Another day, another racial hatred hoax
This.
And I agree with this:
Why, then, was [the supposed racial incident in the school at which Karen Pence worked] originally reported with such blind acceptance and an utter absence of critical thinking? Because, similar to the Jussie Smollett hoax, it suited the liberal media’s narrative: That America is an evil, racist country, and the Trump administration can in some way be blamed for incidents of hate.
The connection [to the Trump administration] is extremely weak? So what. The story turns out not to be true? Shoulder shrug. The left-wing media outlets in question might update their stories. A few will even probably issue retractions. But they’ll still all do the same thing next time a story like this rolls around.
And you know why? Because a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on. In fact, most people never even hear the correction. The MSM knows that full well, so they have learned the value of publishing the lies, Big and Small and In-Between.
Whatever was going on with this sixth-grade girl that caused her to fabricate this story, the real culprits are a press that publicizes incidents that have no business being in the newspapers, chasing after sensationalism and political gain for the left.
I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s been a long time, so I’m going to say it again:
The “Fake Hate Crimes” database (www.fakehatecrimes.org) documents how common this kind of lie has become. I think it’s worth a bookmark.
Another video mashup, news media “reporting” the early story:
https://mobile.twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1178760479054925825
Quaint propaganda anymore.
The coverage I read in a couple of places didn’t mention Pence’s wife at all, so I wasn’t aware of that angle.
But, these stories did reproduce the text of the apology, apparently offered by the grandparents, apologizing, asking for forgiveness, and saying that
they were ready to accept whatever consequences might be coming.
I don’t think that easy forgiveness is the answer here.
This is one of a seeming myriad of fake hate crimes that have popped up all over the country in the last few years, mostly perpetrated by blacks, and the only way to stop them is to make the punishment for creating and falsely reporting such phony hate crimes to the police so harsh that the penalties will put an end to them.
In this case, the girl should be permanently expelled from the school, and not just skate, but get formally arrested, and perhaps do some time in juvy.
Next, the parents of the three accused white students should sue the ass off of the girl’s parents or grandparents.
Moreover, depending of what actions were taken and statements made by the school regarding the three accused white boys, their parents should perhaps also sue the school as well and–depending on how this story was reported–perhaps consider suing the news outlets that reported this story to boot.
Only by making the cost of perpetrating and amplifying these types of hoax so high will they be stopped.
The question at hand is whether the Sulzberger-Baquet regime at the times is fatuous or fraudulent. Who would run a story about a chickensh*t dispute between ‘tweens occurring 200 miles away (which turns out to have been a fictional chickensh*t dispute between ‘tweens, big f@#$ing surprise)? The same outfit that once ran 30+ stories on the membership policies of a golf club in a 3d tier city in Georgia.
The left has lost any sense of the absurd (something we all could have gleaned of the public remarks of people who took Christine Blasey Fraud seriously).
We have loop-dee-loops of crazy goin’ on: https://mobile.twitter.com/neontaster/status/1178751317839360000
There are liberal precedents for diversity or color judgments, but it seems that the NYT style guide advises forming close associations. That said, the facts will be sequestered, then recycled at a politically congruent time, and redistributed as a political myth. Hopefully, someone is taking notes to short-circuit this insidious progression.
From another report, on the withdrawal of the allegations:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/sixth-grader-admits-to-falsely-accusing-three-boys-of-cutting-her-hair
So..probability that the missing dreadlocks were, in fact, the result of playing beauty salon, and the girl was intimidated into telling her parents what they wanted to hear? 100%
Echoes of Tawana Bradley & the Day School Demons.
You have to be taught to hate.
“…a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on. In fact, most people never even hear the correction. The MSM knows that full well, so they have learned the value of publishing the lies, Big and Small and In-Between.” – Neo
Which is why Steve Hayward can write a post like this:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/09/this-week-in-crazy.php
As a commenter there remarked: “And it’s only Monday.”
Snow on Pine on September 30, 2019 at 9:43 pm said:
“Whatever was going on with this sixth-grade girl that caused her to fabricate this story, the real culprits are a press that publicizes incidents that have no business being in the newspapers, chasing after sensationalism and political gain for the left.” – Neo
I generally agree with Snow on a lot of things, as I do with the general gist of his comment here, but would respectfully dissent in part from his recommendations.
“In this case, the girl should be permanently expelled from the school, and not just skate, but get formally arrested, and perhaps do some time in juvy.”
Based on the information that the girl was possibly bullied by her parents into making the complaint, I would cut her some slack — certainly suspension for lying, and some kind of (what we used to call pastoral) counseling, which may actually be obtainable at this school, as opposed to most of the victimology-promoting educators.
