RFK Jr’s ‘Maha’ report found to contain citations to nonexistent studies

[ThatRobGuy]

Or, perhaps, those of us who don't live in Oregon (or Washington, or California, or Colorado) are not as clued-in on the happenings in those states as we are with the happenings in the federal government.

I don't know that one has to necessarily be "well-travelled" to know that hippies believe some silly stuff about health & nutrition, and that the west coast and pacific northwest are the epicenter of hippie culture (and that politics is downstream of culture)


But if people aren't aware of stories like the one I mentioned, that points even further to the kind of "selective coverage" fodder that specifically maligns one faction.


The fact that people didn't know that Oregon put a naturopath (with a suspended license for handing out opioids) in charge of implementing two different drug legalization ballot measures...

Or that UCLA is promoting ayurvedic (magic oil and crystals)

Or that Washington state is allowing quacks to dispense medication (and requires insurance companies to cover alternative medicine)


Yet, everyone is fed the very precise details about almost every edge case involving quackery that can be even loosely tied to something a right-winger said.


Point of reference
2 out of every 1,000 acupuncture patients ends up with an adverse event that requires medical intervention. That translates to happening thousands of times per year.

You don't really see any news stories about that

Yet, we were getting the round the clock coverage about "person has to go to the emergency room from taking horse paste" thing...
Ivermectin associated adverse events in the treatment and prevention of COVID-19 reported to the FACT pharmacovigilance project - PubMed (the actual numbers of how many times that happened)

World news outlets were covering the one dude in Arizona who drank fish tank cleaner.

Both being reported with the backdrop of "here's how right wingers are spreading dangerous misinformation"

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Have you not heard of civic pride in doing your part to end the crisis? Are you that cynical? (It is no different than those "I voted" stickers. Pride in doing your part.)

No, because like most of my medical stuff, I don't advertise it on Facebook for bragging rights.

I didn't advertise my jabs with a band-aid on the shoulder selfie, for the same reason I didn't take a selfie sitting on one butt-cheek in my car with a custom FB border that says "Got my prostate exam" after my last physical.

 

[Hans Blaster]

No, because like most of my medical stuff, I don't advertise it on Facebook for bragging rights.

I didn't wear one either. I'm not asking if you did that, I'm asking if you can understand *why* people would do that (and for non-political reasons.

I didn't advertise my jabs with a band-aid on the shoulder selfie, for the same reason I didn't take a selfie sitting on one butt-cheek in my car with a custom FB border that says "Got my prostate exam" after my last physical.

[That's the second post replying to me referencing the bottom in the last hour. What is in the water?]

 

[ThatRobGuy]

A guy in charge of one state's roll out of a single law is who you throw up for comparison to the guy in charge of FDA CDC NIH ???

No, this HHS leadership choice really is uniquely bad.

That was just one example...

The others I provided involving the pacific northwest and west coast are on par with it...

UCLA is supposed to be one of the standard bearers in doing quality research and providing accurate information.

A) Why do they have any alternative medicine clinics under their umbrella at all?

B) Why are they advertising that magic oils and crystals are suitable for the following?:

That'd be like the Hayden Planetarium having a "flat earth division" and treating as a "complimentary science"



Let's boil it down to the numbers, how many people has RFK Jr. dissuaded from getting vaccinated? The largest estimates I've seen are that uptake is down about 1-2% from pre-covid.


Meanwhile, on the other quackery fronts...

Practitioner Type	Estimated % of U.S. Adults	Estimated Number of Adults (approx.)
Chiropractors	11%	~28 million
Acupuncturists	10%	~26 million
Naturopathic Physicians	2.2%	~5.7 million

And we have states (including our most populous and arguably most influential state) sanctioning those things.




But I do have an idea for a grand bargain of sorts...

I know one of the main contention points with the current admin is the admin to cut funding to various colleges and states.

Here's an "outside the box" idea.

These entities can disclose the amount of money they're spending propping up these phony industries and clinics, and the cut will be by precisely that amount. The they can choose themselves whether or not to keep quackery institutions funded, or shut down those operations and transfer the money over to backfill the funding in the real medical science departments.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

A guy in charge of one state's roll out of a single law

Not that it matters, but "Carter, who uses they/them pronouns"

They were the founder of

The Marie Equi Center

www.marieequi.center

So it is quite possible that Oregon selecting this person (with a suspended license due to improperly giving oxys and benzos), that's a naturopath with no public policy experience, to oversee the rollout of a blanket drug legalization program, for reasons other than credentials (not to sound too cynical -- but appointing people who checked off certain boxes was all the rage a few years back)

https://cdn.ymaws.com/naturopathic.org/resource/resmgr/website/documents/dei/Final_Version_Angela_Carter_.pdf

It also indicates that they're into witchcraft.

