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Silicon Valley Big Data Startup Palantir Responds To Labor Department's Discrimination Lawsuit (fortune.com)

Posted by msmash on from the addressing-concerns dept.

Silicon Valley's big data startup Palantir, founded by tech billionaire Peter Thiel, has filed a response to the Department of Labor after the agency sued the company for discriminating against Asian job applicants. From a Fortune report: Palantir says that no discrimination took place and that the Labor Department's statistical analysis -- the basis for the recent suit -- is faulty. The suit, according to Palantir's 15-page response, wrongly suggests that the company "should have hired a workforce that matched the racial composition of the group of individuals whose resumes Palantir received, without regard to candidate qualifications." Palantir's response also points out that the suit addressed only three out of 44 job titles for which Palantir hired employees within the 18-month analysis period conducted by the Labor Department. What's more, says the response, 36% of those eventually hired across all the job openings within that timeframe were Asian -- a rate that exceeds the percentage of qualified Asian employees in the external labor market, according to stats from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

80 comments

  1. Yes, exactly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's wrong BECAUSE they hired a bunch of asians. It simply isn't fair to Americans who were raised with an institutionalized inability to do math.

    1. Re:Yes, exactly by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 2

      I just know that, whenever I see "Peter Thiel", I think of PayPal, and read the last part of it as "Thief".

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    2. Re:Yes, exactly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Presciently hilarious. I will take 3% of your lols, because I can.

    3. Re:Yes, exactly by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      Whatever flips your bippy, Skippy.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  2. Re:His opinion is invalid since he.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    absolutely deplorable

  3. "Startup" by American+AC+in+Paris · · Score: 2

    ...in what universe is a 12-year-old company a startup?

    --

    Obliteracy: Words with explosions

    1. Re:"Startup" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Depends how long you can keep bilking investors into giving you long term loans

    2. Re:"Startup" by poofmeisterp · · Score: 1

      *Bill Clinton voice*
      "Could you please explain to me what the definition of 'Startup' is?"

      Heh

  4. guilty! by ooloorie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    36% of those eventually hired across all the job openings within that timeframe were Asian -- a rate that exceeds the percentage of qualified Asian employees in the external labor market,

    See, they are guilty after all!

    (This is pretty obviously a politically motivated action by the administration, to punish Thiel for supporting libertarian and conservative causes. This will likely be followed by dropping government contracts, whether or not the company is found guilty of any wrongdoing.)

    1. Re:guilty! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >to punish Thiel for supporting libertarian and conservative causes

      And Trump too! Or someone in the Obama administration is really pissed about Gawker.

    2. Re:guilty! by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2, Informative

      Lies, damned lies and statistics.

      36%... But in what kind of work? If they are including all the low paid stuff, the call centre staff or outsourced contract coders etc...

      I actually bothered to read the Department of Labour's complaint. It's more than just a simply statistical aberration. The response from Palantir is clearly designed more for PR than as a legal argument, e.g. the bit about them only considering 3 job titles. Yeah, they looked at high skill jobs where the problem was, that's the normal way it works because where there is discrimination there tends to be less of it in the less desirable job titles, like "janitor" and "1st line helpdesk technician".

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:guilty! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Or maybe they, *gasp*, hire based on qualifications and merit rather than some racist guideline the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has laid out.

      Equal opportunity does not mean equal outcome.

    4. Re:guilty! by murdocj · · Score: 1

      yes, yes, of course, it's all part of the international conspiracy of the media, the bankers, the administration, the IRS, the Mexicans, the Republican leadership, and pretty much everybody else.

    5. Re:guilty! by ooloorie · · Score: 1

      yes, yes, of course, it's all part of the international conspiracy of the media, the bankers, the administration, the IRS, the Mexicans, the Republican leadership, and pretty much everybody else.

      No conspiracy needed here; it's the political appointees in the DOL doing what the people that hired them wanted them to do.

    6. Re:guilty! by ooloorie · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I actually bothered to read the Department of Labour's complaint. It's more than just a simply statistical aberration.

      The idea that hiring for any company or job should be statistically representative of "the population" is ludicrous in and of itself. Any such enforcement is a farce.