“Next, the parents of the three accused white students should sue the ass off of the girl’s parents or grandparents.”
Here, the gracious extension of forgiveness is the Christian thing to do, and the grandparents (not the parents?) of the girl have humbly extended the first olive branch.
Espousing both mercy and forgiveness should be a priority of all the families of an institute named Immanuel Christian School.
“Moreover, depending of what actions were taken and statements made by the school regarding the three accused white boys, their parents should perhaps also sue the school as well and–depending on how this story was reported–perhaps consider suing the news outlets that reported this story to boot.”
Grind their faces into the dirt, and sow it with salt.
Their behavior is exactly the same as in Covington Catholic case and the Oberlin College case, and for the same reasons by each party: cowardice (in piling on before investigating) and partisan blood-lust.
“He Who is Compassionate to the Cruel, Will Ultimately Become Cruel to the Compassionate”
And to anyone who excuses the school and the press — the “easy forgiveness” crowd that never repents after obtaining that boon:
“Justice first and mercy second. The trouble with some of your crowd is that it would have mercy first.” – Robert Frost
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/no-one-should-be-surprised-that-the-press-sought-to-tie-karen-pence-to-school-hate-crime-hoax
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/09/this-week-in-crazy.php
Paul Krugman Tweeted: Starting to look like two possible outcomes: Trump and a number of others end up in jail, or thousands of journalists end up in prison camps.
* * *
I’m thinking, I’m thinking…
I’ll go with Krug’s second option. Put thousands of them in prison camps, see if any other country will take them, and keep them turning big rocks into small rocks in the meantime. Oh, one more thing. Put Krug in there with them, and keep him there until the last presstitute is either deported or dead.
The lefties want scorched earth. I hope Trump gives it to them.
This went national for two reasons: because Karen Pence teaches there, and because progressive media assume that a conservative Christian school is naturally racist. The presence of this young girl with dreadlocks in the school argues against the second assumption. Karen Pence was savaged in the press for teaching there, because they require Christian moral and ethical standards of their staff (i.e., traditional sexual ethics).
It has been remarked that the Bezos Birdcage Liner offered three columns of reporting on this on the front page of the Metro section. Just a couple of weeks ago, a white man was beaten to death by a pair of black teens at the Frederick Fair and it merited six sentences in Bezos. As always, reporters and editors reveal themselves to be intellectual and moral frauds.
It’s one of the weirder phenomena of these weird times that we now hear so routinely about outrageous hate crimes that, one after another, in the fullness of time, always turn out to be hoaxes. Why now?
It occurs to me that our country must be full of people who hate their political opponents so much that they are desperate to seize on excuses to justify their hatred. It has to be uncomfortable to live in such a state of hatred with no obvious factual basis — and believing in some obvious absurdity like Jussie Smollet’s tale — or this one — has to ease the discomfort by making it seem that the hatred is justified.
Why else would it have seemed relevant to anybody that Mike Pence’s wife teaches part time at this school, when there was no suggestion that she had anything to do with the incident? ONLY because that somebody was desperate beyond all limits of rationality for an excuse to direct hate in the general direction of Trump.
And I’ll bet that most of the people who fall for these hoaxes never find out that they turned out to be hoaxes. The original hoax will be on page 1, while the ultimate explanation will be buried on page 13 of the B section by the media, who want to go right on whipping up people’s hatred and making everybody comfortable being haters, so that they can keep on manipulating them with the next hoax, next week.
The sad part about the large numbers of fake hate crime reports is that there are still occasionally actual ugly incidents in which people are assaulted or worse because of their race. With so many hoaxes, the actual cases get lost. Some of the more credible instances have been cases with white victims, as Art Deco points out.
Shanah Tovah
Welcome to 1934…
where Jewish white males are a set inside the greater set of western white males
the punishment MUST happen, because under racism rules, the lover of the evil deserves the same end as their evil…
if your a ni**er lover you get the same fate in the old days by Dems
why would they be any other way with their FIXED set of rules we refuse to apply and desperately try to find other answers.
