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It Doesn’t Matter Nate Silver Is Gay. It Matters America Knows He Is.

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var addthis_config = {“data_track_addressbar”:true};Nate Silver is gay, in case you didn’t know. Until yesterday, practically no one did. Silver is the incredibly accurate statistician who gave President Obama a 91.6% probability of winning re-election on Election Day, and gave right wing pundits and prognosticators such angst for the months leading up to the election they created an entire new system of poll reading — that, like most everything the right does, was totally wrong.

Silver, author of the bestselling book, The Signal and the Noise, has not been totally wrong. In fact, he’s been almost totally right. Silver’s statistical model ultimately predicted President Obama would win the White House with an a weighted probability average of about 315 electoral votes — with 332 the most likely scenario — and 50.9% of the popular vote. Obama won 332 electoral college votes and 50.6% of the popular vote. Perhaps more important, Silver’s model predicted the vote correctly in all 50 states. In 2008, Silver correctly predicted 49 out of 50 states and all 36 Senate races.

“I’ve always felt like something of an outsider,” Nate Silver tells Carole Cadwalladr of The Observer, a liberal British newspaper. “I’ve always had friends, but I’ve always come from an outside point of view. I think that’s important. If you grow up gay, or in a household that’s agnostic, when most people are religious, then from the get-go, you are saying that there are things that the majority of society believes that I don’t believe.”

Cadwalladr, who in her extensive profile of the 34-year old superstar, published in the U.S. at The Raw Story, notes, “Silver is gay,” and writes:

“What made you more of a misfit, I ask, being gay or a geek?”

“Probably the numbers stuff since I had that from when I was six.”

Silver’s blog, FiveThirtyEight, is published at The New York Times, but Silver is not a Times employee; instead, he licenses his award-winning blog to the Old Grey Lady.

Silver, a total nerd and geek in the best possible meaning of the words, was named by Time magazine one of The World’s 100 Most Influential People in 2009. Despite all this, Silver has had to bear his share of anti-gay attacks, even when most of the world didn’t know he was gay.

On October 25, when the right was in total freak-out mode over Silver having given President Obama a 71% chance of winning re-election, the right’s new wunderkind, Dean Chambers, aka Mr. Unskewed Polls, wrote:

Nate Silver is a man of very small stature, a thin and effeminate man with a soft-sounding voice that sounds almost exactly like the “Mr. New Castrati” voice used by Rush Limbaugh on his program. In fact, Silver could easily be the poster child for the New Castrati in both image and sound. Nate Silver, like most liberal and leftist celebrities and favorites, might be of average intelligence but is surely not the genius he’s made out to be.

Silver responded, indirectly, two days later, via Twitter:

Chambers later removed the graf and apologized, but not before Gawker, who noted Chambers’ numbers are “generated in the same way that a kid turns an F into an A by drawing an extra bar down the right side of it,” had some fun:

Nate Silver, the famed statistician behind the FiveThirtyEight election forecast blog at the New York Times, is wrong. And gay. At least according to the more virulent elements of right-wing media. That he’s wrong is only confirmed by his gayness, just as surely as his gayness is the source of his wrongness. Nate Silver is a tautology of being queer as hell about everything.

Hardcore conservatism’s loathing of science has lurked around GOP politics for so long that its easy to forget how nasty it is. Over 40 years, that disdain has slid from “pointy-headed intellectuals” to something very like a jock slapping a math book out of a kid’s hands and saying, “NICE NUMBERS, FAG.” But this is what you do when you can’t crunch the numbers yourself or when they will not save you. You shoot the messenger.

…

Don’t you get it? Nate Silver is wrong, because Nate Silver sounds like a goddamn queer.

So, why does it matter that Silver is gay?

Four years ago, when I began The New Civil Rights Movement, anyone’s coming out was viewed as big news. If an actor at the Oscars, Emmys, or even Tonys acknowledged their same-sex partner, or even commented on marriage equality, blogs lit up and Twitter cheered. Today, if we ran a similar story, it would be met with yawns.

Times have changed, and for the better.

But not necessarily for kids.

Kids need role models.

That geeky, nerdy gay fifth grader needs to know there are geeky, nerdy successful and respected adults. That nine-year old girl who knows she’s different from other girls, needs to know there are lesbians like her and one of them just became a U.S. Senator.

And the school yard bullies who beat the crap out of geeky, nerdy gay fifth graders need to know that the gay kids they’re beating up today may well grow up to be revered statisticians.

