Tommy Teepell Gets Publicly Owned, and the Worst Cornell 7 Take Yet

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:10 Thomas: And welcome to opening arguments this is Vapid Response number 48 I'm Thomas. That over there is real-life immigration attorney, Matt Cameron. How are doing, Matt?

0:00:18 Matt: Hey everybody, ready to talk about, you know, subjects that no one has any opinions on at all. That's what we're here for. And all the opinions we're going to look at are great, obviously, because it's Vapid Response.

0:00:29 Thomas: And Lydia, how are you doing?

0:00:30 Lydia: I'm doing okay, feeling a little confused, but that's okay.

0:00:35 Thomas: Matt just wanted to find a really cool and chill episode that no one has any opinions on. It doesn't seem like it would be good podcast content, Matt. I'm not going to lie, but you know, we'll go with it. We'll try your...

0:00:45 Matt: Well, you know, I was running late, here we go, we'll use what we got.

0:00:49 Thomas: Yeah. White bread. Is it? No, that doesn't... I'm trying to think. That's like a neutral thing, thing. Saltines, yay or nay, it's like, they're, yeah, fine, I don't know, yeah.

0:00:52 Lydia: If I'm in the mood, yeah.

0:00:59 Thomas: What's the most neutral thing? Yeah, I think saltines is a pretty neutral thing. I can neither hate nor love them. Yeah.

0:00:59 Lydia: If I'm having soup, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fair. However, before we get into it, the little mini saltines, that's new for me. And I was like, oh, yeah, like they're small little saltines. I mean,

0:01:11 Thomas: Mini saltines. What just

0:01:13 Matt: Yes, they're pretty good. Just enough, a little punch.

0:01:15 Thomas: The change it

0:01:16 Lydia: Now I'm like, they're in the love category if we're talking mini saltines but

0:01:19 Thomas: Took them like a hundred years to think, let's do this but but smaller.

0:01:23 Lydia: Like the size of the oyster crackers, right? That like people always love in soup and they're like, why don't we do that with this, with saltines?

0:01:29 Thomas: All right. Nevermind. Stop the show. I got to go try this. Got to go try this. It's an emergency. Interesting. Well, pin in that everybody. But Matt, what are we going to be talking about today?

0:01:33 Lydia: So smart when

0:01:40 Matt: So we'll be talking today, our main story is about the Cornell 7, which you've already covered now on Gavel Gavel a couple times, and of course, you had Liz on on Friday, great show to break down the indictment, excuse me, it wasn't, sorry, let me say it again, Yeah, right. It was on on Friday to break down the not indictment to kind of take through the criminal aspects of this. But what we have today is a call coming from inside the house at Cornell. This is from the Cornell Independent Student Newspaper, The Sundial. This is a piece that's made some waves, obviously, for good reason. We're going to talk about it and see why they published it and what they're actually saying in here. And, of course, just to bracket that, we have got our usual amused douche. We've got a great one for you today. And then, just to really go out strong, I've got a real idiot talking about Star Wars in 1983 on Siskel and Ebert. And I think you're

0:01:50 Thomas: It's not indictment. Yeah. Yeah. Oh,

0:02:24 Matt: Going to love it. So, got to have some fun on the way out, you know?

0:02:25 Thomas: Wow. Good times. Yeah. It's It's almost like a footnote segment. Do we do those on VR, Matt?

0:02:31 Matt: Bad takes footnote. Why not? You know?

0:02:32 Thomas: Your footnotes

0:02:32 Lydia: We're talking about terrible, terrible, horrible things. Yeah, I think we have to do something to

0:02:33 Thomas: Are invading. Okay.

0:02:37 Matt: Got to leave you smiling.

0:02:39 Lydia: Book

0:02:39 Thomas: All right. Well, that's a lot of stuff. Let's see. Any announcements in the OAverse book club

0:02:44 Lydia: Club book club on Sunday, um, so that's exciting. No, Sunday, October 25th, yep.

0:02:47 Matt: Sunday, November 1st, 4.30 p.m., we'll be talking. What? Oh. Wow. Great. Well, thanks, Lydia. Idea that that actually is still in the month of October, that makes sense. That's that's a good time to do it. October 25th. That would make a monthly book club. In the Okay, all right, I've got it caught up, uh, 4:30 p.m. October 25th, we'll talking about into the wood chipper. It's our fourth of the Eastern, yes, it's our, our October Halloween special, Into the Wood Chipper, talking about the end of USAID. Picked it on purpose as a Halloween because it is a horror story, um, about, yeah, being in the inside of that, so it'll be a good conversation.

0:03:01 Lydia: 4 30 Eastern yep yeah

0:03:21 Thomas: Slasher film. Oof.

0:03:22 Matt: Yeah. Literally Chainsaw.

0:03:23 Lydia: Definitely excited for that one. Though, I think it's important. Yeah,

0:03:24 Thomas: He literally did, it had a chainsaw, it was literally his stupid fucking god, that fucking guy. Well,

0:03:28 Matt: Massacre. Sticker. So yeah, it's true.

0:03:31 Lydia: Brought in a sink when he took over Twitter and brought in a chainsaw When he, a lot of prop comedy from Elon Musk, so you know.

0:03:32 Matt: Very funny.

0:03:34 Thomas: That was just hilarious. Uh, yeah, he's a regular Carrot Top. Of He's as funny as Carrot Top is what I would say about Elon Musk.

0:03:45 Lydia: I feel Like, that's Carrot Top slander. But, you know, yeah, he, he's just trying to have fun.

0:03:48 Thomas: That's that is probably too harsh on Carrot Top. Like, Carrot Top has had a couple of chuckle worthy, yeah, Carrot Top didn't get millions of people killed with his comedy, it's just, you know, it's just not good.

0:03:58 Lydia: We take it back, don't

0:04:01 Thomas: Yeah.

0:04:02 Lydia: Worry, Carrot Top.

0:04:02 Thomas: Oh, man, he's, he's, uh, so he's less, less funny even than Carrot, Carrot Top, I'll say. All right, well, that's a lot to get to, we got to take our first break, uh, but we get to to thank our top patrons, our Hall of Famers, the all-time greats here. Thank you to Help! I'm trapped in a Patreon shoutout! Weyoun 12, My house is a mess but I read a lot of books. Griff, the Tired 2L, Status Quo Level Thing. Matthew Cutler (twitch.tv/MTC_streams), Forgetting to change my Patreon name, I've had Crunchwraps More Supreme than this Court, Unpronounceable nerd reference, Larcenous cliff-diving motorcycle, Potato court is now in session. All fries, uh, probably

0:04:42 Matt: Is that the warm court guy? All right. I like it.

0:04:45 Lydia: Like it, welcome

0:04:44 Thomas: That's good, Amina, Donna Treadaway, Mother of Harridans, still rooting for the hamburgers to deliver more timely justice than the current system, Mike Lapinski.

0:04:53 Lydia: Back, patron, by the way, we got an email confirming it's, it's, um, Dr. Steve, yeah. Yeah, Welcome back, oh,

0:04:58 Thomas: Yeah, oh, duh, of course. Oh, good, good to hear it. So, cool. Mike Lapinski, we might have another returning patron, because the number seems to to have gone up again, so. We'll see, that's a fun game, who's who's back, we don't know. Mike Lapinsky, Edgar Allan Poe Museum. Is it is that something, or just literally the Edgar Allen Poe music, I don't know, cyanitis.

0:05:15 Lydia: Nice. I don't know, but I like it. I

0:05:20 Thomas: Mix of midterm hope and anxiety, yeah, great preponderance of the evidence, last train to Skanksville, I am not an abogado, there you go. So, uh, thanks so much, top patrons, that's of course at patreon.com/law, they pledge at that five dollar an episode number or above for at least a month, and that's how you get on that list, right, we'll take a quick break and then we'll get to it, right. For our Moose Douche, I think everyone already knows what this is, you can see the douche, he's there in the picture, Tommy

0:05:44 Matt: How it goes.

0:05:51 Lydia: There he, is that's

0:05:51 Matt: Right there. One Tommy Teeple. He sure plays a mean pinball, folks.

0:05:55 Thomas: To, yeah, Tommy

0:05:56 Lydia: A great name, though, I really like it

0:05:57 Thomas: Teeple, with a name like that. This is what you choose to do with your life.

0:06:01 Matt: Wait until you find out about his dad's name. We'll do this after. I'll tell you about his dad.

0:06:04 Lydia: Circus.

0:06:05 Matt: It's even better.

0:06:03 Thomas: Tommy Teeple What job should you have if you're Tommy Teeple? Well, you should be like a little elf, that like, yeah,

0:06:09 Matt: It should be a chimney sweep is what you should be.

0:06:11 Thomas: Tommy anything but this, yeah.

0:06:11 Lydia: Something that something that brings joy to

0:06:14 Thomas: Circus, uh, Chimney sweep, dignified work, you know, not this shit, not this garbage you're doing, Tommy Teeple, come on.

0:06:17 Matt: That's right. That's right. Yeah.

0:06:21 Thomas: All right, let's watch, some, everyone's already seen this by now, but it is worth it, set it up, yeah,

0:06:14 Lydia: People's lives, yeah. Yeah, yeah, completely

0:06:23 Matt: So, well, but let's make sure you could be listening to this in, you know, in 300 years. So this is Abdul El-Sayed running for Senate in Michigan, and he's doing a very good town hall forum. And he's about to be asked this question by one Tommy Teeple, a completely random person from the audience who just decided to show up and ask a question.

0:06:39 Lydia: Random

0:06:37 Thomas: Concerned citizen, Timey people, oh, boy, uh, yeah, okay, let's do it.

0:06:45 Clip: Thank you. I'll ask you a simple question. You can hear me and I'll answer the question. Okay, Tommy. Hi, Tommy. How are you? I'm great. Are you? Do you know the Constitution of United States? I have one simple question. Will you disavow the Constitution? Yeah, absolutely. But I want to ask you a question when you're asking. Why are you asking a question? Because they're a terrorist group.

0:07:07 Clip: No, no, but what are you implying? Do you assume that I won't? Yes. Why not? Because I have not heard you disavow the Constitution. How do you decide if I'm going to do this or not? I don't know. Do you get it? Believe it or not, you're asking a question because implicitly you assume that I'll have new laws. Right? You assume that somehow I will do this now. Somehow I'll have some higher order of allegiance in the Constitution. Correct? Tommy, is true or not? Yes. Why would you get that wrong? Because I am not going to destroy it. No, no, no, no. Why would you actually get that wrong? Because I am not going to destroy it. What I just did, why would you actually think that? Why would you, have you asked everybody in

0:07:46 Thomas: Right.

0:07:46 Clip: Your life if they knew about it? I have not. So why are you asking me? Because I have not. No, no, no, answer the question Tommy. Everybody knows the answer to you, answer the question.

0:07:58 Clip: Alright, so let me just tell you. Let me just tell you. I'm going to swear in the name the Constitution of the United States. And that Constitution of the United States is all right. I'm going swear in the name of the I'm to swear in the name of the United States. Of mine personally, that somehow I would have some allegiance to something that is not our Constitution. That's your assumption. That's implicit in the question. And what's interesting to me is that this is not the first time people have asked those kinds of questions. Because you know, John, I'm trying to use...

0:08:35 Thomas: We, uh, we I could watch all of that easily, but, uh, we shouldn't, uh, so good, it goes on, yeah.

0:08:35 Lydia: What,

0:08:38 Matt: So good yeah that's uh Abdul Al-Syed once again running for, I mean, this man, he was born in the U.S., he can be president someday, I think he's got great delivery, he's really just shuts him down, and it turns out Tommy does know who JFK is, and, uh, the point goes on as you might expect from there, but we're going to talk about Tommy, today's douche, for just a moment, because there has been some amazing new news. So, incredible new news about Tommy's father. So, I'm just going to send you a link, because you don't know this yet.

