Mike, thank you for writing this. Your message is clear, direct and so badly needed. I love your comparison of how each party responds to the same information differently. Unfortunately, it's been proven true over and over again.
Supporting Platner, based on the information we had, wasn't wrong. Withdrawing that support when new information was given also wasn't wrong. Both decisions were made for good reasons. We're human and when it's all said and done, you can never go wrong doing the right thing.
Imagine if the NYT had been as diligent investigating and reporting on trump,-Epstein-Maxwell as they have been investigating Platner. Right on the NYT doorstep a child sex trafficking modeling industry was operated and Epstein just down the street was prosecuted in 2009 and NYT knew of all trump’s scams within the state of New York. trump sets up Karen McDougal in an apartment and NYT reports zip on this? Hundreds of stories on Hillary’s email in the NYT and let’s be honest, there was no there there in the end, pretty simply Hillary comes into the State Department in January 2009, with a State Department just hacked by Bradley aka Chelsea Manning, a completely unsecured disorganized State Department messaging system left by Condoleeza Rice and Bush ( who used RNC server and lost over 20 million emails FYI) with two wars going and the world in financial free fall Hillary asks Colin Powell what to do for secure communication and he says “use your personal server, that’s what I had to do.” Hillary took Colin Powell’s advice and she never got hacked, but the FBi did ( as testified by James Comey.) There you have it. The NYT could have done that succinct story and gotten to work on due diligence investigating and reporting on the scams. Crimes. Sexual assaults, sex traffickjng and sexual abuse involvement of trump. There is no excuse for the NYT publishing an op-ed in 2024 opining that trump has the character to be President and Kamala Harris does not and publishing a very lengthy option by NYT publisher on why the NYT was not going to endorse a Presidential candidate in 2024. The NYT pulled out its calculator just like the Republicans in the Senate who confirmed multiple credibly accused sexually assaulters for the cabinet and Supreme Court, the monetary benefit in profits outweighed the ethics. As everyone seems to be praising the NYT reporting on Platner in affirming and protecting American women against a sexual predator, we all must ask why the NYT did not do the same level of investigation and reporting to affirm women and protect woman and children against trump.
Their reporting on those things were actually quite good. I'm no fan of the NYT, but they have had very good deep reporting on all of these matters. The problem is that half the country thinks the NYT is a house of liberal lies. Republicans don't believe any reporting that is bad for their side.
Agreed, the reporting is good, but the sane-washing and headlines that obscure his deep flaws and corruption—nonexistent.
This was the Iraq War on steroids—defending the indefensible! And their editorial board may not resemble the WSJ or Wapo—but they were getting close during the elections.
And here is the reason—Vanguard and BlackRock are two of Trump’s biggest supporters; together they control over $26 trillion in AUM—and also happen to own 18% of the NYT’s. Other financial companies and hedge firms aligned with them make their share even larger.
Bottom line, they are part of the problem, not the solution—and the reason guys like Paul Krugman jumped ship.
Be honest, did you know much at all about Epstein and Maxwell and trump’s relationship with them prior to 2019? Did you know anything about out Karen McDougal prior to the Stormy Daniels coming out? Do you know of a NYT detailed reporting listing every contractor and subcontractor scammed by trump? If you were the opinion page editor of the NYT’s knowing all you know and the NYT’s knows about would you publish an op-ed that says trump has the character to be President? Would you headline trump’s trading profits and crypto profits the past 18 months as “windfalls” and his lies as “yarns” and “stretching the truth?” Look at all the stories the NYT has run serially on Platner in such a short period of time and asks yourself honestly if the reporting on trump-Epstein-Maxwell since 2009 ever amounted to the due diligence against Platner. Look at the NYT serial assault on President Biden health and neurological examinations and the misinformation on the White House medical team log, a team that cares for the entire White House staff. Repeatedly NYT reporters have sat on important stories the public needs to know about in real time so they can put it in a book and make the talk show circuit that inflates the NYT status. What the Platner story tells us is this: the NYT is capable of good honest and responsible reporting to inform Americans preparing to vote on a candidate and they have done that for Maine, yet the NYT publisher wrote a lengthy op-ed white washing any ethical responsibility to be honest about trump. The NYT savaged President Biden and called for him to step down because of cognitive issues but never called for trump to do the same because of corruption issues and numerous ethical issues from “credible” “ corroborated” numerous sexual assaults and pedophile conduct reports. In sum we know what the NYT is capable of in terms of good reporting but we also know what the NYT is capable of in terms of unethical and negligent reporting.