So they can be referred to (both figuratively and literally) as "witchdoctor" I guess...

 

[RocksInMyHead]

I don't know that one has to necessarily be "well-travelled" to know that hippies believe some silly stuff about health & nutrition, and that the west coast and pacific northwest are the epicenter of hippie culture (and that politics is downstream of culture)

Of course not. But that doesn't translate to awareness of the precise events that you find outrageous.

But if people aren't aware of stories like the one I mentioned, that points even further to the kind of "selective coverage" fodder that specifically maligns one faction.

Perhaps - you won't get any real argument from me that media on both sides of the aisle has a tendency to try to push an agenda. But selective coverage by the media does not make the consumers of that media hypocrites, as you seem to be intent on implying.

People are not omniscient. And, generally speaking, they're going to pay more attention to (and speak out about) the people and events that have a more direct effect on their lives - that is to say, things happening locally to them, and nationwide policies and initiatives.

 

[durangodawood]

That was just one example...

The others I provided involving the pacific northwest and west coast are on par with it...

UCLA is supposed to be one of the standard bearers in doing quality research and providing accurate information.

A) Why do they have any alternative medicine clinics under their umbrella at all?

B) Why are they advertising that magic oils and crystals are suitable for the following?:

View attachment 368828

That'd be like the Hayden Planetarium having a "flat earth division" and treating as a "complimentary science"



Let's boil it down to the numbers, how many people has RFK Jr. dissuaded from getting vaccinated? The largest estimates I've seen are that uptake is down about 1-2% from pre-covid.


Meanwhile, on the other quackery fronts...

Practitioner Type	Estimated % of U.S. Adults	Estimated Number of Adults (approx.)
Chiropractors	11%	~28 million
Acupuncturists	10%	~26 million
Naturopathic Physicians	2.2%	~5.7 million

And we have states (including our most populous and arguably most influential state) sanctioning those things.




But I do have an idea for a grand bargain of sorts...

I know one of the main contention points with the current admin is the admin to cut funding to various colleges and states.

Here's an "outside the box" idea.

These entities can disclose the amount of money they're spending propping up these phony industries and clinics, and the cut will be by precisely that amount. The they can choose themselves whether or not to keep quackery institutions funded, or shut down those operations and transfer the money over to backfill the funding in the real medical science departments.

Im skeptical of Ayurvedic medicine. But to boil it down to oils and crystals shows you arent serious about the discussion.

There's a legit place for people to try longstanding traditional medical practices, in clinics with good supervision, for their own care, especially in our regime where its hard to monetize them and therefore difficult to conduct slates of scientific studies.

Now, If you could show me the head of UCLA Med program emerging from alterna-land and promoting it not simply in the absence of scientific evidence, but against scientific evidence, then we'd have something resembling a comparison to the head of FDA CDC NIH doing the same.

Yeah, the RFK situation is uniquely bad. The national disease control institutions in the hands of someone like that... and youre trying to compare it to well X has a few clinics and Y state chose an oddball to run one little program.....

 

[Bradskii]

That would indicate to me that a lot of people were employing the logic that you labelled as stupid, which is selective objection to anti-vaxxerism based on who's doing it, rather than a broader condemnation.

A lot of anti vaxxers are right wing? Colour me surprised! And in breaking news, a recent poll has found that many people are stupid and MAGA.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Im skeptical of Ayurvedic medicine. But to boil it down to oils and crystals shows you arent serious about the discussion.

Sorry, I left out the three doshas concept they employ

Which is:
The body is governed by three energetic forces: Vata (air), Pitta (fire/water), and Kapha (earth)

If they could just find someone with the heart ring, they could complete the team and summon Captain Planet.

(They also assert that tongue examination one of the key ways to identify a dosha imbalance)

With regards to the gems, they don't just wear them, they grind them up into powders and consume them as well

It's basically the colloidal silver nonsense on steroids.

There's a legit place for people to try longstanding traditional medical practices, in clinics with good supervision, for their own care, especially in our regime where its hard to monetize them and therefore difficult to conduct slates of scientific studies.

On what basis?

If an individual has a desire to try it, that's one thing...

But we're talking about UCLA, a medical research institution with a wealth of knowledge in their archives, offering it.

