MONDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2026
The story starts right there: We've chosen VALUES as our touchstone this week. It could simply have been CORNELL
We admired Jessica Weiner's guest essay in yesterday's New York Times. Headline included, her essay started like this, online headline included:
I Thought Things Had Gotten Better. The Cornell Case Shows How Bad They Really Are.
Four weeks ago, I dropped off my younger daughter to start her freshman year at college...
And so on from there. Given the reporting from Cornell, it isn't clear that Weiner had to say anything more than that.
Meanwhile, yes! Leaving any legal decisions to the appropriate legal processes, it seems to us that everything about this latest case does indeed seem to show "how bad [things] really are" in this profoundly important area of deep human concern.
Our analysts continue to filter back onto our sprawling campus, returning from their recent journeys to points unknown. Starting tomorrow, we'll focus on these Cornell events and the world from which they emerge.
When it comes to tragedies of this type, we possess a lifetime of thoughts.
Did Jessica Weiner raise her child where there are no men?
ReplyDeleteNo. But your mom obviously did.
DeleteIt's no wonder I was never raped.
DeleteI avoid men.
DeleteSomerby refers to this Cornell gang rape as a tragedy. I call it a crime that was improperly investigated and not prosecuted.
ReplyDeleteEvery aspect of this crime could have been prevented. @10:30 illustrates the attitude that leads to such crimes. It is the idea that men cannot control themselves, that they have no responsibility to do so, and that women are fair game for rapists if they are not constantly vigilant, including avoiding parties and never drinking alcohol even though men do that freely and without similar constraint.
1. Why was no responsible adult at the frat monitoring the drinking and especially the illegal drug use? Apparently no one intervened in a 4-hour long gang rape at the House.
2. Why do frats allow the use of upstairs bedrooms for sex during frat parties?
3. Why do sororities and dorms not teach women who attend parties to look out for each other and encourage those who have drunk too much to leave?
4. Why are Somerby and others here focusing only on the punishment this woman received by being raped, and not looking at the cover-up of the crime and failure to prosecute the men who also failed to behave responsibly by raping a drunk woman?
5. Why should any drunken person at a party be in grave personal danger, and not just making a spectacle of themselves in a harmless way? Would men at a frat be similarly engaged in humiliating and physically harmful attacks on a male who got drunk at their party?
6. Who teaches men that it is OK to sexually attack women who are incapacitated?
7. Why are illegal drugs tolerated in frats or other places? For example, why was Musk not investigated and imprisoned when he was openly using illegal drugs at Mar a Lago?
8. Why is Beer Bong Brett sitting with a lifetime appointment on the corrupt Supreme Court?
Delete9. Why do men close ranks around those accused of rape, insteading of caring about those who were harmed?
Delete"Why was no responsible adult at the frat monitoring the drinking and especially the illegal drug use?"
DeleteBecause at one time, long ago, feminists fought against such control, arguing that they are free to take care of and protect themselves and don't need parental intervention for safety.
10. Since everyone involved is over the age of 18, and therefore adults, why is this anyone's business in the first place? If the woman did not immediately report to the police that she was raped then she wasn't. And no amount of Monday morning quarterbacking by the media is going to make it so.
DeleteWhy are paces run entirely by liberals the sites of these atrocities?
DeleteSame reason paces (sic) not run entirely by liberals are the sites of these atrocities.
DeleteThey are in the United States of America.
Places run entirely by liberals aren't perfect, but they are still the better than all other places tried.
DeleteDavid thinks liberals run frat houses.
Delete
DeleteYeah, every place controlled by Dumbocrats is a disaster. Murders, rapes, raging fires, capital flight.
There's a slew of right wing men rushing to defend the rapists and put the blame on the victim.
DeleteTheir comments are all essentially word for word identical. It is obviously a coordinated effort, which is part of why it is failing to gain traction.
Most of the rapists were White, one was Korean.
Cornell is liberal in the sense of education philosophy, not in its student body. Its student run newspaper is the leading conservative college publication in the country. Its where Ann Coulter went to school for Christ's sake.
If the rapists had been Black or undocumented immigrants, there would have been the same coordinated effort but with the opposite message, attacking the rapists and defending the victim.
