making the statutes shrines or gathering points. I don’t have a good explanation of what that should be - perhaps the Smithsonian? I don’t know. But I do know that the time to change the “monumental” character of those things has long since passed.

Nope. I want your facts. The ones you rely on when you propound your tropes about the voter fraud. Unfortunately I have no choice but to presume that you have no facts supporting your contentions that voting by mail will result in an election permeated by fraud.

Well said. The standard for the use of deadly physical force appears in Penal Law article 35 in New York State. And, at least in NYS, officer-initiated deaths are reviewed by the AG’s office so as to take local politics out of the equation. As those instances should be. We’re all equal at the foot of the cross. But, according to bunker boy, we have to honor those who fought for inequality. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/president-trump-rails-against-removal-beautiful-confederate-statues-n793451

Not to be lost in the far right’s myopic focus on abortion and conception issues is the point that we’re all equal at the foot of the cross. It’s too bad that the anointed candidate of the Evangelicals doesn’t feel that way: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/president-trump-rails-against-removal-beautiful-confederate-statues-n793451

Which article should I open? You’re the hoaxer here, not me. I just want the facts upon which you rely, that’s all.

I realize that you’re not one to rely on pesky things such as facts, but what evidence do you have that vote-by-mail will actually undermine election results?

This seems to be a good time to remind everyone that gun violence kills far more people in this country than does abortion.

It’s also scary when you gas peaceful protestors to get a photo op and threaten to needlessly turn the military upon the civilian population.

Neither does the secretary of defense. With good reason. Meanwhile the Trumpers who want to send in the marines are perfectly rational.

Your creativity and dedication continue to impress.

Trumpers are going to vote no matter what. They’ve consumed all of the Kool Aid in the pitcher. The ones we both need to worry about are those in the middle. Bush Republicans and Independents will decide the election. (Voter suppression and turnout are important issues, too, but it’s really the handful of impressionables left that matter.)