    7. Re:guilty! by dwsobw · · Score: 2

      One of their claims is that from 730 "qualified" applicants for positions as QA Engineer only one Asian were hired and six non-Asian. Even though 77% of applicants were Asian.
      So they do not claim that the hirings should be representative of "the population", just that this is an unlikely outcome for a discrimination free selection (actually they claim a chance of 1 in 741).

    8. Re:guilty! by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Thinking in terms of US competitiveness who would want to push for '"the population" to distract US firms?

      In a few easy steps other nations could be enjoying a flood of export quality US design jobs.
      Position your nation as smart, safe, clean, friendly, low tax, free of government interference and have your top graduates ready.
      US brands will be sending your smart nation design work in a few years just to protect the shareholders.
      Just fund US lawyers to enforce that neutral selection process and big brands will be seeking better conditions globally.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    9. Re:guilty! by ooloorie · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Even though 77% of applicants were Asian.
      So they do not claim that the hirings should be representative of "the population", just that this is an unlikely outcome for a discrimination free selection (actually they claim a chance of 1 in 741).

      The argument is bullshit no matter what "the population" refers to (that's why I put it in quotes). Companies select the best applicants from a pool of applicants, not a random subset of people who meet the requirements. That is almost guaranteed to result in a highly biased selection of applicants when you look at gender or cultural background, even in the absence of any bias.

      To see how subtle this can be, consider a large applicant pool of equally qualified men and women (on average). If you pick the 7 best applicants, they will almost all be male, yet there is no gender discrimination. Likewise, if you pick the 7 worst applicants, they will also almost all be male. That's because male and female populations have different variances even when they have the same averages. Another counterintuitive property of these kinds of selections is that the law of large numbers works against you: the larger the applicant pool, the more biased the outcome of the selection. That's why Nobel prize winners are overwhelmingly male, and why prisons are also filled primarily with males.

      The DOL statisticians aren't stupid, they understand this, which strengthens the case that this is malicious, politically motivated persecution of a political opponent.

    10. Re:guilty! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Makes sense. What are the odds of rolling any number on a six sided die? 1 in 6, right? Does that mean if you roll it six times you'll get one occurrence of each number? No. you might even roll a 1 three times. Shouldn't the same hold true for people?

    11. Re:guilty! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, that would rule out a good portion of the US population.

    12. Re: guilty! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean everybody that has a beef with America for its past and current behaviour as the biggest hypocrite in the history of mankind so far ?

    13. Re:guilty! by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      I agree, but that's not what the complaint says. You fell for their misdirection.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    14. Re:guilty! by ooloorie · · Score: 1

      Here is the argument that the DOL is making:

      "For the QA Engineer position, from a pool of more than 730 qualified applicants, approximately 77% of whom were asian, Palantir hired six non-Asian applicants and only one Asian applicant. The adverse impact calculated by OFCCP exceeds three standard deviations. The likelihood that this result occurred according to chance is approximately one in 741.

      That is, they are making an argument (in statistical terms) about random samples from the population of applicants, and that argument is utterly wrong.

    15. Re:guilty! by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      That's the summary. Keep reading for the detailed argument.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    16. Re:guilty! by ooloorie · · Score: 1

      That's the summary. Keep reading for the detailed argument.

      If you had actually read the complaint, you'd know that there is no more "detailed argument" in the report about the statistics. The entire "analysis" is limited to page 3, 20 lines of 12pt text, consisting of three paragraphs that repeat the above kind of statement for three different jobs, and a fourt paragraph making unsubstantiated claims of additional bias.

      You are blowing smoke out of your ass and pretending you have read the report when you obviously haven't. You do that a lot.

    17. Re:guilty! by almitydave · · Score: 1

      Here is the argument that the DOL is making:

      "For the QA Engineer position, from a pool of more than 730 qualified applicants, approximately 77% of whom were asian, Palantir hired six non-Asian applicants and only one Asian applicant. The adverse impact calculated by OFCCP exceeds three standard deviations. The likelihood that this result occurred according to chance is approximately one in 741.

      That is, they are making an argument (in statistical terms) about random samples from the population of applicants, and that argument is utterly wrong.