A lot of people forget that Trump said a lot of the correct (progressive, policy-wise) things during his first run for the Presidency. Same pattern with Fetterman. Nazis and their hangers on will say *anything* to get into power...or be an influencer, for that matter.
Not a big revelation. Also one that folks seem to need to relearn, over and over.
I think Mike is brilliant, but I have strong reservations about this particular judgement.
I think that Schumer and the Democratic Party engineered the revelation of this story at this particular time. VERY SHORTLY before the time for Platner to be able to remove himself from the ballot. ENOUGH time for the Democratic machine to pick a more moderate candidate to replace Platner.
I have a Democratic friend who is freaked out about the Democratic Socialists who have been doing well because she believes they will lose in general elections. Platner is not a Democratic Socialist but he is leftist and full of passion. This is equivalent to her. Schumer backed Janet Mills in the primary race even tho she was much less popular. I think that the Democratic Machine has a stranglehold on its party and always picks a Moderate because they believe that only a moderate can win and may even pull in some Republican votes. And then they lose.
I think Platner’s campaign is toast but I think he should use his leverage in deciding whether to step down by insisting that someone who shares his ideas and his passion be the nominee to replace him.
If this woman is lying, and the corroborating text messages and accounts are manufactured, then Platner will win a remarkably large settlement in a defamation suit in the future. But I intend to stand on this judgement.
Maybe I'm overly lawyering, but you wrote: "This is what a credible accusation looks like. Contemporaneous disclosure. Documentary corroboration. Multiple witnesses." What witnesses? As I understand the allegation this was a one on one interraction. There are no witnesses. There is corroborating evidence (the contemporaneous complaints and therapy records), but that does not rise to the level of "witnesses."
That's a distortion of my comment. I did not make any reference to whether the allegation is credible. My only issue is your statement that there are "multiple witnesses." There are no witnesses. If you want to be accurate with your journalism you should edit that statement. Or elucidate who you are referring to as a "witness." Being a recipient of a timely communication from the victim does not make one a "witness" to the event.
Yes there are. Her friend who she spoke to in 2019 after it happened, and the people she texted with are contemporaneous witnesses. They speak to the credibility of the claim. And a court prosecuting these case would put them on the stand as witnesses.
Yes, evidence of a "fresh complaint" is admissible for corroboration as to the truth of the underlying claim. But that does not make those persons "witnesses" to the assault. They are "corroborating witnesses." Very different. You should have written "multiple corroborating witnesses." To write simply that there are "witnesses" is misleading. I have no allegiance to Platner; unlike you, I did not support him (not a ME resident) nor did I contribute to his campaign for other reasons (his anti-Israel/anti-Jew positions, for instance), but despite my antipathy towards him I still believe your reporting should be accurate and not misleading.
Having worked in civil complaint adjudication for some time, I would not assume "witness" to mean "witness to the assault" (or whatever incident. Witnesses are used to establish all manner of evidence in credibility assessments (corroboration, patterns of behavior, motivation, hearsay, etc.), not just direct observation of the incident.
A "corroborating witness" is a witness. I think most people who have watched court dramas well understand that most witnesses in a court case are not direct observers of the criminal act. Especially in these cases. Because there are usually, by definition, only two.
Not really. If you tell the average non-lawyer person that there are "multiple witnesses," I bet most will at first think there are people who witnessed the assault. Why can't you just say there are "multiple corroborating witnesses," or multiple people who received semi-contemporaneous reports of the assault? Don't you want to be as accurate as possible?
I too believed him. His body language showed no defensiveness when he was being questioned about serious accusations. That is a sign not only of honesty but of someone who has his ego under control—a very rare quality.
I think the true fault lies with the fact that we are a culture that is ridiculously unable to talk about sex and how it affects both men and women. I preferred male company growing up even tho I’m female. I got used to both the positive and negative sides of them. I expect them to be sexually driven in a way most women don’t share or understand. And we never will if we can’t get more matter of fact about human nature. Men and women aren’t acculturated in the same way and don’t respond in the same way to perceived signals. Therefore I think that it is always going to be very messy when trying to figure out what was real in sexual disputes.
