159 Comments

It's hugely underplayed how insane the Trump NY real estate case actually is. There is no such thing as an objective value for real estate. Read it again. It doesn't exist. I appraise real estate for a living and it's on every form we use: "estimate of value" opinion of value". Go find another appraiser and ask he/she/they/them. It's an opinion, your county tax value is an opinion. "Market value" stipulates very specific things that are likely not the case in most real transactions (usually related to what constitutes being "typically motivated"). What NY is doing here is more corrosive to society than anything Trump ever did, sorry to say but it just is.

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This is a good and fair point. It would have been more appropriate for the case to have been relegated to things that are fact-based, rather than opinion-based, like misrepresenting square footage. Not saying that alone would have justified bringing the case, just that it's a more difficult to justify discrepancy - thus arguably more provably indicative of intent - than differences of opinion in valuation.

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Totally. If someone says their opinion is based on an appraisal that they made up in their head as a normal person with skin in the game up for example and pretend is a real valuation then you have a case for misrepresenting value. You can do all kinds of substantive misrepresentation in other ways, and I'm sure people do.

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These are so good when you're all in the same place.

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It is crazy how much better it is when you guys can just slightly talk over each other without interrupting the flow.

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This is exactly what it is and why live, in the same room conversation is always better than live over the Internet conversation.

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It’s astonishing how wrong you realise John Oliver is when he’s talking about a topic you actually know about. Describing Chevron Deference as “deference to a regulatory agency’s experience” when others would describe it as a removal of an independent umpire when it comes to interpretation of the law. Or the proposal to expand the court, which is *blatantly* an attempt to pack the court in a particular ideological direction. There have been a lot of moves to pack federal courts, but expanding the court with this explicit purpose just seems beyond the pale.

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I’ve stopped watching years ago, but it was mostly because I realized the point you made here. I work in the retirement plans industry and he had a segment about high fees that was so ridiculously wrong that it had to be intentional and to create the outrage effect.

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I haven’t watched him in many years now for the same reason. His outrage machine relies on a certain form of Gell-Mann amnesia.

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You can’t possible know how much I appreciate your comment and giving me rhe name of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect. I was asking ChatGPT and googling yesterday without success trying to remember it. Thank you!!!

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I’m sure that’s a term on its way to the memory hole.

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Same, but with his episode about ambulance companies. (Actually I stopped much earlier than that because I got bored of the perpetual outrage, but someone forwarded me that episode)

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The one for me was about universal healthcare. He massively downplayed the waiting lists that exist on the NHS (and indeed in virtually all public health systems).

The health system where I live (Australia) isn’t perfect, although I prefer it to the American system of getting care tied to your employer because plans on the market are so expensive.

But you’re a moron if you think “Medicare for all” would be as generous as the good healthcare plans in the US. Everything is rationed when you use the public system. The private system is expensive enough that they don’t need to ration it. I challenge anyone to prove me wrong and give me an example of this not being the case in a country with universal healthcare.

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Yeah he is a great one for Gell-Mann amnesia.

I used to really like him when I caught him, and then maybe the 20th, and 25th ones I saw were in topics where I had expert knowledge...and they

were absolutely the worst kind of cherry picked, weak-man, one sided presentation of topics, and suddenly I realized that probably half the other ones were too, I just didn't know the topics as well.

It wouldn't be hard to do his exact same schtick but actually present the opposing side fairly, but nah, he is way too sure he is right to pay attention to the opposing view.

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I stopped watching when it was clear it was the same joke every single show and I just got so sick of it. The fact people I know who love him are the same people who have the same stupid opinions on everything tells me all I need to know.,

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Moynihan nailed it re: the murder of the Georgia nursing student. Her killer had no business being in the USA. He had already had interactions with law enforcement. Why on earth are we screwing around like this? We can attract the best and brightest from all over the world, but instead of that we incentivize people with no regard for our laws to walk on in.

Every day I have to try to figure out why I should vote for Biden again.

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Why? It’s that dumb progressive worldview of being soft on crime. We saw it in 1988 with the democrats, until as MM alluded to, Dukakis got caught essentially admitting it. After that, you had democrats like Biden and Clinton tripping over themselves in the 90s trying to appear tough on crime campaigning against “super predators”. Pick a date when the left relapsed into that non-disciplinarian worldview again, 2014, 2020, whatever, and here we are again in clown world.

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Seems fairly obvious the best and brightest are probably going to follow the rules to get into the US.

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Disappointing that you guys aren't brave enough to call bullshit on Stevie Wonder being blind. Everyone knows he can really see.

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I’ve seen him catch a basketball courtside. If I were blind, ain’t no way I’m paying the premium to sit that close.

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I bet Tucker believes this conspiracy theory.

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He’s very superstitious.

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If only they were as upfront about it as Andy Williams...

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Mar 2
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The Michigan pot holes are just braille for the blind drivers

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Even though the title of the episode really wasn't the main focus, I can't help but comment about something that happened to you two mornings ago.