NY post has an article that wealty women who displaced men, are upset that there are no wealthy men to ahve families with and so on… for some inane reason, womens logic circuits been gummed up by how to live better advice, liberation advice and all these logical reasons they should mold their lives away from what has allowed mankind to survive for 100k or so years..
the ladies who cant figure out that if you kick the men out and do that..
they have no place, no money, and you dont get children or any of those things that women actually want… a retired life raising kids and having a home at her husbands expnze.. (cause when they DO get this, they quit… you can hear the hubbies complain that they were making a quarter mill a year, bought based on that, then she quit and he cant do it)
men without mney are not worth loving
thats BIOLOGY
men not worth loving, dont love much themselves
they have inner angers and issues
the black children were the first to get the treatment that the others now get
they got rid of their husbands for the BBD of a govt check
they did not REAR their children, they raised them..
ie. you raise corn, you rear children…
the women are teaching everyone of this ilk that its ok to lie and do this for the cause… how many examples of women stepping forward with false evidence that X is wrong, and so on.. and eveyone stick up and love them for it? how many of X ilk commits a crime, and instead of their own people hating them for making their lives worse, they are heroes
celebrate criminality and racism
and you get a civil war
because you created it by pushing down one side
and uplifting the other side telling them they are great and they were cheated and that now they have the power they can fix it
1935 – hold down the economics of Jews, and point out to the others that Jews took their property, stole their money, and oppressed the population by cheating and taking more than they deserve with their PRIVILEGE.. so those that were party members and not Jewish were allowed to oppress them back.. the oppressors were not allowed defense… and the more one side acted out and no re probation or any issues and social pluses for doing it
they eventually loaded them into ovens..
2019 – hold down the economics of white males, and point out to the others that white males took their property, stole their money, and oppressed the population by cheating and taking more than they deserve with their PRIVILEGE.. so those that were party favored and not white males were allowed to oppress them back.. the oppressors were not allowed defense… and the more one side acted out and no re probation or any issues and social pluses for doing it
What the f*ck is different?
It occurs to me that our country must be full of people who hate their political opponents so much that they are desperate to seize on excuses to justify their hatred.
Yes, and they’re employed as reporters and editors. Scandals which don’t serve the political objects of the media just go away. (See the triumvirate of Virginia state officials whose transgressions were simply forgotten after a week or two).
Forgot who first said it but, “Fake hate crimes are what you get when the demand for them exceeds the supply”, provides a good explanation for why they happen so frequently.
People know a lot about things AFTER they exist… they dont know much about Lenin in 1870s… and they dont know much about Hitler in the 1910s… and they dont know, because they actually think propaganda is facts (willi munzenberg?)…
they dont know that this process is the process they used in Germany
they dont WANT to know either… as i said a long time ago, as long as you refuse to believe, then you can pretend you dont have to do anything, and so, by the time its irrefutable, your a party member because there is nothing to do but pray you survive… what could have been EASY to stop with belief, became impossible to stop, by refusing to believe (sociopaths not only would do that, but would be HAPPY doing it)
the democrat party has been manipulating and deceiving their population and the world as they preach an appealing message of unity through economic pay back… warren wants unity and commiseration out of hating the rich… (Who are the foundation of any society, that everything else is on top… take them away, and your nation has no ability to stand!)
they are now waging campaigns against the target, which if was exactly the same, would make it easy for even a retarded person and a harvard graduate to tell… so,obfuscation, unless you have swastickas, and mack jackets and all that… its just not actually going to happen
but i guess you havent figured out what will happen to you when the dominant population is foreign races all ginned up for two generations that X group did this to them, and robbed their children…
all they have to do is vote to change it, then they can get rid of them!!!
all they need to do that, is a majority that can change it, and the will to attack and destroy any protest against it as evil..
To prevent the exceptions to the constitution, justification, and so forth… the Democrat press played up white attrocities (they committed) and generalized them to all jews, i mean all white males… they alleged one sided discrimination that if you accept, will make them evil and the other side innocent of all they haev done that was horrible cause it was the fault of the jews, i mean white males…
the democratic press deplored white males masculinity, oppression and chauvinism, how they all are born hating people of color, and how their women even say the same about them!!! they also attack anyone who would stand up for this group with any kind of explanation or factual line of history.
To make sure this sticks, the regime even staged border incidents.. staged hate hoaxes… gave license that the people who chose their sides wont be punished as it was the others sided fault for their behavior… they get license.
the big hate hoax of the century was the Reichstag fire…
of which we now belive the propaganda story… just as we believe the propaganda story of the pope helping nazis… (that was a german play).
The Pence angle drove a lot of it as summed up by Big Fur Hat:
“The leftist outlets that I read gratuitously and shamelessly added the tidbit that Second Lady Karen Pence teaches at the Immanuel Christian School in Springfield, Virginia, where the alleged incident took place.