0:08:47 Thomas: Douche of the day He was a chimney sweep, his father's father was a chimney sweep, okay.

0:09:05 Matt: Now, we already know that Tommy worked for Josh Hawley and has other Republican connections, but this gets even better. Check out this headline.

0:09:13 Thomas: Okay, man who heckled Al-Syed is son of Republican advisor who was paid for influencer marketing. Timmy

0:09:19 Matt: Specifically, keep going, it's even better, Timmy Teeple.

0:09:23 Thomas: Teeple's firm. Wait, it's oh,

0:09:25 Matt: Folks has entered the chat, Timmy. Teeple.

0:09:27 Thomas: So, his father's Timmy Teeple, and he's Tommy Teeple, wow,

0:09:29 Lydia: And his son is Tommy Teep. Oh, my god, and they were paid 250 grand by America Next, trying to gin up, quote, "organic opposition to El Sayed," yeah,

0:09:37 Thomas: What,

0:09:31 Matt: And Now Let's pull up their FEC filing, which I've sent you next And when it says "organic opposition," check out their FEC filing, this is unbelievable, so this is dark money all the way, the Guardian tracked this down and it turns out that this organization, America Next, has its offices right next to, amazingly, the organization that gave it money, because I was just like, you know, this $250,000 thing just being passed around through the dark money. But just check out this FEC filing on page two, what their purpose is, what they do. This is a, an FEC registered, excuse me, this is a campaign registered in Baton Rouge, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, excuse me, page two, next

0:10:14 Lydia: Purpose of expenditure, canvassing and influencer marketing, name a federal candidate supported or opposed by expenditure, El Sayed, Abdul, dot comma, comma, comma, actually, I was going to say dot dot dot, but they wrote comma, comma, comma, yeah,

0:10:20 Matt: Line. That's it. And then, and

0:10:27 Thomas: You just I've never seen this. Form you register, like, hey, we hate this guy in particular? Huh,

0:10:35 Lydia: Yeah, yeah,

0:10:36 Matt: That's what we're going to do. So this guy was so lazy, when he got his $250,000, he sent his son, the one person he probably doesn't really have to pay, uh, I'm sure he's getting some money out of it, but he spent you know he blew it on this

0:10:44 Lydia: Dad

0:10:45 Thomas: My god, what if Tommy Teeple got like a hundred bucks, he's like, wait a minute, it, yeah. I thought I could retire, my chimney sweep job, yeah.

0:10:49 Lydia: What the hell?

0:10:50 Matt: It's really skimming like It was great when he's exposed to Josh Holly guy, but this is so much better because it's a family operation, like he's they they wasted this money because this guy got shut down. It's become like a dress kind of thing. There's people who watch this and think that somehow Tommy won this. I don't understand that at all. Uh, you have to be delusional.

0:11:07 Lydia: Way.

0:11:08 Matt: It keeps going, yes, they have to then, right, or they think that that side was too angry or something, but come on.

0:11:07 Thomas: There's no one who thinks that, there might be people who pretend to think that, but there's no one who actually thinks that,

0:11:16 Matt: I mean, that was a perfectly balanced response.

0:11:16 Lydia: It was so pathetic.

0:11:17 Thomas: That's that, that is entirely a fake opinion that no one has, I refuse to believe it. I mean, it's so obvious, so he gets to the next point, by the end of the video he's like, so will you commit to not having your Christian faith, uh, enter our legislation, or whatever kind of thing, and he's like, no, like, okay, cool.

0:11:35 Lydia: Crazy.

0:11:36 Thomas: So this is not, I, wow, I'm, I'm shocked that this is not just a concerned citizen. This is what's the opposite of just a concerned citizen, short of, like, Abdul Al-Syed's opponent being the questioner, like, that's like one step after that is somebody who's part of this fucking whatever, this is what is this again, what kind of entity is this, okay a Pack that whose sole purpose is to oppose El-Sayed, it's the only thing on their fucking uh purpose uh name of federal candidate support

0:12:11 Lydia: Man.

0:12:00 Matt: Some. Kind of Peck, yeah. Dark money thing, yep. From Louisiana and this is how they do it they send a guy who can immediately be linked as his son to ask a dumbass question that can immediately be shut down and provide an incredible viral moment for a guy who needs to win, yeah.

0:12:19 Lydia: Amazing.

0:12:20 Matt: So good just

0:12:16 Thomas: They are not sending their best who's Craig Moreno, just whoever registered

0:12:23 Lydia: I just looked him up. He's a CPA.

0:12:24 Matt: Whoever ever registered it, oh

0:12:25 Lydia: So I don't know if he's like actually affiliated.

0:12:26 Matt: He just prepared it yeah yeah but this is absolutely Timmy Teeple's organization, so Guardian has the whole story, we'll link to it yeah, yep. Tommy son of Timmy

0:12:34 Lydia: But yeah, Timmy and Tommy no

0:12:28 Thomas: Timmy Teeple what's what's his dad's name, name, can't think of anything, Todd Teeple. No, can't be, you don't have another oh boy, um, that's great, so that's even dumber than, yeah, speaking of douche, that is so funny too.

0:12:39 Lydia: Tati yeah what a douche incredible to

0:12:40 Matt: Yeah, Toddy. Yeah well yeah

0:12:52 Thomas: And I wonder if like if their brain worms mean that they thought that was like a good point or something you know like I I don't know is it is this just okay I'm gonna just cash this this $250,000 check, which, Hey, if anyone wants to pay me $250,000, I will go ask a dumb question.

0:13:09 Lydia: Sound like an idiot somewhere yeah

0:13:10 Thomas: Yeah. And then afterwards I'll do like an appearance and be like, I just got paid $250,000 to do that. I don't care. I was pretending.

0:13:19 Lydia: I like, America Next, that just spent $250,000 for this thing? Like, wouldn't you be pissed? I would be pissed if that was my money. I would be pretty upset. Like, I just paid a lot of money and that's what I got out of it.

0:13:31 Thomas: Well, we've seen how much money Elon is pumping into this. We've seen, like, I wonder if this, you know, there's so much grift. There's so much people probably taking advantage of the billionaire money just crazy money going into this Oh boy. The douche of the week. I just realized what's the song. What's our favorite song, Matt? What's our new, yeah, we need, I want, I want to hire that person. If anyone knows who that was, who made that, if it's not AI and I don't think it is, I think it's a real guy.

0:13:34 Lydia: That's True. That's true. It Legal takes. Yeah. Yeah,

0:13:59 Matt: Telling you, just steal it till we get sued, see what happens.

0:14:01 Thomas: No. I'm saying I want to hire that genius to make one for the douche of the day for the, for the, for the amuse douche, you know, it's an amuse douche. No, they got to write a new one. You know, they got to, I want it exactly as good as that. Hi, can you make something not exactly the same song, but just as good. I want it to be

0:14:05 Matt: The douche of the day. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yes.

0:14:18 Matt: Yeah, but for like people who are funny and competent

0:14:18 Lydia: Just as catchy. Like brings a smile to your face.

0:14:21 Thomas: Just as designed for like a radio commercial from the fifties, you know, just that vibe. Oh man, this is great. That is a, that's a, we cover a lot of douches on this show, but that's a really good amuse douche. Just, like, I just happen to be a guy getting paid a quarter million dollars to do nothing. Wait,

0:14:37 Lydia: I Think you said that they were like right next door to each other, this Pack, and this, this article from The Guardian, says that they actually share an office suite and

0:14:48 Thomas: This Pack in what, sorry, I missed the other thing.

0:14:49 Matt: Yes, even better,

0:14:49 Lydia: And Timmy Teeple's Uh, like actual company, Breakthrough, LLC. So, like, Breakthrough, LLC, and America Next share an office suite, yeah.

0:14:49 Matt: The donors, yeah. The people paying for it, yeah. Ah, yes, there we go, yeah, is that's right, Yep.

0:15:00 Thomas: So wait, what is this? Form, I've been joking that he got paid $250,000, but is that what this set is, or is that their whole, oh,

0:15:09 Lydia: A hundred percent. He, yeah, Breakthrough LLC got paid $250,000 from America Next, which is that 501c4. Yes.

0:15:17 Thomas: It is literally just for, for that payment, or something, or that, huh. Oh, canvassing, influencer. Mark, oh I see, gosh, that is nuts. How do we have how do we have this? I thought it was way harder to get this very specific information. Oh sorry, the wrong thing. Uh, here's, here's that, that screen again for those who can look.

0:15:21 Matt: Yeah, it's Michael Cohen, operation, dark money is yeah, yeah, I know, you

0:15:36 Thomas: Is that do we get

0:15:36 Matt: Still got to register your Pack, it's just where the money comes from, like the actual dark money tracing, because you can filter it through all these things.

0:15:43 Thomas: So normally they do a better job of hiding their billionaire influence than this.

0:15:47 Matt: I think normally they'd pay like a local kid to just show up and do it instead of his son. But, you know, he's going the cheap way. So, yep.

0:15:50 Thomas: Well, every accusation is a confession. We don't have the money to pay protesters, you know, but they do. And all their bullshit is paid, and it's bad, it's stupid and bad. Well, that was fun. All right, well, we've got to get to, All right, no more avoiding it. We better get to what you want to talk about, Matt. Let's look at this. What do we got here, this article for, out of Sundial, what's that?

0:15:57 Lydia: Incredible. Incredible. Yeah,

0:16:13 Matt: So, Obviously, this is a college story, so I want to find a college paper, and this is the worst take you're going to find from inside the Ivy League, I think. This is Columbia University's independent newspaper, The Sundial. And they have a whole explanation about why they published this. I don't think they needed to publish it. I think if they were going to publish it, they might as well publish something that resembles the facts of the case, which you've already discussed at length. It doesn't really do that, as we're going to find. And it wants to say, well, you can go ahead read the headline. You'll get the idea.

0:16:20 Thomas: Boy, tall claim, hmm, sure.

0:16:39 Lydia: The Cornell Seven, in quotes, is really about liberalism. Cool. Our society celebrates

0:16:46 Matt: And oh, the subtitle is pretty relevant too.

0:16:48 Thomas: Sorry, yeah, sorry.

0:16:48 Lydia: Our society celebrates libertine sexuality while infantilizing women, and this is written by Nikos Muhammadi and Christina Ma. Christina Ma is the vice president for College Republicans out of Columbia. Surprise, surprise, Nikos Muhammadi is also very conservative and actually just had an internship with Unheard, so, um, he's been, you know, pretty vocal on there. He had a piece so

0:17:00 Matt: You don't say, because

0:17:12 Thomas: Do you go to Columbia and the best he can do is an internship at Unheard?

0:17:15 Lydia: Far but, um, after this piece kind of went viral and people were very, very upset, understandably, once we get into it, I think everybody will understand, even beyond just the headline. Um, he wrote a follow-up piece, "Why My Classmates Want Me Silenced." So, you know, he's a baby, yeah, yeah,

0:17:29 Matt: You wrote this, that's why it's pretty easy. Um, you know, again, I, I do support, obviously, a wide range of free speech, but, like, you don't have to publish every thought that the college Republicans have, um, or the college Democrats, or the college communists, yes, and and

0:17:41 Thomas: Or if you do, we should all be mad and talk and make fun of it and express our free speech by saying this is fucking stupid and you shouldn't publish this, yeah.

0:17:52 Matt: You're leaving out a bunch of facts, like, this person is definitely destined for the Supreme Court, because they, this is how they view facts and use facts.