I suspect you believed him because you wanted to believe him. And that if there were an "R" next to his name, you would not have been so willing. The guy has a huge Nazi tattoo on his body. What kind of explanation could you possibly fall for?
Where are the police? Where are the prosecutors? The court of public opinion is too eager to validate false accusations without due process. The nonstop volume of accusations against Platner have been less than credible. I’ll be convinced this isn’t another, probably foreign-funded, false accusation hit job when he’s actually indicted in a real court.
I watched Mika Brezenzki skeptically grill the politico writer this morning. He repeatedly insisted the allegations are credible because of hearsay corroborations from the accuser’s friends and therapists. He also seemed to have done very little to find any exculpatory evidence at all. Real evidence is required for verifiable credibility, not hearsay. Due process is the tried and true way to ascertain credibility. Don’t shitcan the rule of law here.
I also watched Mika this morning and the entire time I was thinking if Platner were a Repub would she be grilling the reporter with the same amount of skepticism? Of course not. And full disclosure, I'm not now and have never been a R.
"Bernie Sanders needs to make a statement. Not a hedge. Not a “nobody is perfect” deflection. Not a pivot to housing policy."
This is why my wife hates Sanders. Not his politics--his long-standing refusal to stand up for women. I don't loathe Sanders like she does, but she is absolutely correct on this point.
Nobody knows what they don't know about people. All social engagement is fundamentally based on act of faith. People may betray you, deceive you or let you down. This is true of your family, friends and strangers. Sometimes they surprise you. But retreating to puritanism and vanilla politicians with clean backgrounds and nothing but manufactured talking points, with positions shaped by donor networks, is surely going to lose our country to fascism permanently in the 2030s. So I took a risk on Platner. I will take more.
Mike, thank you for writing this. Your message is clear, direct and so badly needed. I love your comparison of how each party responds to the same information differently. Unfortunately, it's been proven true over and over again.
Supporting Platner, based on the information we had, wasn't wrong. Withdrawing that support when new information was given also wasn't wrong. Both decisions were made for good reasons. We're human and when it's all said and done, you can never go wrong doing the right thing.
Imagine if the NYT had been as diligent investigating and reporting on trump,-Epstein-Maxwell as they have been investigating Platner. Right on the NYT doorstep a child sex trafficking modeling industry was operated and Epstein just down the street was prosecuted in 2009 and NYT knew of all trump’s scams within the state of New York. trump sets up Karen McDougal in an apartment and NYT reports zip on this? Hundreds of stories on Hillary’s email in the NYT and let’s be honest, there was no there there in the end, pretty simply Hillary comes into the State Department in January 2009, with a State Department just hacked by Bradley aka Chelsea Manning, a completely unsecured disorganized State Department messaging system left by Condoleeza Rice and Bush ( who used RNC server and lost over 20 million emails FYI) with two wars going and the world in financial free fall Hillary asks Colin Powell what to do for secure communication and he says “use your personal server, that’s what I had to do.” Hillary took Colin Powell’s advice and she never got hacked, but the FBi did ( as testified by James Comey.) There you have it. The NYT could have done that succinct story and gotten to work on due diligence investigating and reporting on the scams. Crimes. Sexual assaults, sex traffickjng and sexual abuse involvement of trump. There is no excuse for the NYT publishing an op-ed in 2024 opining that trump has the character to be President and Kamala Harris does not and publishing a very lengthy option by NYT publisher on why the NYT was not going to endorse a Presidential candidate in 2024. The NYT pulled out its calculator just like the Republicans in the Senate who confirmed multiple credibly accused sexually assaulters for the cabinet and Supreme Court, the monetary benefit in profits outweighed the ethics. As everyone seems to be praising the NYT reporting on Platner in affirming and protecting American women against a sexual predator, we all must ask why the NYT did not do the same level of investigation and reporting to affirm women and protect woman and children against trump.
Their reporting on those things were actually quite good. I'm no fan of the NYT, but they have had very good deep reporting on all of these matters. The problem is that half the country thinks the NYT is a house of liberal lies. Republicans don't believe any reporting that is bad for their side.
Agreed, the reporting is good, but the sane-washing and headlines that obscure his deep flaws and corruption—nonexistent.
This was the Iraq War on steroids—defending the indefensible! And their editorial board may not resemble the WSJ or Wapo—but they were getting close during the elections.