NBC – Boys Pin Down Black Classmate, Cut Her Dreadlocks at Virginia School, She Says
The incident occurred at the evangelical Christian school where Vice President Mike Pence’s wife, Karen Pence, teaches part-time
CBS – A black middle school student from Virginia is accusing three white boys of pinning her down and cutting off her dreadlocks. The incident took place at Immanuel Christian School – where Vice President Mike Pence’s wife, Karen Pence, is a teacher.
ABC- Officials at Immanuel Christian School, where the vice president’s wife, Karen Pence, teaches art part time, told ABC News on Thursday that they’re working with police “to conduct a thorough investigation.”
WaPo- Tuition for middle school students is $11,500. Vice President Pence’s wife, Karen Pence, teaches art part-time at the school to students in grades one through five.
Raw Story- The racist attack took place Monday at Immanuel Christian School, a private K-12 academy where Vice President Mike Pence’s wife teaches…
The Daily Beast – The Monday afternoon alleged racist attack at the private Immanuel Christian School—an already controversial school where Karen Pence, the second lady of the United States, teaches art class part-time—has “destroyed” the Allen family
CNN- Vice President Mike Pence’s wife, Karen Pence, teaches art part-time at the school. It garnered national attention earlier this year when it was revealed that the school has a policy banning gay students and parents.”
NOT HOAXES – and its against not just Caucasians but Asians too..
And of course, this push down pop up process, causes the opposite to happen more often too!!!!
[and also why if this gets discussed the numbers they use are the 1 on 1 numbers and no one will allow the group attacks on 1 stats!!! which are even worse, and remain hidden unless you look at them]
and the idea that even if a woman commits a crime, they protect her identity
they protect the identity of the assailant
and now, dont show victims trying to hide the OBVIOUS…
if you protest or comment on this, your a NAZI
[AS Famed feminist said: The oppressed have a RIGHT to class hatred against their oppressors]
Group of teens brutally attack men in front of DC hotel
https://nypost.com/2019/07/26/group-of-teens-brutally-attack-men-in-front-of-d-c-hotel/
Group Of Teens Fracture Man’s Jaw During Attack In Old City, Philadelphia Police Say // Police say a group of males and females, between the ages of 15 to 18, attacked the 32-year-old man and attempted to take his backpack.
This one (below) is revealing… for the kind of gratuitous extra violence and anger in the acts on helpless people, who have very little chance of doing ANYTHING!
the ambush that left the victim with a deep head wound requiring 35 stitches and 16 staples. The badly outnumbered Kenneth Wong, 35, also suffered a broken nose in Friday’s caught-on-video attack. In fact, it’s unfortunate the law doesn’t say parents should also be arrested because of their kid’s actions …. My face is disfigured enough that facial recognition doesn’t recognize (me).”
Fourth teen surrenders in caught-on-video bloody Brooklyn beat down, but his mom insists suspects are ‘not bad kids’
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-brooklyn-beatdown-suspect-surrenders-20190514-okyjvvtx2ncwpmt3jkqup3mfwa-story.html
Downtown attack caught on video one of three that led to teens’ arrests, records show
[watch how the hyena’s wander around the corner as the predators stalk and line up their innocent prey…. but is he innocent? or is he an oppressor? Would it have been reported if it didnt go viral?]
those same three boys and two other boys were charged in a second attack
Smith, of the 1700 block of E. Belvedere Avenue, is charged with robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery, second-degree assault, theft and possession of brass knuckles with the intent to cause injury in the third incident.
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-ci-downtown-attacks-charges-20170313-story.html
And this by no means is just black on white..
you can find just as many videos of mass attacks on lone black men or boys
but who wants to talk about the result of ‘games’ played politically, socially, and even by people in their community earning money and respect making their lives worse as Booker T Washington pointed out:
“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”
? Booker T. Washington
All i had to do is search youtube over a few minutes to find the above
and even more..
Man is always brutal in a brutal world in which limits are self imposed mentally
it is not the question of whether that brutality exists or not, its more to the question of whether its rare or not, or whether its frequency has made it acceptable by an invalid process that establishes “normal”. – Artfldgr
Where’s the Reverend Al Sharpton? The Allen’s obviously need some spiritual guidance.
Artfldgr:
By the way, it’s even worse than that. The reason I say that is because the German people didn’t vote Hitler in, even with all the propaganda. What did happen was that he and the Nazis got enough votes to get their foot in the door, and then Hitler became Chancellor through a series of backroom deals in which leaders of other parties thought they could control him. He said what they wanted to hear, and then once he came to power he destroyed the other parties and got the remainder of the Reichstag to destroy itself. I realize you are aware of this history, but I’m putting it here for others. The point is that a party who will lie like that, and do it successfully, doesn’t even need a majority to vote for it. It just needs enough people to get it far enough that it can do the rest by manipulation, lies, and strong-arm tactics.