      So if I understand correctly, the DOL is saying that when presented with qualified candidates of this racial distribution, the odds that the "best 7" would consist of one Asian and six non-Asians are 1 in 741? As far as odds go, that's not so low as to be mathematically impossible. Consider the number of companies hiring for a position at any given time, and the odds of one of those companies facing a 1-in-741 scenarios is not that low. I think you'd need to actually examine the particulars of the applicants to determine whether the chosen candidates were not actually a better choice in some way than those not chosen, but allowing the federal government to nitpick individual candidate evaluations is a can of worms. Absent actual material evidence, a statistical analysis is not evidence of wrongdoing. Stranger things have happened.

      This isn't to say they didn't do anything wrong, just that "there's a 0.135% chance you're not racist" shouldn't be enough for a conviction.

      --
      my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
      I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
    18. Re:guilty! by ooloorie · · Score: 1

      This isn't to say they didn't do anything wrong, just that "there's a 0.135% chance you're not racist" shouldn't be enough for a conviction.

      Actually, I think if that number were right, it is sufficient for liability in civil and/or administrative proceedings ("preponderance of the evidence"). The trouble is that it i woefully wrong.

      I think you'd need to actually examine the particulars of the applicants to determine whether the chosen candidates were not actually a better choice in some way than those not chosen, but allowing the federal government to nitpick individual candidate evaluations is a can of worms

      The fact that hiring is complex is one problem with these kinds of actions. But in this case, their error is even more basic: selecting the n-best candidates from a population tends to amplify even slight differences between populations, even in the absence of any bias. For example, if you randomly select the tallest, shortest, smartest, dumbest, most peaceful, or most violent individuals from a random sample of people within a nation or city, they are going to be mostly males, simply because human males have slightly more variability than human females.

    19. Re:guilty! by poofmeisterp · · Score: 1

      Or maybe they, *gasp*, hire based on qualifications and merit rather than some racist guideline the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has laid out.

      Equal opportunity does not mean equal outcome.

      You are NOT allowed to do that. EVER. BAD, Anonymous commenter. BAD! *rolls up newspaper*

  5. Malicious litigation. by jcr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    These bureaucrats know that they're full of shit. This lawsuit is motivated entirely by their desire to punish Thiel for backing Trump. I hope he goes after them personally in court.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    1. Re:Malicious litigation. by dwsobw · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They allege that from 1160 applicants for positions as Software Engineers only 11 Asian were hired, while 14 non-Asians were hired. Even though 85% of applicants were Asian.
      Not sure that this is enough data to prove discrimination, but at first glance those numbers do warrant some suspicion.

    2. Re:Malicious litigation. by lucm · · Score: 2

      Do we need to repeat the whole discussion from the original story? Anyone who hires in IT will tell you that nowadays you get a tidal wave of resumes from unqualified Indians that are crammed with buzzwords and acronyms that "look" legit. When you remove that thick layer of spam you usually get a more diverse array of candidates.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    3. Re:Malicious litigation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why? I've done hiring before. I would be willing to bet, of 1160 applications, 1000 of them were auto-filtered for lack of some regex/simple search check in the resume. Wrong degree? Not the right language? Checked the "not eligible to work in the US" box? Gone to the bottom of the pile. Then from the remainder, you look for the ones that have the closest match to what you're looking for and you start from the top of the list and work your way down. I assure you that any company that hires 44% asian employees, when they had 174 non asian employees to pull from as an option is not using race to filter their applicant list.

    4. Re:Malicious litigation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      Discrimination would be if NO Asians were hired.

      God I hate P.C. america.

    5. Re:Malicious litigation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lol, we're investigating you next jcr.

  6. Can still discriminate against white guys, right? by elrous0 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Just making sure that every company in Silicon Valley can still discriminate against straight white men, who my SJW friends assure me are responsible for all the evil in the world and are the one class that it's absolutely okay to openly discriminate against.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  7. That's OFFICIALLY okay per written regulations by raymorris · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I was surprised to find that's actually explicitly stated in the official regulations. The Code of Federal Regulations actually says "discriminination [against white men] is not discrimination". I thought they just unofficially ignored it, but it's official, written policy.