They know this kind of stuff is nonsense (or at least I hope they do)

Now, If you could show me the head of UCLA Med program emerging from alterna-land and promoting it not simply in the absence of scientific evidence, but against scientific evidence, then we'd have something resembling a comparison to the head of FDA CDC NIH doing the same.

The fact that it exists there within their organization and that they advertise it on the website is the endorsement...and any promotion or even lending credibility to homeopathy or chiropractic is in defiance of science, plain and simple.

But, if you need something a little more direct

Steven M. Dubinett, MD

www.uclahealth.org

It would appear this guy is the "top dog" in terms of medical professionals at UCLA...he's the Dean of the School of Medicine at UCLA

UCLA Center for East-West Medicine celebrates its work in Chinatown with integrative medicine symposium | UCLA Medical School

The event offered an introduction to the Center for East-West Medicine and its person-centered approach to health and well-being....

medschool.ucla.edu

Year 3. December 2. Manifestations of Leadership. » Department of Medicine Blog

I hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday and for those of you who were able to get together [...]

connect.uclahealth.org

Him attending galas in honor of Ancient eastern medicine integrative offerings signals institutional endorsement.


The Dean of Harvard medical school spoke at the event honoring their own "Osher integrative medicine school"

2017 Osher Collaborative Meeting and Reception - Osher Center For Integrative Medicine

As part of the annual meeting of the Osher Collaborative for Integrative Medicine, which comprises six Osher Centers from across the United States and Sweden, we held a celebratory reception to bring together our colleagues from near and afar. The reception was held in honor of Mr. Bernard Osher...

oshercenter.org

The fact that both UCLA and Harvard both have schools named after Bernard Osher is a bit of a "tell" as well on this one...

That tell being: Major medical research institutions are willing to sacrifice a little bit of professional integrity into get that big check from a rich guy who's determined to bring alternative medicine into the mainstream.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

A lot of anti vaxxers are right wing? Colour me surprised! a recent poll has found that many people are stupid

They are now...but the timing is convenient.

In the US, the left didn't decide that being an anti-vaxxer was the stupidest thing a person could be until the numbers shifted in their favor.

Prior to 2016, they tolerated the pseudoscientific portion of their base the same way the right does now.


Same goes with conspiracy theories.

That was back in the era where the head of the DNC and multiple Democratic Senators were attending Michael Moore premiers...


Oh, and then there's election denial thing

Remember when Rosie O'Donnell and Robert DeNiro (along with Harvey Weinstein -- but this was before his allegations came out) aligned with a "concerned citizens 2000 group"...you know, the same Rosie and Robert who bashed the MAGA people constantly for being election deniers in 2020?

How Intellectuals Blew the Election "Crisis"

Last week, the Emergency Committee of Concerned Citizens 2000, an ad hoc group of intellectuals, entertainment industry figures, and others took out...

slate.com

They aimed to have an election mulligan in the deciding county, and offered to pay for it provided they could "supervise"?


Or how about new vaccines... Amid the H1N1 thing back in the late 2000's, only 39.6% of democrats said they were willing to take the new vaccine at the time, putting them on par with republicans.

When gay marriage was rejected by majorities in both parties -- as recently as the late 90s, you didn't hear the term "homophobe" getting tossed around, or accusations of "you don't care if gay people kill themselves"


Noticing a pattern here?

In the context of US politics, Democrats are complicit in certain issues, the moment they barely turn the corner, then all of the sudden "that thing they used to do just as much (or even worse)" becomes "the worst thing a person can be"

If Democrats largely decided to stop eating meat starting in October (and Republicans continued to do so), by Thanksgiving pundits would be claiming that people who eat turkey are the scourge of humanity.


The routine of
"This thing that we both used to do (and that I maybe even did a little more), but stopped doing last year, now makes you the worst person in the world for still doing it" is what's turning people off about the Democratic party.

To be clear, I'm not blaming the majority of democratic voters, most of them are sane good people, but the pundit and elite academia class among them has become that drunken girlfriend at the bar who talks smack to some huge guy and now they're stuck between a rock and a hard place.

 

[Hans Blaster]

They are now...but the timing is convenient.

In the US, the left didn't decide that being an anti-vaxxer was the stupidest thing a person could be until the numbers shifted in their favor.

Prior to 2016, they tolerated the pseudoscientific portion of their base the same way the right does now.

I was distracted by creationism. Then I found this site and decided the biggest problem might be religion. I didn't have my full online time to devote to fighting *all* of the pseudosciences.