0:17:58 Lydia: I Also feel like if you are, a and this would go on regardless of what political, like, side of the aisle you fall on, at college, if you're publishing a piece in the paper and you hold like a leadership position in something on campus, like the college Republicans or something like that, I feel like that should be disclosed, but it's not, so I don't know, yep.

0:18:18 Matt: Should, yeah, And I just and, of course, just remind everybody, I know that you've already extensively covered this, but of course, this case came out somewhat recently, end of September, but it was back in 2022. And I mean, I think we all agree that the facts are brutal. I know, obviously, trigger warning for this entire segment. I don't think that it goes without saying. But I just can't believe what I'm seeing about people out there right now talking as if there's something to debate about what happened in this situation. We've all seen the screenshot of the Snapchat group where they're inviting the rest of the frat to come and basically take advantage of a woman who's been completely incapacitated by ketamine and alcohol and marijuana. It is beyond disgusting and reprehensible. There's just nothing to defend here. And just because there's some conflicting statements from, as often happens in these situations, from the days after,

0:18:19 Thomas: Interesting.

0:19:07 Matt: We believe the person who said that she 100% was raped and that this was coerced. So that's the end of it for me.

0:19:15 Thomas: The whole, the whole Snapchat kind of blows that, you know, it'd one thing if you didn't have the Snapchat, like, maybe there'd be some amount of, like, okay, well, maybe this argument, you know, for why there might have been a misunderstanding. But when you see the Snapchat, it's like, oh well, never, mind.

0:19:28 Matt: Yeah, these are awful people. And nobody jumps into Snapchat to be like, what are you guys doing? Nobody comes in the room to try to stop them. Nobody does anything. And that's it. That's completely disqualifying for humanity.

0:19:36 Thomas: Except for whoever handed it over. And well, whoever took a video of it before it disappeared is actually a pretty big hero, because that, that it would, Snapchat disappears, you know, would have been the evidence would have been gone. Uh, so at least there's that. Person, yeah.

0:19:49 Matt: And these people will come back, and there's some talk of this in here too, and say that because she possibly may have, and I don't think she's really capable of consenting at the point at which any of this happened, but she may have consented to sex with two people. That's possible, but that's a lot.

0:20:00 Thomas: I think she did, she admits that in her uh, interview, so, yeah,

0:20:01 Matt: And, you know, but again, there's also debate to be had, and maybe I'm infantilizing women, but maybe men should be more aware of the fact that women just had 10 drinks and a line of ketamine. You know, that's, which, yeah, well, we'll talk about that. But let's say, hmm.

0:20:09 Thomas: That's yeah, there's a lot, that, we still, I still want to get to that, we haven't with Gavel Gavel, about this, because I have a lot of thoughts about, you know, what, what was in her original statements, what was in her interview that we, that we have, and it's true that she's interested in the one guy and she was, she seems to have consented, by her admission, to uh, three-way, but I also think there's one thing that I don't think anyone's really talked about that I've heard, which is, not yes-and, to yes-and you, Matt, yes-and, the, the, um, substance going on, the substance is going on there, but also kind of the false pretenses of it. Like, she consented to something under false pretenses. She consented to something possibly that was like an, oh, an organic, like, three-way with her and this guy that she's interested in.

0:20:59 Thomas: She didn't know that what actually was happening was the guy, I, was sending a Snapchat, like, invitation to everybody. That's horrific.

0:21:07 Matt: It's disgusting.

0:21:08 Thomas: You know, and that was actually genuinely shocking on Gavel Gavel when Lydia said that, right, it's the same guy that she was interested in was the one who sent the "free pussy" Snapchat, which is like the worst form of betrayal, you know, just, just really yeah, and, and had someone not recorded that Snapchat, she would, would have never known, and so that's the part that no one has, I think, quite gotten, that I've seen, is what happens when you start out thinking you had a consensual three-way, maybe with somebody, or you went into the night thinking that, that maybe, like, got out of control, like, that seems to be what she thought afterward was, like, or maybe that what she was telling herself, who knows, based on the interviews and based on that kind of thing, like, oh, this got out of control. If you didn't find out about the Snapchat till a while later, if you find out that actually that was all a lie to get you there and to like allow other people to take advantage of you, then yeah, you did it, that would change your view, you

0:21:26 Lydia: Then he tried to act like her friend after, like, Yeah,

0:22:14 Thomas: Know. That of course it would, you can't just say, well, but you went before it was revealed that I was tricking you, you were into it, you said it was fine. Yeah, okay, then she found out you were the worst kind of liar that betrayed her and and enabled her to to be taken advantage of, like, of course she's then going to be like, wait a minute, no, this was actually rape, you know, I

0:22:35 Matt: I will point out that she was, I mean, not maybe I don't know the degree to which the drug use was consensual, obviously, some of it was, but doesn't matter. Because the fact is that ketamine, alcohol, and marijuana all badly affect your memory. And in combination, they affect your memory quite a lot, and so these, I can't imagine these these men didn't know that either, um, and that's part of this situation people need to remember, is that there's hours and hours, four, four hours or so, in which, you know, these things are happening, and you know, all these drugs being used, so maybe somebody not having a full memory of it the day after is not the same as kind of putting it together, especially as you said, when you see the full picture. Yeah.

0:22:49 Lydia: I bet. Oh.

0:23:08 Thomas: Think, yeah, I think it really changes once she finds out what was really going on, it changes I mean, you can't, you can't just trick somebody into something like that, have them think it was one thing and then be mad that once you, it's revealed What? It was, yeah.

0:23:21 Lydia: I was being Sex trafficked. Cool, yeah.

0:23:22 Thomas: Like, essentially. Yeah. You found out that's what it was that changes the interaction you may may have, you may have said just hypothetically, you could have a sexual interaction that you're like, yeah, that was fine. Totally fine. You find out, oh, it was a trick, you know, and someone was filming it or something. It's like, oh fuck. Well, now that I've been sexually violated in a horrible way, right? Like same interaction, but you don't have the information yet.

0:23:45 Thomas: That's, that's a completely different thing. It's, so the idea that like conflicting statements would somehow disprove her story. I just don't think it's true at all.

0:23:54 Matt: And it's not worth writing an "other side" piece about, which is what we're doing here. So.

0:23:57 Thomas: Well here, Let's read what's not worth writing, Matt. That's what we do here. If there's a tagline for us, reading what is not worth writing.

0:23:59 Matt: That's Right, so, You don't have to, making

0:24:06 Thomas: Fuck

0:24:07 Lydia: All right. The Instagram storm began on Monday, September 28th. Quote, I did not go to Cornell. I went to a different Ivy in New York.

0:24:13 Thomas: Off. Sorry, already, fuck off. If you're, it's 2026, if the start of your article is the Instagram storm, the tweet storm, shut up. Like, we've, can't we get past this? You're writing about what happened to you on social media. Yeah.

0:24:25 Lydia: Social media took off. Yeah. Title IX betrayed me there too, posted one Columbia graduate turned pro-Israel influencer okay sorry

0:24:33 Matt: A point of, saying their prayer is real, yeah, sure, just

0:24:36 Lydia: I'm that is so stupid unnecessary yeah another widely liked and shared post highlighted Emma Sulkowicz, the since graduated Columbia student who says she was raped on campus throughout 2014 and 2015 she carried a mattress from class to class as a form of protest Columbia's Title IX office found no evidence for that claim and no charges were brought either by the police or the Manhattan district attorney

0:24:36 Thomas: What why Huh. Oh,

0:24:38 Matt: To discredit them. Well,

0:24:50 Thomas: Yeah, I remember this actually yeah What does that actually mean, yeah, exactly. You know, when our bikes got stolen, the police found nothing, so it didn't happen. Our bikes got stolen, we cut, we told the police, they're like, why are you fucking telling us this, this is stupid.

0:24:58 Matt: That settles that then? I

0:25:12 Thomas: I'm like, yeah, you know what, I feel dumb for telling you this, why did I even do that? Yeah.

0:25:07 Matt: Tried to I had I had the same experience when I reported my car stolen to the Boston Police Department. So now What?

0:25:18 Thomas: Well, Matt, I got good news for you, it wasn't stolen. Now, now that they said we can't help you, that means there was no arrest. There was, they didn't find any evidence of it. So your car wasn't stolen, Matt. Liar and a slut.

0:25:22 Matt: Well, the the problem is that they were right. Uh, yeah,

0:25:32 Thomas: Matt, you harlot.

0:25:32 Matt: That's right, yeah, I was asking for it, to have my, now they're right, it actually turns out I just forgot where I parked it. The guy literally asked me that, I was getting offended and then it

0:25:41 Thomas: Bad example. Bad example.

0:25:44 Lydia: No, really? You actually forgot?

0:25:46 Thomas: Matt.

0:25:46 Lydia: Oh, Matt.

0:25:47 Thomas: Oh, Matt.

0:25:47 Matt: He's like, most of the time, people just forget where they parked it. He's like, you know,

0:25:48 Thomas: Why? You just blew my whole point, Matt. Okay. Occasionally there's someone who accidentally stole their own car, didn't realize it sometimes. I was, you know, occasionally doesn't undermine my point, okay, uh,

0:25:56 Lydia: Matt.

0:25:52 Matt: Sorry, sometimes Yes. Yeah. Yeah. VPD knows me too well, student

0:26:06 Lydia: Another Instagram post with over 350,000 likes as of this piece's publication and first reported in Unheard, which this author has an affiliation with, and there's no disclosure of that either.

0:26:08 Thomas: That's So good, yeah, Do we... I was gonna say, disclose That,

0:26:19 Lydia: Nope. Calls

0:26:19 Thomas: First reported in the amazing and very good looking Unheard, yeah,

0:26:23 Lydia: To quote, remove their heads in a public setting, showing the likenesses of the Cornell seven, in quotes, and everywhere far beyond Columbia's gates and our student bodies' bespoke social media algorithms, women are gender warring and declaring, quote, I am Jane Doe.

0:26:27 Thomas: Wait. Sorry, far beyond Columbia's gates and our students, student bodies' bespoke social media algorithms, what does that mean I

0:26:45 Lydia: They're just getting, trying to get fancy, right,

0:26:41 Matt: Buddies. That's really bad writing. The bodies, like the, the collective's bespoke, so everybody has their own individual bespoke social media algorithms, they're not a body, I

0:26:53 Lydia: Each

0:26:53 Thomas: Think that so yeah. Is that, that what it's trying to say, it's each of their, okay.

0:26:55 Matt: Don't know what it's trying to say. They're

0:26:58 Lydia: Of their bodies.

0:26:58 Thomas: Everywhere far beyond, that, well, okay, but here's what I love, you've, you've referenced the algorithms and then you've said, and everywhere far beyond that it's happening, but I'm not going to tell you about it, I'm just telling you about the algorithms, I'm just telling you about Instagram, okay.

0:26:59 Matt: Student bodies, yeah, yeah. Right. The easiest stuff to find, yeah, my algorithm, yeah, okay.

0:27:19 Thomas: Shut

0:27:20 Lydia: We, believe that this collective frenzy is deeply unproductive, neglects any and all facts of the case which disagree with the quote preferred narrative, and infantilizes women. It is also ushered in a climate on campus in which it is difficult to disagree with the maximalist position on what happened on October 19th and October 20th, 2024, to one Jane Doe at Cornell's Chi-5 frat house.

0:27:24 Thomas: Up, yeah.

0:27:40 Matt: This language, do You think we would prefer that the thing that happened happened? Do you think that's really what we want? First, of all, that's disgusting to say that. But also, the maximalist position is literally... I mean, I understand that it's a civil complaint, and let's just say that out loud. Obviously, it's civil complaint. They're allegations, obviously backed by texts and lots of accounts, and I certainly believe the woman. But this whole idea of the maximalist position, you're automatically setting this up that you just don't believe her.