I live in Chile. I'm in an Uber with a Venezuelan driver, like most of them here. He hears I'm American and starts asking how much money one can make there. He says he's lived in Chile peacefully for 7 years but "it's boring" because people just work and go home with their families. He's done the math and thinks he can save a thousand dollars a month working in the US. How will he enter? "Ask for asylum". Asylum from what, from boredom??? Obviously I didn't press it since he was friendly and driving a car, but shocking that someone would openly admit to plan to commit fraud.

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My town is hosting a bunch of asylum seekers - mostly Haitian - in a hotel and the local newspaper has been interviewing them. Their stories are pretty interesting: they moved from Haiti to some South American country, like Brazil or Chile, got a job, started a family, yadda yadda yadda, "religious discrimination" and now they are here. It's amazing how little reporting there is of the seemingly widespread religious discrimination in Brazil, Chile, and other relatively safe South American countries.

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Whether you think the religious discrimination is “real” or not I doubt they haven’t experienced some type of racial or cultural discrimination in these South American countries. South American countries are still mostly conservative and racist and I can very easily see black Haitians being discriminated against. If any group of people generally speaking have a case for asylum it’s Haitians, the country is effectively a failed state overrun by gangs.

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I agree, but these stories are about Haitians who have spent the last decade or more building seemingly comfortable lives as refugees in other countries. I don't begrudge them wanting to aim higher and raise their children in the greatest country in history, and in an ideal world these people would apply for a job and a visa online and come over here and work hard, a win-win in our labor constrainrd economy. I just don't quite believe their asylum claim (*religious discrimination* is what they said, not racial), and I think that they are using the asylum system as the only way to immigrate.

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Also, the idea that in other countries, you can be immediately deported if you are not authorized to be there and commit a crime is not as true as claimed. There is a huge problem here with home countries simply not wanting to receive such people back and not authorizing the repatriation flights to land.

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Annoying that you can't edit comments (though I understand why). Obviously, this ⬆️ happened to ME not to YOU.

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Can you blame him? People respond to incentives. This sounds like someone who would come in to work. Doesn't seem scary to me.

Not saying there aren't externalities to high levels of immigration but....

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Who said it was scary? But personally, yes, I think you can judge people that willfully misuse resources intended for other people, in this case, the asylum process which is explicitly there for people who face unjust persecution in their home country, not people are "bored" and think they can make more money somewhere else.

It's likely another person I know who is going to travel overseas with their pet dog as a "service animal" simply because the fee for traveling with a actually pet of that size is several thousand dollars. Can I blame him? Not really, since I think the excessive fee is pure profiteering, but it certainly makes me uneasy. And if hundreds of thousands of people per month were doing the same, that points to a systemic issue.

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If Moynihan has reached the point of being fed up about the border, imagine how the average American is feeling. Is there anything Biden can do at this point for this not to work in Trump’s favor?

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Re Aaron Bushnell.

In the mid 1980s a guy I worked with killed himself by setting himself on fire in his car in a remote location. This guy was extremely mentally unwell and his marriage had broken up as a result. Just being in his company at work was tough because you could see his pain and distress but not help in any way.

Co-opting Bushnell as a poster boy for Palestine/Hamas is beyond disgusting. It erases his mental distress and it erases all the pain that his illness would have inflicted on his family and friends. Now they have to tolerate arseholes who knew nothing about him preaching about his 'sacrifice'.

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Just kind of came across as your average redditor to me

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Does Nancy Pelosi wearing Kente cloth qualify as blackfishing?

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Shifting definitions and vernacular is interesting. I use the word folks all the time. But also I’m southern so folks = my parents as in my folks are coming over to dinner tonight

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Hearing anyone not from the south say y’all just sounds wrong. I love how they have to use southern vernacular to be PC, though. Pretty ironic.

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Also pretty sure it’s cultural appropriation by the coastals

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What’s worse, it’s typically followed by something derisive, e.g. “Y’all need to sit down and” blah blah blah.

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Oh God, I've said that before. *Hang head in shame.*

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“Y’all” as used by non-Southerners is currently the word (previously, see “impactful”) that makes me grit my teeth. I can’t wait for it to go away, like “Latinx.” Just say “you.” We used that for thousands of years with no confusion and, no, “you guys” isn’t offensive.

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I use it all the time and I'm so far from the south, about a continent or two.. I just like its convenience and universality. Never occured to me to use it for PC reasons.

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It’s a way of avoiding the dreaded “you guys.” I mean, can you imagine the faux pas of calling a mixed group of people “guys?” I didn’t ever like using y’all. I don’t know if that’s thanks to growing up watching Hee Haw or what😂

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Ha! Might be the reason for me to use it because I have none of those connotations. I also use "hey guys" interchangeably with "y'all" - if an issue arises I'll blame it on my foreignness. Dumb foreigners don't understand the subtleties of your feigned sensitivities. Sue me.

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I make a point of using "guys" all the time now. It is my "pronouns", my way to smuggle political speech into work life.

Also it is legit how I was raised.

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“Hey all you people”

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I’m a Canadian who uses y’all all the time, but not for PC reasons. I had a friend from Texas who used it, and I thought it sounded fun and chill and respectful, so I gleefully appropriated it.