It doesn’t matter that Nate Silver is gay. It matters that people who don’t like or respect gay people — or who even hate gay people — people who think we’re immoral and a danger to society, know that Nate Silver is gay.

And that should help them start to change their perception.

It doesn’t matter that Nate Silver is gay. But it matters people know because there are lawmakers who want to ban same-sex marriage. And religious leaders and pundits who want to criminalize our relationships. And presidential candidates who want to take away our right to visit our loved ones in the hospital. And schoolyard bullies who cut gay boys’ hair — who grow up to be presidential candidates who want to take away our right to visit our loved ones in the hospital.

America is changing, because people know we’re not going away.

It doesn’t matter that Nate Silver is gay. It matters that America knows he is. And it matters that people know you are. Because when they know we’re here, they know that can’t hurt us anymore. They have lost the ability to stop us from marrying and raising families and serving in the military and in Congress and running businesses and living our lives.

 

Image by randy stewart via Wikimedia

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to describe more accurately Silver’s statistical model prediction of the electoral college results.

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News

‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

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1 hour ago

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April 25, 2024

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The county clerk for Ingham County, Michigan blasted Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump after the ex-president’s daughter-in-law bragged the RNC will have people to “physically handle” voters’ ballots in polling locations across the country this November.

“We now have the ability at the RNC not just to have poll watchers, people standing in polling locations, but people who can physically handle the ballots,” Trump told Newsmax host Eric Bolling this week, as NCRM reported.

“Will these people, will they be allowed to physically handle the ballots as well, Lara?” Bolling asked.

“Yup,” Trump replied.

Marc Elias, the top Democratic elections attorney who won 63 of the 64 lawsuits filed by the Donald Trump campaign in the 2020 election cycle (the one he did not win was later overturned), corrected Lara Trump.

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“Poll observers are NEVER permitted to touch ballots. She is suggesting the RNC will infiltrate election offices,” Elias warned on Wednesday.

Barb Byrum, a former Michigan Democratic state representative with a law degree and a local hardware store, is the Ingham County Clerk, and thus the chief elections official for her county. She slammed Lara Trump and warned her the RNC had better not try to touch any ballots in her jurisdiction.

“I watched your video, and it’s riveting stuff. But if you think you’ll be touching ballots in my state, you’ve got another thing coming,” Byrum told Trump in response to the Newsmax interview.

“First and foremost, precinct workers, clerks, and voters are the only people authorized to touch ballots. For example, I am the County Clerk, and I interact with exactly one voted ballot: My own,” Byrum wrote, launching a lengthy series of social media posts educating Trump.

“Election inspectors are hired by local clerks in Michigan and we hire Democrats and Republicans to work in our polling places. We’re required by law to do so,” she continued. “In large cities and townships, the local clerks train those workers. In smaller cities and townships, that responsibility falls to County Clerks, like me.”

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She explained, “precinct workers swear an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Michigan.”

“Among the provisions in the Michigan Constitution is the right to a secret ballot for our voters,” she added.

Byrum also educated Trump on her inaccurate representation of the consent decree, which was lifted by a court, not a judge’s death, as Lara Trump had claimed.

“It’s important for folks to understand what you’re talking about: The end of a consent decree that was keeping the RNC from intimidating and suppressing voters (especially in minority-majority areas).”

“With that now gone, you’re hoping for the RNC to step up their game and get people that you train to do god-knows what into the polling places.”

Byrum also warned Trump: “If election inspectors are found to be disrupting the process of an orderly election OR going outside their duties, local clerks are within their rights to dismiss them immediately.”

“So if you intend to train these 100,000 workers to do anything but their sacred constitutional obligation, they’ll find themselves on the curb faster than you can say ‘election interference.'”

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OPINION

‘I Hope You Find Happiness’: Moskowitz Trolls Comer Over Impeachment Fail

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18 hours ago

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April 24, 2024

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U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) is mocking House Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer over a CNN report revealing the embattled Kentucky Republican who has been alleging without proof President Joe Biden is the head of a vast multi-million dollar criminal bribery and influence-peddling conspiracy, has given up trying to impeach the leader of the free world.

CNN on Wednesday had reported, “after 15 months of coming up short in proving some of his biggest claims against the president, Comer recently approached one of his Republican colleagues and made a blunt admission: He was ready to be ‘done with’ the impeachment inquiry into Biden.” The news network described Chairman Comer as “frustrated” and his investigation as “at a dead end.”