    One might think such discrimination is rare, but it's actually extremely common, just worded in a way that makes it harder to recognize immediately. It looks something like this:
    Admittance to the school is competitive. Highest scores get admitted.

    Being female adds 15 points
    Being black adds 20 points
    Being latino adds 10 points
    Being asian adds 5 points

    Nobody is being discriminated AGAINST, right, only discriminated FOR. Except with competive admissions that's *precisely* the same result as this:

    Being male subtracts 15 points
    Being white subtracts 20 points
    Being latino subtracts 10 points
    Being asian subtracts 15 points

    In a competitive context, discriminating FOR anyone is discriminating AGAINST everyone else.

    1. Re:That's OFFICIALLY okay per written regulations by dwsobw · · Score: 1

      Do you have a cite/link for that regulation? My google-fu was not up to it ...

    2. Re:That's OFFICIALLY okay per written regulations by alvinrod · · Score: 1

      Being Asian doesn't add anything. They're the most heavily discriminated against when applying for medical schools for instance.

    3. Re:That's OFFICIALLY okay per written regulations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/re...

      "Individuals not members of designated groups. (1) An individual who is not a member of one of the groups presumed to be socially disadvantaged in paragraph (b)(1)"

    4. Re:That's OFFICIALLY okay per written regulations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      SJW's don't like to count Asians as a minority or even talk about them since they run counter to the SJW narrative that historically oppressed peoples in the U.S. will never be able to rise above it (because of the evil white male patriarchy, of course). Asians show that through hard work and education, historical racial discrimination can be overcome and excellence can be achieved. SJW's hate this because it suggests that blacks could actually overcome discrimination too if they didn't sit around in the ghetto all day drinking, running hustles, and stealing. Asians do things like work hard and go to college instead of just sitting on their lazy uneducated asses whining about how whitey is keeping them down. That really pisses off SJW's, who also want to blame white males for all of the world's problems and claim permanent victimhood.

    5. Re:That's OFFICIALLY okay per written regulations by guises · · Score: 1

      What you've linked to here doesn't support what the grandparent is saying. It just says that if you don't fall into one of the recognized groups with social disadvantages (women are not among the listed groups), then you need to demonstrate your disadvantage. It doesn't say that anyone is disqualified based on gender or ethnicity.

    6. Re: That's OFFICIALLY okay per written regulations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also don't forget that historically the Irish and Italians were also heavily discriminated against in the US, as were Germans after WWII

  8. How to report a business? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The Chinese restaurant down the street has a higher than average ratio of Asians working there. Shit, same deal with the Mexican restaurant. Whole lotta Hispanics working there.

  9. Re:His opinion is invalid since he.... by murdocj · · Score: 1

    no, statistically it just means that he's highly likely to be racist and think of women as second class people.

  10. Kind of a small startup for statistics by John.Banister · · Score: 1

    When I had physics lab class, they taught me that the math for statistics doesn't really apply when the sample size is smaller than 200 or so. When the Labor Department starts talking about percentages where the pool of qualified applicants is only 130, I think they might ought to have at least one "we don't want you because you're asian" anecdote to go along with their percentages to form their lawsuit. Of course, if they have a law written so that the sample size doesn't matter, then they win, regardless. I suppose in that case, Thiel might want to move his startup offshore.

    1. Re:Kind of a small startup for statistics by dwsobw · · Score: 1

      Well their other two samples are 1160 and 730 applicants.

    2. Re:Kind of a small startup for statistics by John.Banister · · Score: 1

      How many positions?

    3. Re:Kind of a small startup for statistics by dwsobw · · Score: 1

      25 and 7. I guess that they claim that the applicants numbers count, because "[...] Asian applicants were routinely eliminated during the resume screen and telephone interview phases despite being as qualified as white applicants [...]". https://www.dol.gov/sites/defa...

    4. Re:Kind of a small startup for statistics by John.Banister · · Score: 1

      If they converted 1160 "qualified on 'paper'" applicants to (say) 205 next round of interview applicants and eliminated all of one ethnicity in that process then statistics are a fine way to show bias. 25 and 7 ultimate positions aren't enough to use statistics alone to make the case, particularly when 11 out of the 25 and one out of the 7 were asian. So, the number of cases where they claim bias did the decision making are 10 or fewer. I'm not saying that the department of labor is wrong. But, I am saying that it's idiotic to use only statistical mathematics to argue about 10 decisions. They need additional evidence of bias.