Republicans have no integrity, they are consumed with asserting dominance.
DiC, you’re such a gad faith fucking troll:
Delete“Liberty University agreed to a record $14 million fine from the U.S. Department of Education in March 2024 after an investigation found the school created a "culture of silence" and mishandled reports of sexual assault and rape.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/06/liberty-university-fined-sexual-assault
"David thinks liberals run frat houses"
DeleteThis is an excellent point. At a place like Cornell the faculty, and most of the student body will be libs, but the frat rats are MAGA or MAGA-adjacent.
My kid is a senior at Cornell, there are some lefties but most of the student body is made up of rich right wing snobs.
DeleteDavid knows that even at more liberal institutions fraternities are bastions of toxic pseudo-masculinity. David knows that members of fraternities are typically politically more conservative than the student body at large. David knows that Ivy League fraternities are comprised largely of conservative, old-money, spoiled, pampered rich brats. David knows that many conservative colleges and universities experience a culture of sexual harassment and predation encouraged or ignored by the school administrations. David knows these things but leaves them out because he is as dishonest as his hero who has lied in his face at least 50,000 times.
DeleteDavid in Cal - your President is paying $6M for raping a woman u stupid fucking asshole.
DeleteThe statute of limitations for rape is not a day or a week as some commenters have suggested. This idea that men get off scott free if the raped woman doesn't immediately report what has happened is self-serving and very stupid.
Delete@3:10 and @2:18 miss my point. At conservative-run institutions, the boys and the girls are busy mastering quantum mechanics and Shakespeare. They don't have time for gang bangs. And, they know that the institution has standards that would lead to very serious punishment if they did what these Cornell students did.
DeleteA lot of people want to blame conservatives for all the bad, distasteful stuff, but that's just not reality. Acceptance of widely divergent sexual practices is a liberal virtue.
Fact free bullshit from the right wing troll, as always.
DeleteIt is not true that conservative schools or students are more virtuous. That is a lie. They turn a blind eye then claim they have no problems, like Cornell did.
Delete“@3:10 and @2:18 miss my point.”
DeleteThank goodness someone is thinking clearly.
“At conservative-run institutions, the boys and the girls are busy mastering quantum mechanics and Shakespeare.”
And Iron Age and Bronze Age mythology in science class.
“And, they know that the institution has standards that would lead to very serious punishment if they did what these Cornell students did.”
Maybe that’s true in Iran or Saudi Arabia, but this is America, Buddy. And here in the great old US of A, that is 100% bullshit.
“A lot of people want to blame conservatives for all the bad, distasteful stuff”
Sure. And for the most part they would be spot on.
“Acceptance of widely divergent sexual practices is a liberal virtue.”
That’s why women married to conservatives always look bored as hell.
“Acceptance of widely divergent sexual practices is a liberal virtue.”
DeleteHoly Republican cover-up of the Epstein Files, Batman.
“Ken Starr and other top Baylor University leaders faced severe accusations of mishandling and concealing widespread sexual assault allegations, primarily involving members of the football team, during his tenure as university president from 2010 to 2016.”
DeleteUm, rape isn’t a “divergent sexual practice”, DiC. It’s a crime.
Delete“Palm Beach GOP endorses candidate accused of child sex abuse” (The candidates name is Michael Caruso)
DeleteHey, leave DiC alone. He reads Somerby, and Somerby stated that liberals are terrible people. That’s all DiC is saying here.
DeleteName a conservative university. OK , Liberty. The evolution denying bastion of science, whose recent history includes a president whose hobby was enjoying watching sex between his wife and a pool boy. That conservative university.
Delete@7:30 - What rape are you talking about? Nobody at Cornell has been charged with rape, let alone convicted of rape.
DeleteDiC - Your President sets the moral standards for our country. That is why our country has gone to shit, just like the child raping disgusting president. I really didn't know how sick you are. Get help.
Delete10:56. I wish it weren't true but you have it backwards. The country had a moral standard before Trump came along and the bar was very low.
DeleteClinton and Biden certainly had their champion defenders against all accusations as presented by women. It blows my mind that Tara Reade’s mother called the Larry King Show contemporaneously and referenced the unspoken societal expectation towards protecting powerful men.