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“Hi, folks,” “I’m visiting my folks,” sure. “Y’all need to center black and brown folks,” “Trans folks are just trying to exist,” and so on? Tiresome. It’s taking a word that’s, well, folksy and making it pretentious.

Perhaps the distinction is folks vs. folx.

Although, Bill O’Reilly used to say on his show, “I’m looking out for the folks.” I didn’t care for that, either. Phony.

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Put an x at the end all you want, it’s still of German origin!

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Germanx

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I started using the word "folx" online as a joke some years ago, in a chat I was in with other Barpod fans. Once in awhile I will throw it on Reddit and get some weird replies. It's a funny inside joke for me.

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Moynihan absolutely on fire this episode, loving it.

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2 hours?! LFG!

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Not sure if this is the hidden tribes study Moynihan was referring to, but here’s one from a nonpartisan organization called More In Common that publishes really interesting findings. Their perception gaps study is also very eye-opening (perhaps less so for the Fif crowd 😊), but it’s a continual frame of reference for me.

https://hiddentribes.us

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That is the one Moynihan referenced. I was going to post it myself. You beat me to it!

Everyone should look at the profiles (https://hiddentribes.us/profiles/) and take the quiz (https://hiddentribes.us/quiz/). Interesting stuff.

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Super interesting! I led a workshop for my colleagues (HS teachers) showing them the hidden tribes & perception gap studies. Some found the info insightful, others less so. But, I keep trying.🤞

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I’m going to look at More in Common, too.

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Yes, this is *the* Hidden Tribes study. It was a revelation for me, too.

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Moderate! Which is funny because I have some pretty radical views on both sides, but it kind of averages out.

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It’s funny that “keeping options open” and “no fucking clue” aren’t categories. Or maybe they’re classified under “politically disengaged.”

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The Fifth Column should host a Coleman Hughes - Radley Balko get together over the George Floyd documentary discussion. Balko doesn’t want to do it at TFP nor at Coleman’s podcast.

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He almost certainly would refuse.

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Curious minds say, "why?"

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You would have to ask him.

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I listened to ep. 68 yesterday. The conversation with Balko didn’t sound, to me, contentious, as others have reported it to be. All parties were respectful, and Moynihan was oddly quiet until a lively back-and-forth with Thad Russell.

That was 2017. One gets the impression that in the intervening years, Balko has become far less agreeable.

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As mentioned in M.O. #202, we subsequently recorded a terser episode with him that was (alas!) never released. Though I really wouldn't describe it as "contentious."

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I have a dear friend with a similar background (grew up in the South/Southern Midwest, works in criminal justice/drug policy reform) who became similarly way more disagreeable during The Reckoning ™️. I'm wondering if there's some dynamic where childhood memories of actual racism (like, people explicitly espousing white supremacy, not people using the n-word because it's in rap songs) makes people with that kind of background turn into raging lunatics. I almost lost my friend for not agreeing that race is the central fact of all American criminal justice issues, and I think a lot of left-leaning people who landed in libertarian world went through the same kind of transformation.

I wish there was a how-to manual on de-polarizing people, it bums me out to see hardworking, effective advocates turn into jerks. Sort of makes me think of Thomas Paine at the end of his life, who worked his butt off for freedom but died friendless and penniless.

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As rational economic actors, there must be SOME price that the lost episode could be "unlost".

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Mar 3
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“Look how many words I wrote, therefore I am correct.”

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Holy shit, it’s been a while, but I’ve finally found vehement, I say vehement, disagreement, with Welch. Current border enforcement policy does not result in a “large percentage” of turn-always vis a vis. admissions. The border is “open” in every meaningful sense. Matt it sounds like you’re arguing there can only be an “open” border if there is zero enforcement of any flavor.

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If it was open there wouldn't be crossings in the middle of nowhere. If it was open, immigrants would be entering in busses and boats at large ports and sizable cities.

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Maybe it’s semantics, but I just don’t think pointing to fundamentally broken system and saying “hey we have a system” is enough.

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Are you saying it could be worse? Seems unhelpful to say the condition is only really, really fucked. What you afraid of??? pendulum overswing? Let's get the pendulum moving in the right direction today and we can argue when to tap the brakes tomorrow . Cheers

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I'm saying it's currently much worse than if we had actually sane immigration policy that was much closer to actual open borders.

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Sorry, you lost me. What sane policy would approach open borders? Seems mutually exclusive to me.

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Another great episode but I have to say I felt like Welch was really wrong about #MeToo and BLM. I understand why someone would just group them under the same category, but to me it’s always been clear that there’s a lot of tension between these two movements and in many ways, BLM “eclipsed” #MeToo. You can really see this with the fact that the face of the #MeToo movement ended up being several rich while female Hollywood actors- and then with BLM you get the rise of the term “Karen”, specifically meant to attack affluent white ladies. Even if progressives can’t admit it, it seems like they know deep down that there can only be one “issue of the day” and so this breeds resentment, and not solidarity, among people fighting on behalf of different groups. This is also probably why you can see some resentment from BLM types about “rest in power” being used about things regarding Palestine. It’s not so much anger over “cultural appropriation” as much anger about knowing that their “thing” is not the “current thing” anymore.

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