Same goes with conspiracy theories.

View attachment 368841

That was back in the era where the head of the DNC and multiple Democratic Senators were attending Michael Moore premiers...

I used to like Michael Moore. He fought against the gun lobby and corporate greed. Watched his TV show. (Haven't seen any of his movies.) Then he did that 9/11 garbage movie and I actively avoid him now.

Oh, and then there's election denial thing

What election denial thing?

Remember when Rosie O'Donnell and Robert DeNiro (along with Harvey Weinstein -- but this was before his allegations came out) aligned with a "concerned citizens 2000 group"...you know, the same Rosie and Robert who bashed the MAGA people constantly for being election deniers in 2020?

How Intellectuals Blew the Election "Crisis"

Last week, the Emergency Committee of Concerned Citizens 2000, an ad hoc group of intellectuals, entertainment industry figures, and others took out...

slate.com

They aimed to have an election mulligan in the deciding county, and offered to pay for it provided they could "supervise"?

Perhaps you don't remember 2000's election with it all coming down to few hundred votes in one state. (Don't blame me. I voted for Nader.) I never heard of any "revote" effort, but it would be silly anyway as nowhere is there a mechanism for such a thing to happen anyway.

Or how about new vaccines... Amid the H1N1 thing back in the late 2000's, only 39.6% of democrats said they were willing to take the new vaccine at the time, putting them on par with republicans.

Never heard of that vaccine. (Then again, I've never had any flu shot. Ever.)

When gay marriage was rejected by majorities in both parties -- as recently as the late 90s, you didn't hear the term "homophobe" getting tossed around, or accusations of "you don't care if gay people kill themselves"

I heard the term homophobe used throughout the 90s. Unfortunately I did buy my church's claim that "marriage" was special and "from God", but at some point I did support civil unions. It might have even been in the 90s.

Noticing a pattern here?

Yes. I haven't seen that many cherries picked since I last successfully netted my tree.

In the context of US politics, Democrats are complicit in certain issues, the moment they barely turn the corner, then all of the sudden "that thing they used to do just as much (or even worse)" becomes "the worst thing a person can be"

If Democrats largely decided to stop eating meat starting in October (and Republicans continued to do so), by Thanksgiving pundits would be claiming that people who eat turkey are the scourge of humanity.

Now you are inventing men of straw to light on fire.

The routine of
"This thing that we both used to do (and that I maybe even did a little more), but stopped doing last year, now makes you the worst person in the world for still doing it" is what's turning people off about the Democratic party.

I can't say. I've only been a Democrat since July.

To be clear, I'm not blaming the majority of democratic voters, most of them are sane good people, but the pundit and elite academia class among them has become that drunken girlfriend at the bar who talks smack to some huge guy and now they're stuck between a rock and a hard place.

If that's what you need to tell yourself about the rejection, go for it, but we don't need to hear it. Us elites have academic things to do.

 

[Bradskii]

They are now...

The rest of the post wasn't needed.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

The rest of the post wasn't needed.

I felt it was necessary for greater context.


Because...

Determining "what the worst things are" not by objective criteria related to the thing itself, but by selectively evaluating which problems are now a more pervasive on the other side, is political hackery -- thereby, not sincerely held beliefs, and will be abandoned when the political conditions change.


...a real world example involving vaccines. (Covid vaccine booster uptake rates)

When booster uptake rates were still starkly contrasted between the party affiliations, there were still "alarming" news articles getting released somewhat regularly highlighting the contrast, pieces about "MAGA republicans far less likely to get updated covid shots :gasp: "

Once we got to the point where only about 22% of adults said they planned on getting them (indicating that people of all political stripes were pretty much done with the rinse repeat booster regimen), we didn't hear much booster talk after that.

Did idea of a person saying "meh, I think I'm done with the whole boosters every six months thing" get less terrible, objectively speaking?

Or is a person saying that now just as bad as it was in late 2023, but it's no longer something they can brand as "mostly a republican problem", so they don't want to risk inadvertently taking a political jab at over half of the people in their own party?

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I used to like Michael Moore. He fought against the gun lobby and corporate greed. Watched his TV show. (Haven't seen any of his movies.) Then he did that 9/11 garbage movie and I actively avoid him now.

He was using misleading tactics in those "documentaries" as well (if you're referring to bowling for columbine and Roger and Me)

He's basically the left-wing version of Dinesh D'Souza. (doctored footage, heavily edited dialogue to take things out of context, interviews with people purported to be insider experts who really aren't, etc...)