DeleteOn the other hand, if regular guys are involved it’s their fault and their fault alone when a woman gets bombed out of her mind at party (along with her male cohorts). It’s assumed that she has zero sense or agency and the wasted guys are as accountable as the school’s guidance counselor.
Any bystander to this rape could have called 9-1-1. Why didn't they?
ReplyDeleteThe first responders would have joined the attack.
DeleteRape culture is foundational to frat boys.
DeleteThis is hardly surprising, our current president is a sexual predator and he has filled his admin with sexual predators. In their world, sexual assault is a privilege afforded to them.
They graduate into Epstein's cohort.
Delete
ReplyDeleteMy heart is bleeding for drunken sluts attending elite universities.
Would you enjoy being raped, asshole? Try it and see.
DeleteMy heart is bleeding for the illegal immigrants who come to this country to mop the floor with Americans on the job market.
Delete
Delete"Rape" may mean many different things, Dumbocrat. In this case, it means that people had sex with her.
If I were a drunken slut attending an elite university, then yes, it seems quite likely that I would enjoy it.
No, not all sex is rape. "Rape" means that people had sex with her (specifically male people) AGAINST HER WILL, without consent. If you think you would enjoy rape, even as a "drunken slut," you don't know what rape is like for women.
DeleteDid you know that there were photographs taken of her bruises by the hospital she visited afterward? Do you imagine she gave consent for men to hit her?
DeleteIf she alleges that people had sex with her against her clearly expressed will (either ordinary or in all caps), she just has to prove it. Beyond all reasonable doubts. That's all.
Have you seen the ugly mother-fuckers in that frat?
DeleteThey look like inbreds.
Delete"They look like inbreds."
It wouldn't surprise me; after all it is an elite university, full of Dumbocrats.
There's a reason "Rich people have ugly kids" is a meme on social media.
DeleteFor 10:59 and people like him, rape is fodder for humor. It's a joke.
Delete"If I were a drunken slut attending an elite university, then yes, it seems quite likely that I would enjoy it."
DeleteNone of us have ever doubted that.
Mao's rape fantasies are gross.
DeleteFrats provide the convenient platform for the use of drugs and alcohol and the space for shit to go down., not only among classmates but with female teenage members of the community at large. It happens every weekend. The reason the Duke lacrosse students were unfairly tried publicly was because anyone who has attended a frat laden college or university knows this kind of behavior is commonplace. Not spoken about is the rampant cheating that goes on with banks of old tests shared among frat boys that give them advantage academically over their peers. Frats should not exist , and would not, if donor money was not at risk for closing them all.
ReplyDeleteAgree
DeleteGee, that sounds exactly like the actions taken by the frats boys of Delta Tau Chi House as depicted in the movie "Animal House."
DeleteDo they still sing "Louie, Louie" by the Kingsmen?
Studying old exams is not cheating.
DeleteSome studies show that open book/open notes exams are more conducive for learning.
DeleteExam questions must be specifically written for that type of exam. Memorizing multiple choice responses produces no learning at all. An open book exam may take longer to grade and thus may not be practical for large class sizes.
DeleteStudying old exams that contain questions that are still being used is cheating. The ability to study old exams that are not available to non-frat members is cheating. A professor would make old exams available to ALL students if he or she intended them to be used for study.
It is a short step to obtaining a copy of the current exam via theft and making it available to the frat, or having another frat member take the test for another member, as Trump did throughout his school career.
A main issue in this situation is what Cornell did when it was made aware of the rape. They covered it up. That is what they do with cheating scandals too, and frats understand that the wink at their wrongdoing is related to the privileged status of the boys in those frats.
Having a trove of old exams to review is a decided advantage. I saw this up close in college when, after a test, I overheard frat members discuss the fact that the same questions had been re-used from prior years. A professor aware of this, as they all should have been, would have made old tests available to everyone. I was too naive, or dumb, not to bring that to the attention of faculty back when I was an undergraduate. Frat houses like to advertise that their GPAs are often higher than the general student population's. This is one explanation. Of course with AI and grade inflation, the problems faced in assessing students now are more complex.