0:28:06 Thomas: I mean, this is, it's what year is it, like, this is 2012 era bullshit where you're taking what you see online, which is obviously, you can find anything online, fucking anything, and there's people who are way too mad, or they may, you know, they say stuff like, obviously, no one, people shouldn't literally want the men to be executed by beheading, I don't, I don't know that anyone literally means that, they They may say off with their heads as a form of anger. If someone did literally mean that, then yeah, they're fucking nuts. That's not right. That shouldn't happen. But big fucking deal. You found someone on the internet who said a thing. You can find a lot of stuff on the internet. But I had to note collective frenzy is hyperlinked. And that takes us to the unheard article. The Cornell 7 is fueling a campus

0:28:11 Matt: Come on.

0:28:55 Thomas: Media frenzy.

0:28:56 Matt: Is that his unheard article? It

0:28:56 Thomas: Yeah, by Nikos Mohamedy.

0:28:56 Matt: Is. Yeah. There we go. Yeah.

0:28:59 Thomas: Wow.

0:28:59 Matt: Self-promotion.

0:29:00 Thomas: Well, that's proof then. If he's able to reference this other independent source saying this is a collective frenzy. Okay.

0:29:03 Matt: His own frenzy. Yeah. Also, he clearly just doesn't understand why it makes people angry. That's concerning in itself, that you're not angry about this at all, apparently. I don't know.

0:29:11 Thomas: Sorry.

0:29:14 Lydia: And then just this parenthetical we can skip over, just explaining Jane Doe's the pseudonym. The seeds had already been sown the week prior by the Cornell Daily Sun,

0:29:23 Thomas: Heading the problem with the frenzy

0:29:25 Lydia: Why the frenzy is a problem. The seeds had already been sown the week prior by the Cornell Daily Sun, the upstate New York Ivy's principal student-run publication, in a September 21st creed accor entitled, quote, "Cornell won't, we will," the editorial board wrote. "Cornell has failed to protect its students. Cornell. Cornell has failed to address the growing issue of sexual assault on campus with its pathetic task force. Cornell has failed the student allegedly raped by those seven men at Chi-Fi in October 2024. Cornell has failed her."

0:29:54 Thomas: Check.

0:29:54 Lydia: "Cornell has failed us." The

0:29:54 Thomas: Check. Okay, so a bunch of true stuff. Got it.

0:29:58 Lydia: Daily Sun also named the seven men who had participated or been complicit in the alleged gang rape of Doe. By October 3rd, the top three rows of the campus daily were devoted to covering, from a single perspective, the Cornell Seven.

0:30:10 Matt: The single perspective.

0:30:10 Thomas: Nobody got like the pro rape a girl perspective in there, and you know, what, that's lacking in our fucking dialectic. Yeah.

0:30:18 Matt: I just want to make sure we say this out loud, that when these things happen, you put the names out there so people understand that's what happens to you when you do this. You are completely going to be shunned.

0:30:25 Thomas: I mean that was A

0:30:26 Lydia: You Shame.

0:30:26 Matt: You're gonna be kicked out Yeah.

0:30:26 Thomas: Bold choice Right. Matt, I mean, I feel like that was a pretty bold bold choice

0:30:29 Matt: It was but necessary and And, and I think even the way he says, "or had been complicit," he's like suggesting he has a problem with listing names of people who are complicit. The entire frat was complicit.

0:30:38 Thomas: I was only complicit. I only facilitated the sexual abuse. I didn't do it.

0:30:41 Matt: I just was standing by, right. I just sent the Snapchat messages. You know, I didn't touch her. Come on.

0:30:45 Thomas: Sorry

0:30:47 Lydia: Them Let's see. "To date, the closest thing the Daily Sun has published to a quote, contrarian position." Yeah.

0:30:51 Thomas: You say that like, like, like your sarcasm of like, this is the, the closest they've come to a contrarian position. Why would you want a contrarian position? We don't need to, like, the, you're, this person, is this a student? Oh, boy, they're they're, they're, uh, I, I don't know what this says about students at this place, or just Republican students, or what, but if your fucking brain has been altered to where you think, what, what media is or should be, is every single thing that happens should have like a contrarian attached to it. That's like, actually, it's good that, whatever, you know, like, if that's how your brain works, man, you, that's just not how media

0:31:04 Lydia: They're both students. Yeah, uh,

0:31:31 Matt: Know,

0:31:32 Thomas: Should be.

0:31:32 Matt: The Mexican. I don't think I ever saw once a contrarian position published in the New York Times about January 6th. I think they were only, I mean, he was a little bit pro sometimes because it's New York Times, but I just don't think they ever made the case for the other people, so let's fix that. I

0:31:44 Thomas: Did

0:31:46 Lydia: In October 8th op-ed on how the incessant social media posting reflects a lack of, quote, respect for Jane Doe, quote, respect for survivors of sexual assault everywhere, and quote, respect for yourselves. The Daily Sun did not respond to Sundial's request for comment. Such a crusade.

0:32:02 Thomas: You Look at that. Or what is that? You're using an alleged rape case for views. Yeah, okay, I could see that being something.

0:32:04 Lydia: I clicked on it, it's just a student, student article from Cornell. I don't even think that's necessarily a contrarian position. I think it's like, like, you know, people might be capitalizing on this. In

0:32:16 Thomas: That might be like a good, because I don't, I don't know the details. Oftentimes as someone who was once a, the Republican thing that these folks have to do is find other ways to smuggle in their bullshit, you know, where it's like, well, I'm not, I'm not defending the thing, but like, have you considered this thing that sort of like gets to the thing, you know what I mean? Like, so I don't, I haven't read that article in full. It's not worth it, but that could be a good take, or it could be trying, trying to smuggle in more bullshit. Who knows?

0:32:41 Matt: Hate

0:32:47 Lydia: Fine. Um, such a crusade neglects the complexity of the matter. Doe initially reported the incident to Cornell police, the university safety force, three weeks after the incident had occurred, and only once she had been disinvited from Kai Fai's Halloween party. I do too. The seemingly progressive Tompkins County District Attorney then found that, quote, Jane Doe's statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual. He declined to press charges. An array of statements uncovered from Doe herself, all hyperlinked underneath each of those, following the alleged rape, further calls into question whether it's prudent to jump to any definitive conclusion, no less the one many Colombians have, what occurred was absolutely rape, all women's experiences are represented in what

0:33:00 Matt: That talking point It's awful. Yeah.

0:33:31 Lydia: Happened to Doe and if you disagree, you are deeply suspect. Yeah.

0:33:31 Thomas: One thinks that you fucking idiot. No one thinks that. No one thinks all women's experiences are represented in what happened to Doe. Who would, who would even say that?

0:33:41 Lydia: Yeah.

0:33:42 Thomas: What are you talking about? You know, yeah, the Halloween thing, this is again, why I wanted to do, you know, still the GG was kind of due on this to go through what she said, because Because I think that like, I think we should take that head on. I think, I think there is a thing where people are afraid to bring up the, maybe the parts that look worse for Jane Doe in these instances. And, and, you know, the thing that I've always done throughout or tried to do throughout my career is when everyone's saying like, well, you can't even bring this up. I go, oh, okay. I'll bring that up and then talk about it. And in most things, um, I, you can bring it up and talk about it, and actually it's, you know, it might be a consideration, but ultimately people have thought about it and it's like, doesn't really change much. And so but

0:34:15 Lydia: Let's what happens Yeah. I

0:34:28 Matt: It's something that happened. It's part of the story. She

0:34:30 Thomas: I, I will say it is true that, like, people are very resistant to wanting to bring up the, more the parts that make Jane Doe look a little worse, um, and in any situation, and it's understandable, that she's the victim, uh, you know, you don't want to, you don't want to be doing that, I totally get it, but I think it, it, I think someone should, I don't think everyone should, but I think, I think somebody should be at least going through the arguments, so that it doesn't appear to be, especially to these bad faith actors who are writing this, it doesn't become an arrow in their quiver to be like, look, they can't even talk about this, you know, because, and, and I already mentioned, I won't get, go into it more, but the Halloween party is part of that, finding out this was, was actually kind of false pretenses, and you know, there may be some amount of, of, you know, people aren't perfect, victims aren't perfect, nobody's perfect, there might be some amount of, maybe like a way that that changed her view, that you could look at as, as in a certain way, but like, to me, it's part of the package of, if you thought you were doing something with someone you liked, who might like you, and then all of a sudden you find out, like, oh no, you're not, you can't, you're not even allowed back here, that changes how you think about what happened to you. You

0:35:42 Thomas: Know

0:35:42 Lydia: Think it's also like really complex, psychologically, like as a woman, when you go through something like that, especially, like, when you know the people, finding all the ways that you can to make excuses for them and stuff, and like, you don't want to mess up their lives, like, like, you know, you still consider them with respect in all these other ways, and so how does that like, make sense with how you were violated in this way, and like, you excuse a lot away, a lot, and then when that's like, not reciprocated, then it's just kind of like these more cracks into what you've been building up as like defense mechanisms, basically, to protect yourself in some ways, um, yeah, and she probably at that point had had just been like, wait a second, what is happening here? Yeah, yeah.

0:36:22 Thomas: Well, yeah, and imagine absolutely and imagine the feeling of, especially with how public it was, because she found out people were talking about it as As like a gang rape, or I can't remember. Yeah, I think someone said it was a, you know, they were talking about like that, and before this Halloween party thing and before the Snapchat, which I think she found out maybe slightly after that, um, she might have thought, okay, this was a, a, an interaction, again, with somebody who I liked and maybe trusted, that got out of control. And then imagine being essentially banned from the entire fraternity after this very, very weird thing happened, in which multiple, you know, men, boys, whatever you want to say, multiple, uh, frat bros are like seeing you and coming into the room and and doing stuff with you, and then you're banned. That, that really does change how the interaction was.

0:37:16 Thomas: You know, I think I, you know, just to take a, a, like a hypothetical that's, you know, not the same thing, but to prove the point, I think if you, you know, went on a date with someone and they talked in a way that really you thought they were interested in you, you thought like, oh, there's a future here. There's a relationship. Things are great. They're, they're talking to you, you, in that way, you have sex and then they completely ghost you, I feel like that changes your perception of what went on there, right? Where you're like, oh, okay.

0:37:43 Thomas: You were just, were you just trying to get to that, you know, like that, that. Changes how you feel about it, it's appropriate.

0:37:49 Matt: Said that she felt like a sex. Doll, right?

0:37:51 Thomas: Yeah. Exactly. It, it, and. And that's, that's how reality is, you know, like.

0:37:55 Matt: And that's. And.

0:37:55 Thomas: People, to your point, hon, like, I, I think especially it would preserve her sense of dignity a little bit for it to have been a thing that she went through that was kind of just. A weird thing that happened, and these. Guys were, you know, changing from that to this, like literally being banned from the place and feeling excluded and feeling like now you're a thing that they, you were like an object to them, and they did this, and now they're done with you, like that's, that's so much worse. Yeah.

0:38:23 Lydia: Oh, like, we'll break. Your brain, yeah.

0:38:26 Matt: I. Just. Want to make the point about ketamine. I don't know how much experience you guys have with it, but it is not okay.

0:38:30 Lydia: None, yeah.

0:38:31 Matt: Well, I mean it's Strong recommend for some purposes, but not for this one. Do not, like, especially with people you don't know very well. And again, I'm blaming her. I'm blaming these guys for introducing ketamine to picture.