And here is the reason—Vanguard and BlackRock are two of Trump’s biggest supporters; together they control over $26 trillion in AUM—and also happen to own 18% of the NYT’s. Other financial companies and hedge firms aligned with them make their share even larger.
Bottom line, they are part of the problem, not the solution—and the reason guys like Paul Krugman jumped ship.
Be honest, did you know much at all about Epstein and Maxwell and trump’s relationship with them prior to 2019? Did you know anything about out Karen McDougal prior to the Stormy Daniels coming out? Do you know of a NYT detailed reporting listing every contractor and subcontractor scammed by trump? If you were the opinion page editor of the NYT’s knowing all you know and the NYT’s knows about would you publish an op-ed that says trump has the character to be President? Would you headline trump’s trading profits and crypto profits the past 18 months as “windfalls” and his lies as “yarns” and “stretching the truth?” Look at all the stories the NYT has run serially on Platner in such a short period of time and asks yourself honestly if the reporting on trump-Epstein-Maxwell since 2009 ever amounted to the due diligence against Platner. Look at the NYT serial assault on President Biden health and neurological examinations and the misinformation on the White House medical team log, a team that cares for the entire White House staff. Repeatedly NYT reporters have sat on important stories the public needs to know about in real time so they can put it in a book and make the talk show circuit that inflates the NYT status. What the Platner story tells us is this: the NYT is capable of good honest and responsible reporting to inform Americans preparing to vote on a candidate and they have done that for Maine, yet the NYT publisher wrote a lengthy op-ed white washing any ethical responsibility to be honest about trump. The NYT savaged President Biden and called for him to step down because of cognitive issues but never called for trump to do the same because of corruption issues and numerous ethical issues from “credible” “ corroborated” numerous sexual assaults and pedophile conduct reports. In sum we know what the NYT is capable of in terms of good reporting but we also know what the NYT is capable of in terms of unethical and negligent reporting.
Well said…:)
A lot of people forget that Trump said a lot of the correct (progressive, policy-wise) things during his first run for the Presidency. Same pattern with Fetterman. Nazis and their hangers on will say *anything* to get into power...or be an influencer, for that matter.
Not a big revelation. Also one that folks seem to need to relearn, over and over.
I think Mike is brilliant, but I have strong reservations about this particular judgement.
I think that Schumer and the Democratic Party engineered the revelation of this story at this particular time. VERY SHORTLY before the time for Platner to be able to remove himself from the ballot. ENOUGH time for the Democratic machine to pick a more moderate candidate to replace Platner.
I have a Democratic friend who is freaked out about the Democratic Socialists who have been doing well because she believes they will lose in general elections. Platner is not a Democratic Socialist but he is leftist and full of passion. This is equivalent to her. Schumer backed Janet Mills in the primary race even tho she was much less popular. I think that the Democratic Machine has a stranglehold on its party and always picks a Moderate because they believe that only a moderate can win and may even pull in some Republican votes. And then they lose.
I think Platner’s campaign is toast but I think he should use his leverage in deciding whether to step down by insisting that someone who shares his ideas and his passion be the nominee to replace him.
If this woman is lying, and the corroborating text messages and accounts are manufactured, then Platner will win a remarkably large settlement in a defamation suit in the future. But I intend to stand on this judgement.
Maybe I'm overly lawyering, but you wrote: "This is what a credible accusation looks like. Contemporaneous disclosure. Documentary corroboration. Multiple witnesses." What witnesses? As I understand the allegation this was a one on one interraction. There are no witnesses. There is corroborating evidence (the contemporaneous complaints and therapy records), but that does not rise to the level of "witnesses."
Yes. It’s a credible accusation.
That's a distortion of my comment. I did not make any reference to whether the allegation is credible. My only issue is your statement that there are "multiple witnesses." There are no witnesses. If you want to be accurate with your journalism you should edit that statement. Or elucidate who you are referring to as a "witness." Being a recipient of a timely communication from the victim does not make one a "witness" to the event.
Yes there are. Her friend who she spoke to in 2019 after it happened, and the people she texted with are contemporaneous witnesses. They speak to the credibility of the claim. And a court prosecuting these case would put them on the stand as witnesses.