DeleteGiven that men cannot control their carnal urges under the influence of alcohol, they should be chemically castrated before attending any party where drinking will occur. That will moot the issue of whether or not consent has been given and prevent rapes of both conscious and unconscious women.
ReplyDeleteWhat man would think it was fun to have sex with an unconscious woman anyway? Perhaps frats should invest in the purchase of a sex doll, since these guys don't care about mutuality.
These women, as adults, need to take responsibility for their own behavior and environments in which they put themselves, they should not outsource their own agency to other people or institutions. That would be a huge step backwards.
DeleteBetter to ship men to Central American gulags for the sake of the children as well as the women.
Delete1:02 Thinking that blaming the victim is convincing in any way, is just wild.
DeleteIf you would prefer that institutions step in and control the lives of these young women, it's your business.
DeleteFeminists fought very hard against such control in the '50s. But now it seems like women are ready to have institutions control their behavior again instead of, as adults, taking responsibility for their own behavior.
These young women may not like the institutional control you are suggesting.
DeleteFake news 2:05.
DeleteYou're angry that women reject you, so you are lashing out.
I would like to see frat administrators ban alcohol at their parties and discipline those who engage in drunken misbehavior. Bars and clubs have bouncers who stop serving those obviously drunk and get rid of the unruly who are causing trouble. Overserving can cause a bar/club to lose its alcohol license. Adults who over-serve minors in their homes can be prosecuted in states like CA.
DeleteDon't bitch about ICE agents.
DeleteShoot them.
Women should not have to be locked in safe environments, guarded by males, unable to venture out and unable to enjoy the same activities as men, simply because men have the aggression and greater strength to hurt them at will, sexually or just by beating them up or forcing them to comply with what the men want. There are other scandals where male athletes have been photographed beating and coercing their girlfriends into doing or not doing things (exercising independent will). Assaulting anyone is illegal. Women should not need bodyguards to participate in society, as men do freely.
ReplyDeleteMen need to learn to control themselves when drinking:
ReplyDelete"Key Facts on Bar Fights and Violence
• Male Perpetration & Involvement: Criminological and sociological studies show that the vast majority of physical altercations and aggressive behavior in bars and nightclubs are committed by men.
• Alcohol Correlation: Alcohol intoxication plays a major factor; studies note that alcohol is associated with a high percentage of facial and head injuries occurring in and around public drinking establishments.
• Types of Injuries: Common injuries from bar fights range from minor cuts, bruises, and black eyes to moderate or severe trauma such as broken noses, fractured jaws, dental damage, and traumatic brain injuries.
• Reporting Rates: Many bar fights go unreported to the police or hospitals unless a severe injury requires emergency medical treatment or a weapon is involved."
Rapes of women at frat parties are an extension of this male inability to drink responsibly.
It isn't just rapes but general assholery. Living next door to a frat at UCLA, I saw a fight once at a frat party where the girls were wearing dresses with bare shoulders (spagetti straps) and a guy was going around pressing a cold beer glass against unsuspecting female backs while they were talking to someone else. He thought that was hilarious. As the night went on, there was the ritual throwing of the girls into the swimming pool, fully clothed. Among other pranks, at one party they cut down a small tree on the frat house front lawn, just because they could.
None of that was equivalent to rape, but most likely happened because men can't drink well enough to stay in bounds. Girls don't get like that.
Maybe reconsider that last sentence. Jane Doe stated the consumption of 10 beers and ketamine. Not excusing what happened, but, yes, females can be over -intoxicated, especially in the setting of spiked punch etc.
DeleteBeing intoxicated is not consent to sex. In fact, it is the opposite -- someone in that state, male or female, cannot legally give consent. Yes, she shouldn't have drunk that much, but how many men at that party were similarly drunk without being raped? (Men can be anally raped and forced into any number of degrading acts, if someone wants to assault them.)
DeleteMy meaning was that when women get drunk, they do not become aggressive and physically assault others or commit vandalism. Men's drunken violence is a problem.
Our society produces violent males. The violence is not innate, but emerges from our society. These males then use alcohol to excuse and enable their violent behavior.
DeleteOur society produces females too dumb to stay away from frat houses.