0:38:42 Matt: Weed, sure, if you're consenting and that's what you want to do, it's the best thing there is. But ketamine is not something that's really considered to be like a fun sex drug. And the fact that it's so popular at this frat and that they're using it, they're Like having all these women snorted off of them. It badly affects your perception and your memory and your sense of time and lots of other things. And I just have to think there's like a very date rapey sense.

0:39:02 Matt: To the fact these guys are, and whatever, like. I don't have any problem with using ketamine for themselves and or using it consensually with people who want to use it, but it's just not, it's just a weird thing to bring to this kind of party, yeah.

0:39:10 Lydia: Like in those circumstances it feels. Suspect.

0:39:13 Thomas: I think that's the part that Is hard for our society. It's back into Me Too stuff, I think, where the actual truth there that you're touching at, Matt, is these frat houses are places designed to try to do that, to produce this exact thing or something slightly less, less serious than this, maybe, because they want to.

0:39:13 Matt: And. To. Immediately. Offer. To her, she'd.

0:39:15 Lydia: It's. A good. Point, or.

0:39:36 Matt: Already.

0:39:36 Thomas: Continue.

0:39:36 Matt: Had 10.

0:39:36 Thomas: Doing.

0:39:37 Matt: Drinks. In three hours. Right, we all know what that's like. But. I mean that's. You. Know, yeah.

0:39:39 Thomas: It. It's, it's to ply women with drugs and alcohol to get them to consent to things that maybe they might not otherwise. That's like the function of these frat houses.

0:39:49 Lydia: You would have actually had to try to. Get them to consent to things by being like a decent human being and charming, and you know. A friend. I. Think.

0:39:55 Thomas: And, and, you Know, there's a, there's a level of it in college where it's like understandable, you know, classic, like college party, having a couple of drinks, you know, your, your college kids having fun, sure, but the frat houses, it really feels like this assembly line thing. It feels like this intentional, you know, um, conspiracy almost, with some of these things, to that, where they talk about how they're going to get girls drunk and how they're going to, you know, maybe give girls substances. And it's, that's the part that I think our society is not fully grappling with. Like this, this stuff should just be banned. Like this, the frat house thing, I just, I don't get it, it shouldn't. Exist.

0:40:30 Matt: I. I. Purposely went to a school that didn't have them, and this is exactly what I thought they were doing at the other schools. I mean, this is this, this, and I was really hoping by now this might have changed with all the reforms they've been doing and talking about, but that Snapchat did, did not surprise me in the least. It's horrible, but that's exactly. What I expect is going on, and.

0:40:45 Thomas: It's. Awful.

0:40:45 Matt: It's got. To stop, and yeah.

0:40:47 Lydia: We got to. Take a break before.

0:40:48 Thomas: Good. Point.

0:40:48 Lydia: We. Continue.

0:40:49 Thomas: We. Are, oh, we got so caught up in it, we didn't. Take our, our second break and we got to thank our patrons, uh, of course, that's, it's back to cheerful things, thanking our amazing Hall of Fame patrons and reading some names, that's so fun to do. So thank you to Apprentice of Adventure, Charlie Kelly, Attorney of Bird Law, probably a real person, Nick Fish, who is more annoying, Benny Johnson or David Brooks, oh, did we have that one? No, that's new.

0:41:12 Matt: That's new, I. Think that's. That's easy. For me. But.

0:41:14 Thomas: One, right? I think, wait, Benny Johnson. Wait, I'm blanking. Who is that? Is that the guy?

0:41:19 Matt: The Russian.

0:41:19 Lydia: That's. The guy.

0:41:19 Matt: Plant. We did last week.

0:41:20 Thomas: Oh God.

0:41:20 Lydia: The. Nazi. You.

0:41:21 Thomas: Who is more annoying?

0:41:22 Matt: I think it's. Pretty annoying. I'm.

0:41:23 Thomas: I would say David Brooks because you, it's like Benny Johnson's a Russian paid operative. Like I don't, yeah,

0:41:29 Lydia: Know. What. You're gonna get with Benny. Johnson.

0:41:30 Thomas: I'm not annoyed by him. Like you just fucking shouldn't be.

0:41:34 Matt: Gonna say David Brooks on paper, Benny Jackson, Benny Johnson in person, that's. I'm gonna go with, yeah.

0:41:38 Thomas: Hey, no wrong answers to this. I don't think. And And that's a fun question we get each and every week. What do you think, huh?

0:41:41 Lydia: I. Think that's. Fair. I. I kind of see Matt's point, I could, I could vibe with that, like David Brooks, like if you end up at a party with him, it's not going to to be annoying, you know, but Benny Johnson is going to be insufferable.

0:41:51 Thomas: That's fair. You could interact with them.

0:41:51 Matt: He'll. Just be. Boring, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Which,

0:41:54 Thomas: That's all right. I'm outvoted. A negative phenomenon. Autistic ADHDer wants to pursue paralegal. Well, you'll be in good company, I think, right?

0:42:01 Lydia: Do it. We're rooting you on.

0:42:03 Thomas: You got to fight for your right to ex parte. J Sank, VML emphatically stating Patreon sucks and upside down clown face. A spoonful of Nazis helps the medicine go down. Oh, God.

0:42:15 Lydia: Gross.

0:42:15 Thomas: Wait, what is that?

0:42:16 Lydia: I

0:42:17 Matt: Medicine. But.

0:42:17 Lydia: Don't know. I don't like that.

0:42:18 Thomas: Whatever that is, it sounds dark. Today's episode is brought to you by the letter or something, David Souther, Thomas Freeman, Cajunkilla, Cavalry Fraud Fish, he hates everything, Chris Simpson, how do I get into the top third, and anonymous Akila Boy, how do you get into the top third? I just realized there's another method. If more people join, then that line moves up, you moved up, one more.

0:42:19 Lydia: I'll opt out. Oh, there you go. Get your friends. You

0:42:38 Thomas: Yeah, tell your friends, you moved up one more, so you got to move up one to two more, or get more, more people signed on, then you're in the top third. All right, we'll take a quick break and get back to it. Okay, well, let's, let's see if they have any good points here.

0:42:38 Lydia: Get your friends. Yep. Keep working through it.

0:42:54 Thomas: Wait,

0:42:54 Lydia: The social media freakout has had real world manifestations as well. On the morning of October 5th, a Cornell administration building, building was vandalized, the glass door smashed and the walls graffitied, quote, "At Cornell, rapists are prosecuted," wait, "at Cornell, rapists are prosecuted, protesters are expelled." Later, oh, that was what they, that's a long theme to graffiti, I guess, yeah, they

0:43:14 Thomas: What? Graffiti at Cornell rapists are prosecuted. Protesters are expelled.

0:43:20 Matt: They weren't I feel like they, that's a factual error, I

0:43:24 Thomas: Yeah. Did they, yeah.

0:43:24 Lydia: Weren't except for the Title Nine hearing, oh,

0:43:27 Thomas: Did they, is this a typo? It doesn't make sense, at Cornell rapists

0:43:30 Matt: Think that they mean, they mean to say the other way, the oh, okay, what

0:43:32 Thomas: Protected you idiot, rapists are protect these, you fucking morons can't even get the thing right, like I clicked on their link, at Cornell rapists are protected, protesters are expelled, yeah, that's what it said, but in the article it says, uh, rapists are prosecuted, protesters, protesters are, okay, yeah, like, wouldn't you instantly read that and be like, that doesn't make sense, could that have been what they said?

0:43:35 Lydia: There we go, Nico, Christina, man, yeah,

0:43:38 Matt: A typo, that's incredible, oh, wow, wow, time, for a new copy editor, folks, the Sundial, great,

0:43:59 Thomas: Anyway, hitting all of it on this one, why why, yeah, why did that need to be something, you reference the Free Press, that's like saying, like, well, they were at an Obama rally and one of the signs said President Obama 20 2008, you know, it's like, yeah, that's what the signs would say, there, like, what do you, why would that be something you have to to reference

0:43:59 Lydia: Later in the day, students assembled at a campus rally, which, according to the Free Press's coverage, okay, an unbiased source, featured signs such as, quote, "I don't want to go to school with rapists." I think that's a fine statement to make, I also don't want that, yeah,

0:44:27 Matt: Excuse me excuse

0:44:30 Thomas: The Free Press coverage for

0:44:30 Matt: Me excuse me, if I may offer the contrarian position, okay, no,

0:44:36 Thomas: Are you actually going to, or yeah, but

0:44:37 Matt: I think it speaks for its, I'm not going to say it out loud, I don't want to go to school with rapists, that's

0:44:41 Thomas: But it's freaking crazy, oh yeah, I want, but it's so funny to, like, reference the coverage of, like, the sign said, it's almost like you're expecting a big reaction, like, the sign said, "Shh, I don't want to go to school with rapists," yeah, man, and a sign should say that, good,

0:44:44 Matt: The contrarian position. Right.

0:44:56 Lydia: Two days later, the Ithaca Common Council voted to halt all Cornell and Cornell student organization's special event permits Because of an incident that occurred two years ago. Colombians appeared to take inspiration from what happened in Ithaca. On October 8th, a rally was organized by a group called Epstein Off Columbia, where students protested outside the main gates on Broadway and 116th Street to hashtag stop sexual violence from the frat house to the White House, end quotes.

0:45:06 Thomas: Man, we need the contrarian hashtag, hashtag start sexual violence, okay, both sides, yeah,

0:45:29 Lydia: Per the Columbia Daily Spectator's reporting, demands Mans included, quote, end sexual violence, end capitalism, quote, arrest and convict the Cornell 7, and quote, expel rapists, not protesters. Why?

0:45:40 Thomas: Oh, you got it right there,

0:45:42 Lydia: Yeah. And also, why isn't that fine to say there?

0:45:45 Thomas: Okay, they squeezed in the capitalism thing, oh, those students are so crazy with the ending capitalism, what, who, fucking, it's students, who cares, good, yeah,

0:45:52 Lydia: There have since been similar rallies across the city and on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. With all the evidence that suggests what happened to Doe heavily complicates the armchair verdicts that so many have reached. It's worth taking a pause before jumping to wide sweeping conclusions. Conclusions and...

0:46:06 Matt: You know what? Actually, I agree with him. Take a pause and read the civil complaint and then look at the Snapchat. It's in there. You can actually go through the facts yourself. That's what you should do.

0:46:14 Lydia: And certainly before posting, Sands reprieve and attacking those who dissent. The fact that various journalists and commentators have exercised a healthy degree of skepticism over the Cornell case is a welcome development.

0:46:26 Thomas: We gotta see who their sources are On this, they've put a bunch of bunch of sources. Outspoken Samantha.

0:46:30 Matt: Bunch people we love.

0:46:32 Lydia: Outspoken.

0:46:34 Thomas: Okay, no. I'm not having a burn, yeah, let's see who this is, uh, toxic feminism is destroying the west. Okay.

0:46:35 Matt: Everybody loves her. She has 5,000 followers.

0:46:42 Lydia: There you go.

0:46:43 Thomas: That's that's easy.

0:46:43 Lydia: Next one is, it's free press for the next one.

0:46:46 Thomas: Yeah, so Kat Rosenfield, oh, do we know who that is? No.

0:46:50 Lydia: We've just read her pieces before for where there's woke. Oh,

0:46:53 Thomas: Who are these other great journalists who are, oh, Megan Kelly, great, just going through their lists of various journalists and commentators who are just doing a great job. "The great feminization comes to Cornell," Helen Andrews, oh, who is that again? All right, and finally, one last one, let's see, it's Kim Iverson, who is that?

0:46:54 Clip: Well,

0:46:55 Lydia: Megan Kelly, cool. I'm

0:46:57 Matt: She had a really bad take. Hers was really bad.