One GOP lawmaker told CNN, “Comer is hoping Jesus comes so he can get out.”

“He is fed up,” the Republican added.

Despite the Chairman’s alleged remarks, “a House Oversight Committee spokesperson maintains that ‘the impeachment inquiry is ongoing and impeachment is 100% still on the table.'”

RELATED: ‘Used by the Russians’: Moskowitz Mocks Comer’s Biden Impeachment Failure

Last week, Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) got into a shouting match with Chairman Comer, with the Maryland Democrat saying, “You have not identified a single crime – what is the crime that you want to impeach Joe Biden for and keep this nonsense going?” and Comer replying, “You’re about to find out.”

Before those heated remarks, Congressman Raskin chided Comer, humorously threatening to invite Rep. Moskowitz to return to the hearing.

Congressman Moskowitz appears to be the only member of the House Oversight Committee who has ever made a motion to call for a vote on impeaching President Biden, which he did last month, although he did it to ridicule Chairman Comer.

It appears the Moskowitz-Comer “bromance” may be over.

Wednesday afternoon Congressman Moskowitz, whose sarcasm is becoming well-known, used it to ridicule Chairman Comer.

“I was hoping our breakup would never become public,” he declared. “We had such a great thing while it lasted James. I will miss the time we spent together. I will miss our conversations. I will miss the pet names you gave me. I only wish you the best and hope you find happiness.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

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OPINION

‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

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20 hours ago

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April 24, 2024

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The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case centered on the question, can the federal government require states with strict abortion bans to allow physicians to perform abortions in emergency situations, specifically when the woman’s health, but not her life, is in danger?

The 1986 federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), signed into law by Republican President Ronald Reagan, says it can. The State of Idaho on Wednesday argued it cannot.

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, The Washington Post’s Kim Bellware reported, “made a clear delineation between Idaho law and what EMTALA provides.”

“In Idaho, doctors have to shut their eyes to everything except death,” Prelogar said, according to Bellware. “Whereas under EMTALA, you’re supposed to be thinking about things like, ‘Is she about to lose her fertility? Is her uterus going to become incredibly scarred because of the bleeding? Is she about to undergo the possibility of kidney failure?’ ”

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Attorney Imani Gandy, an award-winning journalist and Editor-at-Large for Rewire News Group, highlighted an issue central to the case.

“The issue of medical judgment vs. good faith judgment is a huge one because different states have different standards of judgment,” she writes. “If a doctor exercises their judgment, another doctor expert witness at trial could question that. That’s a BIG problem here. That’s why doctors are afraid to provide abortions. They may have an overzealous prosecutor come behind them and disagree.”

Right-wing Justice Samuel Alito appeared to draw the most fire from legal experts, as his questioning suggested “fetal personhood” should be the law, which it is not.

“Justice Alito is trying to import fetal personhood into federal statutory law by suggesting federal law might well prohibit hospitals from providing abortions as emergency stabilizing care,” observed Constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis.

Paraphrasing Justice Alito, Kreis writes: “Alito: How can the federal government restrict what Idaho criminalizes simply because hospitals in Idaho have accepted federal funds?”

Appearing to answer that question, Georgia State University College of Law professor of law and Constitutional scholar Eric Segall wrote: “Our Constitution unequivocally allows the federal gov’t to offer the states money with conditions attached no matter how invasive b/c states can always say no. The conservative justices’ hostility to the spending power is based only on politics and values not text or history.”

Professor Segall also served up some of the strongest criticism of the right-wing justice.

READ MORE: ‘They Will Have Thugs?’: Lara Trump’s Claim RNC Will ‘Physically Handle the Ballots’ Stuns

He wrote that Justice Alito “is basically making it clear he doesn’t care if pregnant women live or die as long as the fetus lives.”

Earlier Wednesday morning Segall had issued a warning: “Trigger alert: In about 20 minutes several of the conservative justices are going to show very clearly that that they care much more about fetuses than women suffering major pregnancy complications which is their way of owning the libs which is grotesque.”

Later, predicting “Alito is going to dissent,” Segall wrote: “Alito is dripping arrogance and condescension…in a case involving life, death, and medical emergencies. He has no bottom.”

Taking a broader view of the case, NYU professor of law Melissa Murray issued a strong warning: “The EMTALA case, Moyle v. US, hasn’t received as much attention as the mifepristone case, but it is huge. Not only implicates access to emergency medical procedures (like abortion in cases of miscarriage), but the broader question of federal law supremacy.”

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

 

 

 

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