Deletedumb = inexperienced and lacking supervision
DeleteI wouldn't let my son, daughter, or pet near a frat house.
DeleteThey're full of the toxic male offspring of the worst people in society.
God the idiot Somerby goes there on a blog with no moderation and a pack of sexist cuck commenters. What could go wrong?
ReplyDeleteYou forgot to mention perverted nonagenarian actuaries and pre-teen Nick Fuentes fanboys. Otherwise, my favorite comment of the year.
DeleteThe term "slut" allows men to dehumanize a woman, allowing him to categorize her as deserving of mistreatment. Men who think of women as objects, others, are freed of the burden of empathy that would make them think of women as human beings, like men are, and thus make it harder to abuse them.
ReplyDeleteFeminists have this right. They know how it works in men's minds when they mistreat women. Somerby routinely attacks feminists, just as Limbaugh did (calling them Feminazis) and the right continues to do. There is a war against women happening on the right and this case is being treated as part of that war. Republicans want women's vulnerability to rape to be an excuse to limit what women are allowed to do in society, just as occurs in other honor cultures, where women are blamed for what men do to them.
"Leaving any legal decisions to the appropriate legal processes, it seems to us that everything about this latest case does indeed seem to show "how bad [things] really are" in this profoundly important area of deep human concern."
ReplyDeleteHere Somerby generalizes from a crime to our society overall, as if this were how everyone engages in sex. What is different today is that women want rape to be prosecute and are making noise about it, not that things have gotten so bad that there is rape everywhere, as Somerby hints.
Raping Stormy Daniels while his wife was pregnant with their child makes Trump smart.
ReplyDeleteAlso it proves Jesus is using Trump as his tool.
DeleteStormy Daniels is a slut.
DeleteRight wing males want females like Stormy to be sluts, so they leave people like her with few options other than to commodify her sexuality.
DeleteTrump coerced Stormy into sex with a false promise of getting her on the reality show he was hired as a cast member on.
Stormy says the sex was disgusting and Trump has a micropenis.
Trump's nonexistent virility exposed, right wingers leap to calling Stormy a slut, which is just a confession that such people have no charisma, are ashamed of their lack of sexual prowess and undersized penis, and likely have latent homo or bi sexual urges.
My penis is normal.
DeleteNothing about you is normal
DeleteMy penis is the one thing about me that’s normal.
DeleteLongtime grifter, serial child molester, and poster boy for the Republican Party---Dennis Hastert---has died.
ReplyDeleteAt least he outlived Mitch McConnell.
DeleteI used to make death announcements, but people got tired of them.
DeleteThe GOP is the party of sexual predators and racists.
DeleteIt is dying, but causing as much damage as it can as it clings to life.
If you don’t like what happens at frat parties, don’t go to frat parties.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you don't like getting told you've posted a stupid comment, then don't post stupid comments.
DeleteThese morons are all about law and order when it comes to minorities.
DeleteBut in reality most crimes are committed by White males.
What happens at frat parties are crimes.
If you truly cared about law and order, you'd support prosecuting crimes at frat parties.
But you're a fraud, so you don't.
I truly support staying the hell away from frat parties. I've never attended one.
DeleteAt a college football game one time I sat in the frat section and they were stealing beer from the guy selling beer and I tattled on them and they were so angry they started threatening violence against me, but since I am a male, the threats were empty.
DeleteFrat boys are impotent cucks.
DeleteThey only get turned on by voyeurism and assault.
This is also the case for the entire GOP.
The frat boys who raped Jane Doe weren’t impotent.
DeleteIf you don't like the way the police treat people, move to a country with 2nd Amendment rights.
DeleteIt’s a good thing we have the VALUES president in office.
ReplyDeleteIf you delve into the childhoods of these frat boys, and find that they are sociopaths, then, what I learned from this blog is that they can’t help themselves, so should be pitied and shown sympathy.
ReplyDeleteHas Somerby ever suggested the 'mentally ill can't help themselves'?
DeleteYes.
DeleteNo.
DeleteTDH keeps failing to get the results it wants.
ReplyDeleteSerial sexual predator Roy Moore lost his appeal to the Supreme Court concerning the loss of his defamation lawsuit.