0:47:08 Lydia: Not familiar with her. I

0:47:11 Matt: Commentators don't

0:47:12 Clip: Think this next case... ...live

0:47:16 Lydia: Don't know either, let me see, Kim Iverson

0:47:17 Matt: Care.

0:47:19 Thomas: Those are the, the must be some shit YouTuber, those are, those are the journalists who are doing the real, oh,

0:47:24 Matt: I mean, we could have done a whole five, six hours of just Matt Walsh and Megyn Kelly. I mean, they all had terrible takes.

0:47:31 Thomas: Boy. All right, good times, uh, so that's, oh, so that's who it is, that's the the journalists that are doing a good job according to them.

0:47:37 Matt: Various journalists. Yeah.

0:47:40 Thomas: What?

0:47:40 Matt: The free press is the closest thing to a journalist that you put in there. So,

0:47:41 Lydia: This Was not the case with the 2006 Duke lacrosse case or the 2014 University of Virginia case, and both ended up being disproven as false allegations. Applications.

0:47:51 Matt: You know, never bring it again. Never talk about any of these things again.

0:47:54 Thomas: Was the 2014 University, I remember the Duke lacrosse

0:47:55 Lydia: I don't know if I'm familiar

0:47:57 Matt: That was the Rolling Stone thing, wasn't it?

0:47:57 Lydia: With that one.

0:47:58 Thomas: Stone.

0:47:59 Matt: I think that was the Rolling Stone story that was unfortunate.

0:47:59 Thomas: Thing. Yeah. I mean, yeah, this happens, and then. Yeah, the, and the Duke lacrosse thing is really bad, you know? Yeah, you can, you can reference a few things that have happened that are really bad involving accusations that maybe didn't turn out to be substantiated. I think Duke lacrosse was a pretty bad example where someone literally made something, um, yeah, it's amazing how you can reference two things in 20 years, and on the other side, how many campus rapes can you reference? A zillion, you know. Sounds like the ratios

0:48:31 Lydia: In 20 years?

0:48:32 Matt: I mean, there have actually actually been more Republicans who've manufactured hate crimes against themselves than, like, way more than any of this, a

0:48:33 Lydia: Not good. While the case of the Cornell 7 shouldn't automatically be put in the same bucket as Duke and UVA, with both the entire story has since revealed itself to be fabricated, and this is not the case with Doe's accusations, a rational sense of scrutiny has still not translated into discourse on college campuses and into our algorithms.

0:48:54 Thomas: It Never

0:48:55 Matt: Rational sense rational

0:48:55 Thomas: Will fucking give up on it, yeah.

0:48:57 Lydia: Also, Partly because of people like you, like, like, and the stuff that you guys are consuming. Also, it's all designed to control the algorithm, to get people incensed about everything. That That's what it does, that's what it is. Don't be mad at, you know, people who believe women, because of that, yeah.

0:48:57 Matt: Sense of scrutiny, yeah, reasonably

0:49:12 Thomas: Let's ban social media Or let's ban journalists being on or writing about social media. We don't, we should, you should only be writing about the real world. Fuck it, fuck social media. It's, you can always find something to complain about. Oops.

0:49:27 Lydia: If It, uh, let's see, the next, the next heading. "Why the discourse infantilizes women." If it is indeed the case that a reasonably consensual but regrettable encounter occurred, it's worth pondering the implication of this hysteria.

0:49:29 Thomas: Go ahead. Oh. Well, it didn't, so we don't have to ponder it.

0:49:41 Matt: Consensual but regrettable, that is a horrific thing to say about the thing that happened, yeah. Reasonably consensual I

0:49:45 Lydia: I'm sorry, that's nuts, that's a, that is a way

0:49:49 Thomas: Reasonably consensual is great. Yeah, look, it, the truth is it might have been like, like, mostly consensual, that's still bad.

0:49:49 Lydia: To yeah, that's crazy. I

0:49:51 Matt: Don't yeah, don't go on a date with this man, whoever this man is, do not like women of Columbia. Like, he, this man's reason, idea of reasonable consent, immoral.

0:49:59 Thomas: The Yeah. Look, it was Like, it could have been 80 percent, not rape, like, okay, that's your best case, all right, like.

0:50:03 Lydia: Could see Christina Ma writing this part, I don't know, but I could be wrong. Man. In a liberal society, women are allowed to make bad decisions, ones that may later reveal themselves as deleterious. The discourse nonetheless seems to omit the possibility that consensual sex, to the woman participating in it, can later reveal itself as traumatic and immoral. Yeah.

0:50:27 Matt: What a choice of words, immoral. They just don't like threesomes. That's their problem.

0:50:29 Lydia: Consensual sex can leave someone feeling ashamed, degraded, disgusted with herself and the people she has slept with and acts she has agreed to the night before. The

0:50:40 Matt: When people like you write about it, I mean, yeah, yeah, right.

0:50:40 Thomas: Intended. Oh. Boy.

0:50:43 Matt: Exactly, like, I intended women

0:50:45 Lydia: Relentless Instagramming also claims to defend women while relying on a rather diminished conception of female agency. It is true that women are more physically vulnerable than men in most sexual situations in

0:50:56 Matt: Have had 10 drinks and ketamine and marijuana and more drinks applied on them, like, on purpose in

0:50:59 Thomas: And are outnumbered eight, nine, ten to one, or whatever it was.

0:51:01 Matt: A frat house they do tend

0:51:03 Thomas: And more.

0:51:00 Lydia: A frat house, yeah,

0:51:03 Matt: To be more physically vulnerable, yes, they're not mentioning the drugs at all anywhere in here, sorry, I'm just mad about it.

0:51:03 Lydia: That is one that is one reason why sexual encounters involving multiple men and one woman may deserve particular scrutiny, and one reason women have good reason to be cautious about whom they trust and the situations they put themselves in, because it's all on women to fix this problem, them, apparently. Yeah.

0:51:18 Thomas: Especially when you're talking about a college campus, like, hey, student, you should know better than to be in this place at our college campus with other students Yeah.

0:51:24 Lydia: Hey, 18 year old, 19 year old girl. So,

0:51:33 Thomas: Like, what, no,

0:51:34 Lydia: Stupid women.

0:51:35 Matt: Can skip the Camille Paglia quote. She says what you'd expect Camille Pagley to say, which is that if you go upstairs in a fraternity house party, that you're expecting to get raped. Um, so yeah. That's good, yeah.

0:51:42 Lydia: Are adults. Doe was, even if she fell one year short of, I also

0:51:46 Thomas: Sorry, because this is how stupid these people are. Heterodox, feminine, yeah, Heterodox. I love that as a descriptor.

0:51:52 Matt: She's been around a very long time, that's

0:51:53 Thomas: The quote is is absolutely infantilizing to women, it must stop. She once said on our era's ever-expanding perception of rape, quote, "If you go to a fraternity house party with chaos going on in the living room area, and a young man says to you, would you like to go up to my room, I'm sorry, okay, you are consenting to sex." Yeah, she might have consented to sex with one or two men, as she admitted to, that doesn't mean you're consenting for someone to send a Snapchat message inviting everyone in the frat to come take advantage of you, you fucking idiot. No.

0:51:54 Matt: Her thing. That sounds like consent. Yeah. Also,

0:52:23 Lydia: Don't think that means you're consenting to sex. Like, you might want to, no, no, no, no, but I'm sorry, like, just this quote, like, I'm sorry, okay, you're consenting to sex because you're gonna go up to a room, no, maybe you just want to, like, make out with somebody, not completely like, covered by other people, yeah.

0:52:25 Thomas: She did if, like, she, sure, Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Right, right, yeah, yeah, no, 100, yeah. Yeah,

0:52:37 Lydia: Or check out a cool baseball, baseball card collection. I don't know, women

0:52:37 Matt: And also, maybe you're both maybe you're both completely sober to, to come back to that, but yes, all right. Yeah. Anyway, she

0:52:43 Thomas: So stupid, no,

0:52:45 Lydia: Are adults. Doe, what, okay, all right, you want me to finish it?

0:52:47 Thomas: I'm sorry, no, I'm still I'm still mad, this is infantilizing men, this is saying, no, if a woman, if a woman said, okay, I'll go see your baseball collection, you're allowed to rape them, because what, we can't expect you to do?

0:52:49 Matt: Continued, yeah, yeah, what,

0:52:53 Lydia: 100, yeah, what else are you supposed to do

0:53:02 Thomas: Better, we can't expect yeah, we can't expect frat boys to act better, they're just, they. They get to be an uncontrollable environment.

0:53:02 Lydia: You, poor man, chaos

0:53:02 Matt: Do you expect yeah, yeah, you

0:53:11 Lydia: Machine.

0:53:11 Thomas: Yeah. And you just got to steer clear of those people who cannot control themselves. That's infantilizing men.

0:53:12 Matt: You let the door close, so there we go, yeah. Very

0:53:18 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, women are adults. Doe was, even if she fell one year short of America's abnormally high drinking age. Sorry, what?

0:53:19 Matt: True, that's very true, and

0:53:29 Thomas: Okay.

0:53:30 Lydia: Okay. She is now suing a downtown Ithaca bar and her sorority for allowing her to drink. The bar claims it did not sell, quote, alcoholic beverages to any visibly intoxicated person, as Doe claims in her suit, or to anyone under age.

0:53:43 Matt: Per the suit, she was marked with an X in her hand that said she wasn't supposed to be served alcohol, and she was at the bar, so there's something to that. Those are not infantilizing policy, by the way, those are just the law, that's just how it works, whether you like it or not. How's

0:53:53 Lydia: And Cornell, as with the law, also infantilizes its students. Since 2018, the university has barred hard alcohol consumption in Greek life, regardless of the age of the drinkers. Oh yeah, that's working out really well.

0:54:03 Matt: That going, going for you.

0:54:04 Lydia: Sorry.

0:54:03 Thomas: Wait. Wait, what? Yeah. Cornell has banned, barred.

0:54:07 Lydia: Bard.

0:54:09 Thomas: Yeah. Wait. So,

0:54:10 Matt: Worked about as well as prohibition always works.

0:54:11 Lydia: It says, uh, based off because of hazing and stuff, they, they reportedly said, you can't drink hard alcohol, yeah,

0:54:12 Thomas: That's not working. They've, wow. Wow. So there's not supposed to be any drinking at frat parties at all since 2018 at Cornell.

0:54:24 Matt: Just ketamine, apparently. So it's

0:54:26 Thomas: Wow. Boy, they sure didn't enforce that.

0:54:30 Lydia: With a 21 year drinking age and Cornell's hard alcohol ban in place, and Doe circumventing both rules anyway. I'm sorry, Doe circumventing both, both rules anyway, like, it's again all responsible.

0:54:42 Thomas: She did with the drinking. She had the

0:54:43 Lydia: I I know, but, yeah,

0:54:43 Thomas: Drinks at, at the, at the sorority. She found, you know, she had drinks at the, uh, the bar. Yeah. Well,

0:54:47 Matt: Her fault. Anything that happened after that is her fault.

0:54:48 Lydia: This itself proves that adults do have the freedom to make bad decisions, yet that freedom becomes meaningless when we only recognize it when the decision ends well, and when the narrative is one which confirms the story we tell ourselves about America's libertine sexual ethic always producing palatable results. Yeah.

0:55:07 Matt: I'm sorry. Drinking 10, 15 drinks in three hours is a bad decision for almost anybody, anytime, especially in this environment. But that's not what we're talking about. Come on.