Perhaps you don't remember 2000's election with it all coming down to few hundred votes in one state. (Don't blame me. I voted for Nader.) I never heard of any "revote" effort, but it would be silly anyway as nowhere is there a mechanism for such a thing to happen anyway.

It's silly, but they did it.

Not sure if you were a South Park fan back in the day, but it was topical enough that they did an episode taking a jab at it

Where Rosie shows up at the elementary school to fight the results of the class president election

"You disenfranchised the black voters in this class election"
Garrison: "But there aren't even and black students in this class!"
"That's because you're a racist!"

Yes. I haven't seen that many cherries picked since I last successfully netted my tree.

It's not cherry picking, it's examples of people doing the exact things that we've been told recently are the "worst things"

Doctors and public health experts strongly urged people to get the H1N1 vaccine (60%+ declined to do so) - Not following the science

Half of the democratic voter based believed that Bush was behind 9/11 (DNC Chair Terry McCauliff and Senators were promoting Farenheit 9/11). - Entertaining conspiracy theories

Maxine Waters (and a handful of other house reps) went to the Senate to claim that the election was illegitimate due to voter fraud, a third of democrats believed the election was stolen, with reasons including "dead people voted for Bush, people threw Gore votes in the trash, someone snuck in and rigged some voting machines". Some of Gore's own colleagues were urging him not to certify the results -- sounds kind of familiar doesn't it?


And while I've heard the rationale you provided before (about how it came down to a few hundred votes in a key state) -- typically offered up a reason for why the Democratic election denial of 2000 was more understandable or justifiable.

But we're not talking magnitudes of difference here, a few of those key states in 2020 were extremely close. The "I need you to find me 12,000 votes" call. If one is "understandable", and the other is "horrific", that's basically saying that the acceptable number for when it's okay to go off the rails is somewhere between 300 and 12,000.


So again, it's not cherry picking, I wasn't appealing to any "fringe" situations...these were all "mainstream thought" back in the early-mid 2000s.

 

[durangodawood]

UCLA Center for East-West Medicine celebrates its work in Chinatown with integrative medicine symposium | UCLA Medical School

The event offered an introduction to the Center for East-West Medicine and its person-centered approach to health and well-being....

medschool.ucla.edu

.....

So I decided to pick one and read and see just how bad the threat to public health is here.

Youre massively overselling the problem.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

So I decided to pick one and read and see just how bad the threat to public health is here.

Youre massively overselling the problem.

You'd mentioned wanting an example of an endorsement.

So you don't see major respected institutions not only giving credibility, but also offering things like Chiropractic and the other stuff?

What do you see as a bigger black eye on public health?

A few thousand people declining to get vaccinated (although we're still above the vaccination coverage of countries like Finland and Norway)

Or 50 million people a year getting phony health advice from Naturopaths, Chiropractors, and Traditional healers (and when they go to look it up online, thinking "it must be a legit thing if places like UCLA offer it")?


We talk about medical misinformation only with regards to vaccines for some reason, but there are other critical facets of health that are equally impacted (and to a higher scale).

For instance, this write up by BYU:

Beyond seemingly innocuous alternative remedies to do with dieting, misinformation can influence much more deadly behavior. For example, cancer patients using alternative remedies are far more likely than other patients to refuse evidence-based treatment and have a higher mortality rate. About 37% of people in the United States will be diagnosed with cancer at some point. Furthermore, 39% of Americans believe alternative medicine alone can cure cancer. Those who choose this route are 3.5 times more likely to experience death.


Per the NIH:
A person who uses the services of alternative practitioners like naturopaths or chiropractors is roughly 25-35% less likely to accept vaccines for themselves or their children compared to the general population.

When evaluated against the number I cited before (that over 50 million people a year go to one or both of those)

Disclosure: I used perplexity's AI for the math:

If there are 50 million people total going to chiropractors or naturopaths annually (which may include repeat visits), and given the estimate that these visitors are about 20-30% less likely to accept vaccines, we can estimate the number of additional vaccine skeptics generated by this group compared to the general population.

• If the general population vaccine hesitancy is X%, then vaccine hesitancy among this group would be roughly 1.2X to 1.3X.
• To translate raw numbers, assume a typical vaccine hesitancy rate of about 10% in the general public (varies by vaccine and population).
• Then among 50 million alternative treatment users, vaccine hesitancy would be about 12-13%, i.e., an extra 2-3% compared to the general public.