Poor Somerby, he and Roy Moore can commiserate together over how some sexual predators are unable to get society to coddle them.
Women have a right to withdraw consent after the fact. Only a misogynist would deny that.
ReplyDeleteYou keep banging your head against the wall because that is the only banging a loser like you can get.
Deletewomp womp
So you agree: a woman can retract her consent after the deed is done.
DeleteSometimes women give consent but do not actually have the ability to give consent in the first place. That happens when an underage woman consents, or someone who is mentally disabled or under the influence. They cannot give consent but may not realize it, being disabled. A woman who gives consent while drugged may not realize her impaired state and think she has given legal consent when she has not because she cannot legally do it.
DeleteA woman can also give legal consent but stop in the middle because she does not want what is happening to her at that point. That is not withdrawing consent but refusing consent for anything that takes place from that point on.
I know you are trolling and being sarcastic, but NO means NO, whenever NO is said and sex MUST stop at that point. You can call that whatever you want.
The presumption of competence means only that clear and convincing evidence of incompetence is needed in court, not that someone is necessarily competent if they have not passed out.
DeleteI'll try to express myself more clearly. After a competent, adult woman has given valid consent, and after the act consented to has been done, she retains the right to revoke her consent.
DeleteGood.
DeleteMen can do it too
DeleteConsent cannot be revoked retroactively. Regret? Yes. Revoke? No.
DeleteYes, it can be revoked retroactively. But it's not free; she has to give a blowjob to initiate the revocation.
DeleteFair's fair.
The Clarence Thomas Rule.
DeleteA special message for young women: you don’t need frat boys.
ReplyDeleteA special message for Americans: You don't need to listen to the Supreme Court.
ReplyDeleteThe Supreme Court is an agency of the Republican party.
DeleteToxicity has remained a consistent feature of online interactions since 1989.
ReplyDeleteI blame Alexander Graham Bell.
Delete"New York State sets a high bar for proving rape allegations. A person who has willingly consumed drugs or alcohol is not assumed to be incapacitated unless she or he is unconscious." [Weiner's essay says]
ReplyDeleteWhile there is no assumption of incompetence based on alcohol consumption, it is possible to prove that a person is incapacitated through clear and convincing evidence. There is an assumption of incompetence is a person is unconscious due to drug or alcohol consumption but that is not the only way to prove incapacitation.
Weiner says that Trump has given frat boys a get out of jail free card by limiting the ability of universities to help women who have been raped prove their cases.
ReplyDeleteBrad Slager, Mediaite's new conservative opinion writer, echoes Trump's complaint that SNL is unfunny. Slager reports this as if it were any kind of news, that Trump doesn't like being mocked. Let the audience decide what is funny or not. Slager is just carrying water for Trump in his attacks on the various comics who have targeted him via the media. What is new about that? Conservatives are going to say and do whatever they think Trump wants, even if it means a supposed journalists attacking others in the media.
ReplyDeleteTrump is evil. His supporters are evil. But, still, SNL is unfunny.
DeleteOne of the reasons the Democratic party has failed so spectacularly over the last 16 years is their arrogance.
DeleteThey smugly think they are smarter than people who can't perform basic math functions.
DeleteThey had to pay such a price for it.
Delete
DeleteYeah, Dumbocrat retards are constantly reassured that they are the smartest. Good comedy.
It's been proven scientifically that the Republicans are the dumb ones.
DeleteI don't know why Democrats keep running these gargoyle, alcoholic women for president. That doesn't seem very smart.
DeleteSpeaking of promiscuous sluts, Kamala Harris ran a fine campaign.
DeleteDrunken sluts "R" Us.
DeleteDrunken sluts "R" Us.
DeleteApparently a lot of Democratic women regret not having kids.
DeleteRepublicans are not morons.
DeleteThey just say moronic things to distract from the fact they're all bigots.
Don't fall for it.
Regarding Iran: ”Let ‘em take out a city. Let ‘em take out San Diego or Los Angeles.” Nice quote from the POTUS. And all the while, DiC thought the war would make him safe from an Iranian ICBM.
ReplyDeleteGet ready to be told he was joking, by the people who voted for him because he's a bigot----oops, I mean by the people who voted for him because he tells it like it is.
Delete