0:55:15 Thomas: Yeah, I think Matt, that's why I'm pushing back. And I realized I want, I kind of want to get your thoughts on this. Cause I said this when we went over the complaint, complaint, I kind of think the focus, like, look, she's, she's gonna, it's civil complaint, I get it, she's gonna like name who she's gonna name, but I think it's like putting the focus on the bar or on the sorority. I think those are valid in and of themselves, but for this, yeah, but for this in particular, I do think in my mind that sort of takes away from the fact that like these men are, are guilty. It's not like It's almost like blaming the alcohol for rape. It's not the alcohol's fault. And, and it's not even that they served the, the men, it's not even that they served the men, it's they served her, which to me feels a little like it kind of, kind of undermines the point a little bit. It's a little weird to be like, oh, you know who's at fault, it's the, the bar that allowed me to get drunk. It's like, no, the dudes are at fault. Right. Yeah.

0:55:39 Matt: For a civil case, yeah. Right. Yep. I had the same thought. Yeah. Great. Right. But Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

0:56:04 Lydia: That's fair. Moonies.

0:56:11 Matt: I think that is a practical legal decision because the bar and the sorority have money and the kids don't.

0:56:14 Thomas: 100.

0:56:15 Matt: So I mean, well, some of them do, but yeah.

0:56:15 Thomas: So granting granting that, but I do think I do think it's weird, it is a little weird in that way.

0:56:20 Matt: I had the same thought when I read it. Exactly.

0:56:21 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, because like the natural consequence of drinking too much, to the natural consequence of that, you would have to live with that is that you feel sick and that you're hungover. And that makes sense. And a lot of times people learn and figure out what their limits are because of those natural consequences there. The natural consequence of drinking too much is not rape.

0:56:36 Thomas: And a campus should be a safe place for somebody to make a bad decision and not have a horrible thing happen to them. Wouldn't you think? Yeah.

0:56:41 Matt: To be stupid. Yep. Yep. This

0:56:46 Lydia: The case has also become a vessel for grievances that extend far beyond Cornell. Women who have had degrading sexual experiences, or moments where they felt used or humiliated, can easily see themselves in Doe. That sense of identification or compassion might be understandable, but it also means that people are often reacting to far more than the particular facts in front of them. This case hit home for Christina because she'd been through an experience which later proved itself similarly degrading, albeit in different ways from Doe's own, so one of our, our authors, Christina Ma, the vice president of College Republicans. Yeah.

0:57:05 Matt: Column is not reacting to the particular facts in front of you, so, like, come on.

0:57:17 Thomas: Sorry who's Christina oh that's a what? Right better I don't know who the fuck Christina is. All right, tempting.

0:57:26 Lydia: It when she was 19 and 20, she entered a deeply traumatic romantic relationship with an older man. A significant part of the trauma was sexual, where she had participated in things she is now profoundly ashamed of, but she also knows how tempting it is to look back and reinterpret the sex as coercion and even rape.

0:57:41 Thomas: Why is that tempting? It either was or it wasn't, depending on what happened.

0:57:46 Lydia: Yet. What contributed to her participation in such acts was the larger rhetoric surrounding it, the seductive world of sexual liberation and taboo. At first it sounded cool, and doing it would mean she's not a quote, prude, but the aftermath left her feeling gross. This helps explain, sorry, I have to pause because I think the other, the other thing that's happening there too is, like, I think, you know, I don't want to make assumptions about this young woman because, because I don't know her at all. But I think like, when there's a lot of like, repressed exploration sexually, like as a, yeah, Exactly. I think you don't know what you're comfortable with and what you're not comfortable with. And you probably end up trying things that you're not actually comfortable with. And that's, that should be an okay thing to explore too. And to be able to say, nope, not into that, not doing that again. And that doesn't necessarily mean that that's bad or something that you should be ashamed of. But I think also, like, look at your entire upbringing and see if there were ways for that to have been avoided potentially,

0:58:05 Thomas: Jesus. Christ. Religiosity kind of thing, yeah.

0:58:48 Lydia: Oh

0:58:49 Matt: Is a valid conversation to be had about somebody twice your age, and consent, and about, like, if you're inexperienced and like, yeah. I mean that's

0:58:53 Thomas: Well that's the thing that's really crazy for them to just sneak in here, like, you know for example, Christina was in a deeply traumatic romantic relationship with an older man. How much older are we talking? Was this somebody who was in any, any position of authority over her? Was this something like, what, was he 50?

0:58:58 Matt: It

0:58:58 Lydia: An older man. Yeah. Was he 25 or was he like 42.

0:59:11 Thomas: Yeah. Like what, yeah. What is the sexual part of the trauma was sexual? Yeah. Like, yeah, I don't know. You can't just bring this up with no fact with no like relevant info and be like, see, this is an example of how it's not rape. And you're like, I don't know. It could have been, it could have been her.

0:59:12 Lydia: There's yeah and to your point, a professor, a, like, we don't know, and I could have and I could have chosen to interpret it that way, but I decided I wasn't going to, because it really was based off of my agency. Okay, all

0:59:37 Thomas: I mean, I, I'm sorry for her trauma, but like, if you bring it up and weaponize it as a way to silence other victims, like, either give us the facts that would make this relevant or not, you know, or don't talk about it. But you can't just

0:59:47 Lydia: Or this is a conversation you're having privately with your therapist and everybody else.

0:59:51 Thomas: Because again, this, there could be facts that make this horrific or facts that make it like less horrific, you know, you don't know, so you can't use it as an example to like downplay what happened to the Jane Doe. It's crazy. Yeah.

1:00:03 Lydia: This helps explain why the rhetoric so quickly expands from seven men at Cornell to men generally. Yeah. Cause it's not just seven men at Cornell that have done these acts. Like it's, it's pretty common. Um,

1:00:10 Matt: Should yes all men

1:00:15 Thomas: That's not a phenomenon that needed explanation, actually.

1:00:18 Lydia: Once a viral allegation becomes a repository for every bad encounter, every resentment toward men, and every fear women have carried into their own relationships, disagreement begins to feel personal. Questioning the reaction to the Cornell case and does wide sweeping claims about it starts to be mistaken for questioning women's experiences writ large.

1:00:36 Thomas: Yeah or it's what they're doing

1:00:36 Matt: Why would you take it personally, male author of this? I don't know, like, I just feel like

1:00:41 Thomas: Yeah or it's specifically what they're doing, they want to question women's experiences writ large, and they're using this as a small way to like touch, you know, to kind of test the waters on that.

1:00:53 Matt: If you as a man take it personally, you should think about why, frankly.

1:00:56 Lydia: Beyond the Cornell Seven, this is our last section of this article. "Of course, one can go too far the other way. What happened that night was, to say the least, deeply unfortunate. To deny that that or insinuate that it was, quote, 'based,' or even mocked Doe as the, quote, 'rapist,' has been commonplace on social media. We find repellent."

1:01:13 Matt: Good, they find something repellent. I didn't come to that yet. Gender

1:01:17 Lydia: The media framing of cases like this fuels a cycle of gender polarization, whether it's the right wing manosphere or the post, quote, in solidarity. The danger now is that the most extreme.

1:01:25 Matt: Her pollization.

1:01:26 Thomas: Those are the same thing, guys. Those are, sad, two, two sides, both bad, right wing manosphere or post saying in solidarity with a victim, okay.

1:01:36 Lydia: The danger now is that the most extreme voices on each side come to represent the entire Debate. Bait. The arguments become retaliatory, and accountability and reason slowly devolve into tribal loyalty. What we want to avoid is the media frenzy turning into a self-reinforcing mimetic cycle, where each side becomes more suspicious of the other and the actual facts begin to disappear beneath emotional responses. It even transcends age to an extent. One mother recently wrote in USA Today that when her daughter texted her a photo of her with her her best friend from a frat house, she thought of Jane Doe in quotes.

1:02:08 Matt: Why do you think she did that? Why do you think she thought of that, author of this article? Maybe it is a problem that's been going on for thousands of years, perhaps.

1:02:10 Thomas: Okay yeah be worried. What is, what is

1:02:13 Lydia: It's understandable to be concerned. Yeah.

1:02:17 Matt: What

1:02:17 Thomas: That an example of in this person's mind? Okay, sure.

1:02:18 Lydia: The sexual revolution created a hyper liberal pro-sex culture that insists that, quote, women can do whatever they want with their bodies. Yeah.

1:02:27 Thomas: Man, yeah, the whole culture, this, this country, Matt, this country sorry, go ahead, yeah.

1:02:30 Matt: Was going on in the culture before? I was going to say, well, what was going on in the culture before? What was the culture going? What were men doing? I'm wondering. Could maybe men do whatever they wanted with women's bodies?

1:02:43 Lydia: And

1:02:43 Thomas: It's also it's, culture is not a monolith, like, this, there's places that are more liberal, and there's places that are, have not moved from the 50s, you know, like, it's just stupid to say that the sexual revolution created a hyper-liberal pro-sex culture. Yeah, sure. Yeah.

1:03:00 Matt: Clearly reflected in this editorial.

1:03:01 Lydia: So is their position that like college kids shouldn't have sex, is that, is that their position? Maybe in the world that for better or worse follows from it. We cannot claim to stand for sexual freedom and then recoil in disgust when there's a possibility that a young woman simply chose to exercise it.

1:03:02 Thomas: I don't know, yeah, probably. Oh Man, you know that's such a dude hat that paragraph is such a dude hat that's like, uh, look, can disagree whether or not sexual revolution was all right or not or harmful, but you know we are where we are, it's like

1:03:26 Lydia: Man.

1:03:29 Matt: It is. You know, there is a dude hat spot open at the New York Times right now. So this man's auditioning.

1:03:32 Thomas: Oh, auditioning

1:03:30 Lydia: Here we go drug-fueled orgies may be morally appalling and violating to those who chose to participate in them even the men participating in them, but we probably do not want to live in a society where that is illegal.

1:03:35 Thomas: For the next dude hat, this was not a drug-fueled orgy, you fuck probably

1:03:48 Matt: Oh, the men, even the men participating them are being appalled and violated. Okay.

1:03:48 Thomas: Guys yeah Yeah.

1:03:53 Lydia: I'm sorry, like, I don't think anyone's saying that an orgy should be illegal or even that consuming drugs during an orgy should be illegal

1:04:01 Matt: Although it should be approached

1:04:01 Thomas: I get that these are students, but yeah. Can't you have an editor that's like whose job is to help them not write stupid fucking things?

1:04:02 Matt: With caution. Oh,

1:04:04 Lydia: Between the opposing poles of a culture wedded to celebrating degeneracy while insisting we coddle women, and a conservative alternative, equally totalitarian in its demands for quote purity, is a third way. We don't.

1:04:18 Matt: Please tell us.

1:04:19 Lydia: We don't have all the answers. What is clear to us, though, is that such liberalism as practiced in the opening decades of the 21st century, all the sexual freedom and none of the consequences, so get rid of birth control, cool, yeah, does not work. Neither do punitive and reactionary laws or unsubstantiated media frenzies. A more dignified sexual ethic would recognize the agency of men and women alike and have a greater share of adults, including college students, making adult decisions. It also probably wouldn't celebrate depraved and and extreme acts for their own sake as, quote, empowering, even if they're consensual. No civil suit will get us there. Neither will student paper editorial boards publishing activist pieces, one crop of Colombian stymieing debate and the other self-censoring, or one more woman posting, quote, I am Jane Doe.

1:04:30 Matt: Consequences, huh? We're talking about consequences. Well, there it is. Something that this person will never regret writing in their lives forever.

1:05:08 Lydia: I'm sorry, the punitive and reactionary law, by the way, is closing that intoxication loophole.

1:05:13 Matt: The voluntary intoxication. I know I saw that from Kathy Hochul.

1:05:15 Thomas: Are you kidding me?