Yes, evidence of a "fresh complaint" is admissible for corroboration as to the truth of the underlying claim. But that does not make those persons "witnesses" to the assault. They are "corroborating witnesses." Very different. You should have written "multiple corroborating witnesses." To write simply that there are "witnesses" is misleading. I have no allegiance to Platner; unlike you, I did not support him (not a ME resident) nor did I contribute to his campaign for other reasons (his anti-Israel/anti-Jew positions, for instance), but despite my antipathy towards him I still believe your reporting should be accurate and not misleading.
Having worked in civil complaint adjudication for some time, I would not assume "witness" to mean "witness to the assault" (or whatever incident. Witnesses are used to establish all manner of evidence in credibility assessments (corroboration, patterns of behavior, motivation, hearsay, etc.), not just direct observation of the incident.
A "corroborating witness" is a witness. I think most people who have watched court dramas well understand that most witnesses in a court case are not direct observers of the criminal act. Especially in these cases. Because there are usually, by definition, only two.
This is very hair-splitting.
Not really. If you tell the average non-lawyer person that there are "multiple witnesses," I bet most will at first think there are people who witnessed the assault. Why can't you just say there are "multiple corroborating witnesses," or multiple people who received semi-contemporaneous reports of the assault? Don't you want to be as accurate as possible?
Yep. He needs to go.
I too believed him. His body language showed no defensiveness when he was being questioned about serious accusations. That is a sign not only of honesty but of someone who has his ego under control—a very rare quality.
I think the true fault lies with the fact that we are a culture that is ridiculously unable to talk about sex and how it affects both men and women. I preferred male company growing up even tho I’m female. I got used to both the positive and negative sides of them. I expect them to be sexually driven in a way most women don’t share or understand. And we never will if we can’t get more matter of fact about human nature. Men and women aren’t acculturated in the same way and don’t respond in the same way to perceived signals. Therefore I think that it is always going to be very messy when trying to figure out what was real in sexual disputes.
An overarching question is why you supported Platner to begin with? And for the commenter who wrote here: "Supporting Platner, based on the information we had, wasn't wrong." Well, yes it was. It always was. https://henmazzig.substack.com/p/how-do-you-miss-a-nazi-tattoo?r=16gdn&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
I listened to his apology and explanation and I believed him.
I suspect you believed him because you wanted to believe him. And that if there were an "R" next to his name, you would not have been so willing. The guy has a huge Nazi tattoo on his body. What kind of explanation could you possibly fall for?
I spoke to him in person. I believed his sincerity. I still do, in fact. But these sexual abuse allegations are a different matter entirely.
Where are the police? Where are the prosecutors? The court of public opinion is too eager to validate false accusations without due process. The nonstop volume of accusations against Platner have been less than credible. I’ll be convinced this isn’t another, probably foreign-funded, false accusation hit job when he’s actually indicted in a real court.
I watched Mika Brezenzki skeptically grill the politico writer this morning. He repeatedly insisted the allegations are credible because of hearsay corroborations from the accuser’s friends and therapists. He also seemed to have done very little to find any exculpatory evidence at all. Real evidence is required for verifiable credibility, not hearsay. Due process is the tried and true way to ascertain credibility. Don’t shitcan the rule of law here.
Due process is not relevant here. This is politics.
I also watched Mika this morning and the entire time I was thinking if Platner were a Repub would she be grilling the reporter with the same amount of skepticism? Of course not. And full disclosure, I'm not now and have never been a R.
"Bernie Sanders needs to make a statement. Not a hedge. Not a “nobody is perfect” deflection. Not a pivot to housing policy."
This is why my wife hates Sanders. Not his politics--his long-standing refusal to stand up for women. I don't loathe Sanders like she does, but she is absolutely correct on this point.
there were so many red flags, called out by many a brown and black folks
why does the left fetishize platner?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw0rtUYUB_s&pp=iggCQAE%3D
Mike, you are intellectually brilliant, but I have noted over several articles that your people reading skills, not so much.
Nobody knows what they don't know about people. All social engagement is fundamentally based on act of faith. People may betray you, deceive you or let you down. This is true of your family, friends and strangers. Sometimes they surprise you. But retreating to puritanism and vanilla politicians with clean backgrounds and nothing but manufactured talking points, with positions shaped by donor networks, is surely going to lose our country to fascism permanently in the 2030s. So I took a risk on Platner. I will take more.
Amen to that Michael—I know from experience….:)