    5. Re:Kind of a small startup for statistics by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 1

      How do you define "applicant" though? It's not as though most jobs these days actually make you fill out an application form, after all.

      Is it: "someone who's submitted their resume on the web site"? In my experience, 90% or more of these will never even be seen by a human. They'll get filtered either for not having the right keyword match, or for poor spelling or grammar. Of the remainder, most will get little more than a cursory glance. Trends for what constitutes a good resume change over time. Five years or so ago I was seeing a lot that ran 5 or more pages long. I hated that; and usually interpreted those as a "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, bury them in bullshit." move. Thankfully, we seem to be back to no more than two pages. But even ostensibly silly things like font choice make a difference. I'm not particular on that myself, so long as it's not jackassery like Comic Sans. But Helvetica is the hot trend that hip HR people want to see nowadays. Times New Roman, or any font with serifs for that matter, is a considered passé and may get you overlooked. Oh, and referrals from employees or recruiting partners will nearly always goto the top of the pile.

      Or is an applicant "someone with whom HR has made first contact and has expressed interest in the job"? That contact will nearly always lead to a technical phone interview if you want it to happen. A lot of people will fall out here simply because HR seldom has a real idea of what the job really entails; just that the resume and job req have matching keywords. And if it's not a fit, even the interviewee will stop the process here if they have any integrity. This is where the wheat has been separated from the chaff and the first place you can reasonably begin to look for discrimination.

      --
      Imagine all the people...
    6. Re:Kind of a small startup for statistics by poofmeisterp · · Score: 1

      If they converted 1160 "qualified on 'paper'" applicants to (say) 205 next round of interview applicants and eliminated all of one ethnicity in that process then statistics are a fine way to show bias. 25 and 7 ultimate positions aren't enough to use statistics alone to make the case, particularly when 11 out of the 25 and one out of the 7 were asian. So, the number of cases where they claim bias did the decision making are 10 or fewer. I'm not saying that the department of labor is wrong. But, I am saying that it's idiotic to use only statistical mathematics to argue about 10 decisions. They need additional evidence of bias.

      Agreed. Side-note and would love to hear your thoughts on this (this is a real question, not some BS or trick)...

      Pre-question info - if you have 100 applicants; 40 asian; 30 white; 20 hispanic; 10 misc... They all have resumes that show that they meet the direct technical knowledge specifications for a position (e.g. Oracle Database Migration, Windows Server 2008+ administration, etc) but have an interesting little logic which is perfectly valid in there: "able to think outside the box".

      All 100 are interviewed. It is confirmed and even on video that out of all of the applicants, when given a complex logic question that doesn't have a "book answer", 15 of the whites were creative and even cunning, 9 of the asians were, 5 hispanic were, and 1 misc. was... You interview another time and find that out of all of the ones that were capable, 5 old whites, 1 asian, no hispanics, and and nix the misc. were capable of completing a logical jump while weighing risk and sometimes even simplifying the issue to the point of realizing that it didn't require analysis/etc. Fact: the 5 old whites had experience, hands-on and not. The asian had only read in college text how stuff works (etc etc) and didn't get the concept of what was being analyzed.

      Question - if you have a deadline and need people right now to solve a major problem that you company could go under if it didn't solve, you decide to hire the 5 whites and the asian, even though the asian was incapable of meeting the non-specific requirement of essentially "thinking abstract/outside the box" with actual demonstrable sessions... Do you feel it's fair for your company to get a complaint and investigation which shows you were not meeting the required numbers for "equality"?

      I ask the question because I think it's the biggest load of horse shit in employment. In places I've worked, the residency of the surrounding area was primarily white. Another was a nice mix of all. Another was a mix of all but for IT positions, 90% were white applicants; the rest didn't even have the education nor were they interested. I've been denied a position I was a perfect match for (I had inside info) and a young African-Ameican was hired who didn't meet all of the qualifications and was basically asking others questions every day to figure out how to do their work because it was something they were completely unfamiliar with. They didn't ever "get it" and were terminated for "lack of work" just to avoid BS when, really, they were canned because they weren't getting work done without draining from the resources from the rest of the team.