1:05:16 Matt: Yeah, yeah.

1:05:16 Thomas: Neither do punitive and reactionary laws.

1:05:16 Lydia: I just clicked on it and that's, yeah. Yeah.

1:05:20 Thomas: Oh my God. That's not punitive and reactionary you fucking idiot hmm

1:05:17 Matt: Punitive reactionary. Okay, sure. It's worth reading the bios at the bottom since we now know who they actually are. I just think it's kind of funny.

1:05:28 Lydia: Miss Ma is a junior at Barnard College studying English and philosophy. She's a staff writer for Sundial. Mr. Mohamedy is a junior at Columbia College studying American Studies. He is a deputy editor for Sundial.

1:05:40 Matt: Nothing else. I'm not going to mention any of affiliations here. Yeah, there you go. So this kicked off quite a thing at Columbia, obviously, because a lot of people didn't want this published. The Columbia Political Review published a very strident, which we'll link to, not strident, it's not just strident, it's completely correct, but basically a takedown of this piece explaining why it never should have been published and then the Sundial came back with a defensive piece explaining why from one of the editors saying actually I really didn't like this piece but I thought it should be published anyway um so that just kind of went back and forth we have to read all that we'll link to it um but that is uh what Columbia University allowed for to be published from an independent newspaper there

1:06:14 Thomas: The next crop of dude hats, everybody. Now, that's that's little worse than dude hat, I think, but

1:06:16 Matt: We go, that's right dude

1:06:18 Lydia: It's pretty, pretty ridiculous, nice

1:06:18 Matt: Had the next generation yeah no

1:06:20 Thomas: We gotta take our last break real quick here, um, but yeah, wow, what a, what a shitty article, that just sucks so badly. Hey, top patrons, here we go. Check out galenacomic.com for a cool web comic, blah, blah, blah. Podcast Philly Basement Bar shops at Stan's Used Coffins. E.T., Elect Thomas Smith President, American Honkytonk Bar Association. Baltakatei, Philip Kizer, MikeCollins hired half the 3rd reich or 1.5 reichs. Coryn_Lann. A string of unpronounceable characters. Malaika Chandler. David in Brooklyn. RhondaTheDork.com. Milo Meadsong argues the plural form of footnote, kind of like Attorney's General, should be notes feetsies. Chris Waltrip. Big Easy Blasphemy. Hors d'oeuvres in the court before we report. Sam Donow. Classic libtard. FRED R GROOTHUIS and Mitchell. Thanks so much, top patrons, you're the best, patreon.com/law if you'd like to join the ranks. We'll be right back. Uh, right, Matt, you wanted to give us something delightful to, you know, get in our mouths.

1:07:21 Matt: We had such a good time with that Abbey Road Rolling Stone review that I thought we should pick up another wonderful piece of pop culture and what a crank thought about it, uh, so this is going to be the Siskel and Ebert show. There's a critic named John Simon who was a very famous crank, I saw, it was estimated he wrote maybe 15 positive reviews in his entire life, which is pretty impressive yeah, in a very long career, right yeah it could be a problem but

1:07:24 Thomas: Hey, maybe you don't like movies. Maybe you shouldn't be a movie reviewer. You're like, I hate all of them actually.

1:07:45 Matt: I thought that uh Thomas would especially enjoy uh a really bad take on Star Wars, this is right after Empire Strikes Back came out, so uh this is just 1983, so we're just going to see the intro and we'll watch John Simon's take here and we'll skip around a little, it's

1:07:55 Lydia: Is that your favorite of the Star Wars, the original trilogy is it the best one and press strikes back that

1:07:59 Matt: Second one's the best one for sure yeah

1:08:02 Thomas: Probably.

1:08:03 Clip: From our Chicago The Bureau, Jim Haskell, film critic for the Chicago Tribune and co-host of the syndicated television series At the Movies. And Roger Ebert, co-host of At the Movies and film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times. Mr. Simon, you described The Empire Strikes Back, the second in this trilogy, as malodorous, awful, and I understand you're also well able to keep your enthusiasm in check for the third in the trilogy. Why so unkind?

1:08:30 Clip: Well, I think the raves for the early Star Wars have been so violent and so extravagant that I feel one cannot afford to mince one's words if one dislikes these things. You certainly did not do that. But why do you feel they are so bad? I feel they're so bad because they're completely dehumanizing. Obviously, let's face it, they are for children or for childish adults. Adults. They're not for adult mentalities, which unfortunately means that they're not for a lot of my fellow critics who also lack adult mentalities. But anyway, they are for children, and they're brutalizing children. They're stultifying children. They're making children dumber than they need to be. A great

1:08:43 Thomas: Why is it green?

1:09:17 Lydia: They need

1:09:18 Clip: Work for children like Huck Finn, for example, tells a child something about reality, about about people, about life, about growing up. These films try to keep children, stupid children, forever. And that, I think, is wrong.

1:09:18 Lydia: To be yeah

1:09:26 Matt: But slavery, yeah

1:09:33 Thomas: He called it.

1:09:34 Clip: Gene Sisco, Roger Ebert, if you would like to remove the dagger from between your ribs and strike back, have at it. I totally disagree with Mr. Simon. I don't know what he did as a child, but I spent a lot of my Saturday matinees watching science fiction movies and serials and having a great time of being stimulated and having my imagination stimulated and having all sorts of visions take place in my mind.

1:09:45 Thomas: What? What?

1:09:52 Matt: So Cisco and Ebert love Star Wars obviously we can skip ahead just a little bit because there's another

1:09:55 Thomas: Good.

1:09:56 Matt: Funny John Simon moment, uh, I wanted to point out that, um, in his autobiography, Roger Ebert wrote, "I feel repugnance for the critic John Simon, who made it a specialty to attack the way actors look. They can't help how they look any more than John Simon can help looking like a rat." It's pretty good, pretty good, uh, so we can skip ahead to, uh, 538, I believe, uh, there's some really funny stuff in here, but we're gonna, we'll do the end too because, uh, it's really funny, but yeah, let's uh, actually, yeah, we can skip it to, like, six, let's get to six and watch it out

1:10:12 Thomas: Got him. Man, good times.

1:10:28 Clip: See one set of robots, some of them ostensibly flesh and blood, but actually just as mechanical as the real robots, attacking another set of robots. It zaps you, it races past you, projectiles are hurtling this way and that. There's nothing to get involved with. Sure, there is a very primitive sense in which the empire is bad and a very primitive sense in which the others are good. But it is all such a chaos, such a jumble, such a confusion, such a mechanical, technological, whirly gig, that you don't have any chance to associate yourself with anyone, to identify yourself with anyone. There are no people there with whom you can sympathize. Just as in my experience in seeing it, again, with a whole bunch of kids, they were able to sort out who was who very easily. They had no trouble with this picture, understanding what was going on. I've got to ask Mr. Simon a question. Here's sort of a test question. Wasn't your heart warmed even a little bit by Yoda?

1:11:24 Thomas: Jeez.

1:11:24 Clip: I'll tell you what, we're in a bit of a tough technical situation here because Mr. Simon has just lost his earpiece. But if you can hear us again now, Mr. Simon. Yes, I heard the question. You were asked whether your heart wasn't warmed a little by Yoda. Well, yes, I mean a little, but let's say if I saw him in a window of F.A.O. Schwartz and I looked at him for three seconds and said that's a kind of cute little figurine, I would have had enough of Yoda. Listen, three seconds of acceptance on your part, Mr. Simon, is all that we can hope for and all that we have time for. I'm afraid at this point I thank you and Gene Siskel

1:11:25 Matt: Is very funny yeah it's so good

1:11:56 Clip: And also Roger.

1:11:57 Matt: That we can't we got a link to the whole thing, but But he at one point says, he's asked, like, what movie would you take a child to? And he mentions the Robert Duvall of 1983 film Tender Mercies, which is about an alcoholic cowboy.

1:11:57 Thomas: Anyway, he was entirely right and called it. Oh, man.

1:12:13 Matt: It's like a character study.

1:12:14 Lydia: Yeah, I just looked up, like, the movies that he liked. Citizen Kane, The Rules of the Game from 1939, Forbidden Games '52, uh, I Vidaloni 1953, The People versus. Larry Flint, um, yeah, Tender Mercies, Driving Miss Daisy, Mr. Johnson, and Black Robe, but yeah, I mean, it's, that's pretty much it it. Yeah.

1:12:16 Matt: So, yeah, yeah,

1:12:36 Thomas: Real snooze fest, huh?

1:12:37 Lydia: A lot of movies between like the 30s and 50s. Those were his things. Driving Miss Daisy was 89. But yeah.

1:12:41 Matt: But not Star Wars. Yeah,

1:12:44 Thomas: And Batman Returns, no, I'm just kidding, there's

1:12:47 Lydia: Oh, he didn't like The Godfather. He didn't like The Graduate. Yeah.

1:12:47 Matt: Of course.

1:12:50 Thomas: One. Wow. Wow. I- the Graduate is a weird movie, but uh, yeah, okay, that was fun. Um, it's funny how much I like totally agree with what he's saying, except also don't like he's right. He's not really wrong, but also that's just what people like, I I don't know, it's sort of, no, yeah, but I don't think so, yeah, not, not compared to a lot of other things, but it is, uh, it is funny, though, like, obviously, everybody hates this guy, and, and, and fuck this guy, but it is funny to, to how much that, how prescient that was, where it's, like, now Star Wars is everything, now Yoda, literally Yoda became everything, the toys, the fucking baby Yoda stuff, the, you know,

1:13:03 Matt: Like, the reason we're all stupid or isn't Star Wars, I promise you, it's not. It's really not. Yeah,

1:13:05 Lydia: He's really rude. Yeah.

1:13:29 Matt: Yeah, right.

1:13:30 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's funny.

1:13:34 Thomas: It is, it is interesting, good times, anyway, well, Well, that's been a vapid response for this week. Thanks so much, Matt. And thanks so much, Lydia, for going through that extremely stupid take and others. And we'll see you all on Friday.

1:13:48 Matt: Shout out to my childish adults. All right.

1:13:48 Lydia: See ya.

1:13:54 Clip: This has been Opening Arguments, produced by Thomas and Lydia Smith, with editing help from Peter Baird. The intro is by Thomas Smith. This outro is by Matt Cameron. Support the show at patreon.com/law. Contact us through Patreon or openarguments at gmail.com. Make sure to follow our blue sky at OpenArgs. But most of all, please share the show. Thanks for listening.

1:14:36 Thomas: Uh, Matt, I'm hearing, maybe your headphones or something, I don't know, that one looks like it's a little out no, they're out, they're not in your, are you wearing the wrong ears? Oh okay check check, check check yeah, can you turn them down at all

1:14:39 Matt: Might be a little bad oh no no, should be nice, tight, okay, yeah okay

1:14:47 Lydia: Was too loud because we're hearing it come back through the mic, no

1:14:50 Thomas: Are you sure you have that in right, is it actually in can you turn your head, that's not how they go they're

1:14:51 Matt: Easy, yeah yeah, firmly, right in the ears, oh

1:14:59 Lydia: They're in the wrong it like

1:14:59 Matt: They're backwards oh okay

1:15:00 Thomas: In the wrong ears see how ours like Like it fits in

1:15:03 Matt: I've only been doing this for a year and a half Oh.

1:15:04 Lydia: It like becomes part of the the year

1:15:07 Thomas: This, yeah, it's sort of like a fetus.

1:15:08 Matt: Yeah, there we go gross, that's not our fetuses, go, okay

1:15:09 Lydia: Yeah, bad

1:15:14 Thomas: It's like, what do you put a fetus in here? You know, it's that, that, that feeling.