This means:

• 50 million visitors × 2-3% = 1 to 1.5 million additional vaccine skeptics potentially created by this group's lower vaccine acceptance rates compared to the general population.

So all of that being said, why are prominent medical institutions offering alternative practitioners for people to see and advertising it on their website?


If we look at the MMR coverage before and after RFK:

Assuming about 3.9 million kindergarteners in the U.S. each year:

Year	% MMR vaccinated	# Unvaccinated Kindergarteners
2018-2020	95.2%	~187,000
2023-2025 (May)	92.7%	~286,000

So, the decrease in MMR coverage since 2018-2020 translates to roughly an additional 99,000 kindergarteners unvaccinated

...and obviously not all of those 99k are attributable personally to him.


Obviously to get a more concrete picture of which has the propensity to do more damage, we'd have to more about the ~1-1.5 million who've become hesitant due to what they've heard from an alt-medicine practitioner. For example, a person who becomes anti-vaxx from what a chiro told them at age 50 after their kids are grown and already vaccinated presents a lower risk than a person who gets that bad information that hasn't had kids yet.

 

[Hans Blaster]

He was using misleading tactics in those "documentaries" as well (if you're referring to bowling for columbine and Roger and Me)

I stated clearly that I watched his TV show. I never said anything about *seeing* his "docos".

He's basically the left-wing version of Dinesh D'Souza. (doctored footage, heavily edited dialogue to take things out of context, interviews with people purported to be insider experts who really aren't, etc...)

Does he also commit federal crimes?

It's silly, but they did it.

And yet I never heard of it. Must not have been that important.

Not sure if you were a South Park fan back in the day, but it was topical enough that they did an episode taking a jab at it

Where Rosie shows up at the elementary school to fight the results of the class president election

"You disenfranchised the black voters in this class election"
Garrison: "But there aren't even and black students in this class!"
"That's because you're a racist!"

I did watch South Park semi-regularly, but it was in the first few seasons only as it, I think, in a gap between things I regularly watched and would sometimes flip over to it and see new episodes if I remembered. (I was also extremely busy when it aired and probably would have been watching the actual news if I had my TV on, rather than some silly cartoon.)

It's not cherry picking, it's examples of people doing the exact things that we've been told recently are the "worst things"

None of these things are about attacking health infrastructure and undermining public heath. (None of them are even anti-vax.) You've posted a series of "Squirrel!!"s. I am not amused.

Doctors and public health experts strongly urged people to get the H1N1 vaccine (60%+ declined to do so) - Not following the science

For reasons that seem complex and beyond the scope of this thread, flu vaccines have never had the uptake public health officials would like. .

Half of the democratic voter based believed that Bush was behind 9/11 (DNC Chair Terry McCauliff and Senators were promoting Farenheit 9/11). - Entertaining conspiracy theories

Maxine Waters (and a handful of other house reps) went to the Senate to claim that the election was illegitimate due to voter fraud, a third of democrats believed the election was stolen, with reasons including "dead people voted for Bush, people threw Gore votes in the trash, someone snuck in and rigged some voting machines". Some of Gore's own colleagues were urging him not to certify the results -- sounds kind of familiar doesn't it?

I was moving that week, so I have no memory of that.

And while I've heard the rationale you provided before (about how it came down to a few hundred votes in a key state) -- typically offered up a reason for why the Democratic election denial of 2000 was more understandable or justifiable.

No. I wasn't justifying "election denial" or even discussing it. The issues at the time (as you *should* recall) were about how questionable ballots should be counted (hanging chads and the like).

But we're not talking magnitudes of difference here, a few of those key states in 2020 were extremely close. The "I need you to find me 12,000 votes" call. If one is "understandable", and the other is "horrific", that's basically saying that the acceptable number for when it's okay to go off the rails is somewhere between 300 and 12,000.

The ballots in Georgia in 2020 were recounted (twice as I recall) and the variance in the results much smaller that 12,000. Quite close to 300. Florida had even more votes to recount and less reliable ballot mechanics. 600 vote changes were not out of the question in Florida 2000, 12000 in Georgia 2020 was not. I suggest a review of counting errors and statistics.

So again, it's not cherry picking, I wasn't appealing to any "fringe" situations...these were all "mainstream thought" back in the early-mid 2000s.

You only picked half of my points to respond to and all in the pursuit of irrelevant distractions. None of this says anything about the suitability of "RFKJr"s policies and reports. Whatever dumb things that Democrats have believed or even Republicans have held are not relevant.

 

[Bradskii]

I felt it was necessary for greater context.

The same point applies...