      I don't know if I'm missing something that's key and obvious or if I'm just a casualty of reality. I fail to understand why a company must risk / essentially waste money to meet racial requirements when the applicants that are hired to meet said requirements DO NOT. Don't even come close. At the same time, a perfectly qualified person who is looking for work after moving back to their "home" city after spending years in other cities seeing that it wasn't 'for them' is denied a job they are perfectly qualified for and the interviewers loved. To get hit with that shit and be expected to feel there is "equality" is complete, said above, horse shit. I get sick to my stomach thinking about it because the position was a dream job, not just a perfect job I was qualified for.

    7. Re:Kind of a small startup for statistics by John.Banister · · Score: 1

      If your company is hiring 10000 people and the race demographics are really skewed, there's a problem there. If the number of positions you're filling is in double digits, trying to enforce percentages is total BS. It's like using quantum mechanics to get a 100% accurate prediction for 20 atoms.

    8. Re: Kind of a small startup for statistics by poofmeisterp · · Score: 1

      Thank you for your candor!

    9. Re: Kind of a small startup for statistics by John.Banister · · Score: 1

      Do understand that if there's a variation in the percentages _and also_ there's something like a blog entry from HR "It's really risky hiring *insert race here,* they never think outside the box." Then, the percentages can certainly support a claim that this other evidence of bias is substantive.

  11. It doesn't help that we're automatically racist... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Any white guy is considered automatically racist and shunable these days based on the first accusation. Defending yourself from the accusation is also racist. About the only thing you can do is apologize merely for being white.

    Which is sad, because there are many excellent people out there of every color who aren't like that at all and a core of people after political power who use this to ostracize anyone who gets in their way. And there are even some legit racists out there, still, and other such jerks. But the quotaism is just a way to make any random company guilty. I mean, even Google was accused of this sort of thing based on quotas. And I don't think anyone actually believes Google are like that.

  12. Surprise Surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A "big data" company uses "big data" statistics to support their legal position. Film at eleven.

  13. We don't threaten to jail political opponents by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 1, Troll

    And of course, we never threaten to jail political opponents in this country. *That* would be a dictatorship!!!

    I read that quote the other day, and my first response was "yeah, we totally fukken' do!".

    I could think of a half dozen examples off the top, but here's a good list of previous Democratic examples.

    From that article:

    They seem to be forgetting that throwing the book at one’s political opponents is what Democrats do all the time. Here’s 16 times Democrats tried to prosecute their opponents for political gain, not justice.

    Looking at the press bias in this election, we are totally boned as a nation. I expect we'll have rioting in several cities after the election.

    1. Re:We don't threaten to jail political opponents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The 2018 riots are still on schedule. Stay away from major cities.

    2. Re:We don't threaten to jail political opponents by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      Press bias == reporting what Trump says

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    3. Re:We don't threaten to jail political opponents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, press bias is fucking hunting down and dragging through the mud, the entire life history of a guy who had the temerity to ask a tough question of our political overlord wannabes while having opinions of his own. It's absolutely disgusting how the media has gleefully torn into the life of Mr. Bone like a pack of dogs trying to ingratiate themselves to their political masters.

    4. Re:We don't threaten to jail political opponents by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      The "guy" in question was a known as a real estate con artist a quarter century ago, and his views on women in general have hardly been secret.

      But hey. you wanted Bill Cosby for President, well this is what you get.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    5. Re:We don't threaten to jail political opponents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unless you mean something different by "political opponent" than is clearly meant in reference to the Presidential debate, then there's nothing on the list at that site that qualifies. For example, people who refuse to bake cakes for homosexual couples aren't "political opponents". I mean seriously, 68.75% of the 16 situations listed weren't even about legal actions against elected officials. I gave up a good twenty minutes of my life going over that stupid list:

      1. Not a political opponent: self-appointed investigator
      2. Not a political opponent: nuns
      3. No prosecution occurred, article just says "leftists called for"
      4. No prosecution of political opponent: prosecution of various other people. While some of them were guilty of crimes, such as soliciting sex from a minor, I am very uncomfortable with the open-ended "dragnet" nature of Wisconsin's "John Doe" prosecutions.
      5. No prosecution of political opponent: Governer investigated for abuse of power while in office.
      6. No prosecution of political opponent: article complains that two year sentence for wire fraud, extortion, etc. was too harsh.
      7. No prosecution of political opponent
      8. No prosecution of political opponent: advertisment
      9. No prosecution of political opponent
      10. No prosecution of political opponent: segregationist baker
      11. No prosecution of a political opponent: tax cheats
      12. No prosecution of a political opponent: campaing finance law violator
      13. No prosecution of a political opponent: parole violation (con-artist/check fraud, forbidden from using aliases, used an alias)
      14. No prosecution of a political opponent
      15. No prosecution of a political opponent: contempt of Congress
      16. No prosecution of a political opponent.

    6. Re:We don't threaten to jail political opponents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was unaware Ken Bone was running for president. Or for that matter has been known as a real estate con artist. Or did you simply assume that because I disagreed with you that you already knew what I was saying and didn't actually read what I wrote?

    7. Re:We don't threaten to jail political opponents by Howitzer86 · · Score: 1

      If they do it they lose that moral high-horse called "Only liberals protest violently."

    8. Re:We don't threaten to jail political opponents by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      "press bias is fucking hunting down and dragging through the mud, the entire life history of a guy who had the temerity to ask a tough question of our political overlord wannabes while having opinions of his own."

      If I end up voting for Trump, it will be out of pure spite for press tactics like this. The bias is rich and ripe and on full display.

  14. Re:It doesn't help that we're automatically racist by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

    You know, there are actually people who are victims of persecution. And then there are people who are just victims of their own persecution complex.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  15. Re:It doesn't help that we're automatically racist by lucm · · Score: 1

    Any white guy is considered automatically racist and shunable these days

    Don't forget that the guy is gay, which is a form of sexism and violence against womyns.

    --
    lucm, indeed.
  16. Meh by lucm · · Score: 1

    Just making sure that every company in Silicon Valley can still discriminate against straight white men

    I'd say this is mostly a problem for "average" white males. When you're a rockstar, you typically don't deal with the layer of politically correct bullshit - either it doesn't apply to you, or you take your rockstarness somewhere else.

    And as far as I'm concerned. average people can use whatever shenanigans or political trends to get ahead, I don't care.

    --
    lucm, indeed.
  17. Good job justifying discrimination. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Good job justifying discrimination.

    1. Re:Good job justifying discrimination. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You claim discrimination where none exists.

  18. No mystery -- Thiel supports Trump by Nightlight3 · · Score: 1

    This has nothing to do with discrimination. Peter Thiel is a major supporter of Trump and Obama administration is now punishing him. This is no different than Obama's IRS going after Tea-party organizations before the last elections.

  19. Re:Can still discriminate against white guys, righ by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    Your friends sound like obnoxious idiots. Why are you still friends with them?

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  20. Peter Theil is not a good person by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He reminds me of ernst rohm.

  21. Try Title 34, Subtitle B, Chapter 1 by raymorris · · Score: 1

    It's from Title 34, Subtitle B. I don't have time right now to find the exact subsection, but it's probably in part 100, or maybe 106.
    https://www.law.cornell.edu/cf...

    I came across it when reading the regulations that apply to education, so that's why I say Title 34, Subtitle B - it could have been another similar subtitle. What really struck me was the wording, "discrimination ... is not discrimination".

  22. Flawed Assumption in that Asian =/= American by Koreantoast · · Score: 1

    A seriously flawed comment working under the assumption that somehow people of Asian descent aren't American. Many of the "Asians" working there were born and raised in the United States, raised in the same institutions as all other Americans.

    1. Re:Flawed Assumption in that Asian =/= American by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A seriously flawed comment that misunderstands parent, falsely assigns nonexistent assumptions, and epic WHOOOOOSH in general.

      Specifically, "Americans who were raised with an institutionalized inability to do math" is a subset of Americans, presumably the non-Asian ones. Reading skill, do you haz it?