Liberals and the news media (redundant) are liars. They are both corrupt to the core and shockingly incompetent. Their hatred has driven them insane and rendered them stupid.
I’m sure some will chastise me for painting with such a broad brush. But name me someone in power in either politics or media who isn’t neck deep in the lies and slanders. Name me someone on the Left who is standing up for truth.
“…it can do the rest by manipulation, lies, and strong-arm tactics.’
And—the icing on the cake—by calling Trump and his supporters “Nazis”…with an international echo chamber constantly reinforcing the message.
So the three accused kids here are just, what, the “collateral damage” of a hit piece on Pence’s wife?
What about the possibility that these kids, being tagged as the perpetrators of a “hate crime”–though that claim is now proved bogus–will find that that initial tag will mark and surround them, like a foul odor–as they move thorough the next few years of their lives or, perhaps, longer?
Besides any damage in the court of public opinion, what about any psychological damage that might have occurred to each one of these kids as a result of this whole process?
Do they, can they completely trust the people around them–at the school and elsewhere–ever again?
What about that?
Is everyone who read about the initial claim of the hate crime going to have read the retraction of same, and treat these kids appropriately?
The spotlight has been focused on these three apparently innocent kinds, and all those who participated in deliberately picking them out from obscurity, and “lighting them up,” ought to pay a price.
I don’t think locking her up will do anything but make her feel like a victim. Maybe she should be sent with a school counsellor to volunteer in a cancer treatment center for kids where she can see what it’s like for real kids who have lost their hair from chemo. She is only 12 so she should be made to see the real world and stop thinking about herself. She should then be made to write an essay on her experience.
I noted in the coverage of this that the girl’s grandparents are her legal guardians. That signals to me that she probably has a troubled background.
I agree that the three falsely accused boys are now at enormous risk. Were their names ever revealed in the media? I hope not. It’s bad enough that the accuser’s name is out there — after all, she’s only 12, and this may stick to her for a long time. But she and her family at least had some control over this. The boys had none.
Mrs Whatsit on October 1, 2019 at 8:03 am said:
…
It occurs to me that our country must be full of people who hate their political opponents so much that they are desperate to seize on excuses to justify their hatred. It has to be uncomfortable to live in such a state of hatred with no obvious factual basis — and believing in some obvious absurdity like Jussie Smollet’s tale — or this one — has to ease the discomfort by making it seem that the hatred is justified.
* * *
I picked up a link at Gerard’s blog while reading the Hysteria post to a very good essay of his (which I highly recommend, especially with reference to the discussion on California), but my focus here is on a comment late in the thread:
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/myths_texts/ceremonies_of_the_horseme.php
Two Wolves
One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
He said, “My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all.
One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
Doug Purdie on October 1, 2019 at 9:57 am said:
Forgot who first said it but, “Fake hate crimes are what you get when the demand for them exceeds the supply”, provides a good explanation for why they happen so frequently.
* * *
It’s hard to track down the original version of any good proverb, because it goes through a great number of permutations, but here are a couple of posts that used some variant, and which also included a good amount of useful information.
Doug Purdie on October 1, 2019 at 9:57 am said:
Forgot who first said it but, “Fake hate crimes are what you get when the demand for them exceeds the supply”, provides a good explanation for why they happen so frequently.
* * *
It’s hard to track down the original version of any good proverb, because it goes through a great number of permutations, but here are a couple of posts that used some variant, and which also included a good amount of useful information.
All of these were triggered by the Jussey Smollett hoax, so their use of the meme is probably not original, but Google always defaults to the most recent hits, I think (once it’s filtered out anything that serves only conservative purposes; however, I suspect there are a very limited number of leftist posts using this meme, even to contradict it — which they can’t, so they ignore it).
https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/07/12/the-demand-for-bigots-exceeds-the-supply/
https://weirs.com/the-economics-of-hate/
February 27, 2019 Op/Ed by Gorrell
This one shows how the meme has become so common-place that readers are the ones using it, although it is the earliest of the three to be published.
https://quillette.com/2019/02/22/hate-crime-hoaxes-are-more-common-than-you-think/
I found one earlier instance in the comments to an Oct 24th, 2017 post about the
Eastern Michigan University “racist grafitti” Hoax.
“The demand for racists and white supremacists far exceeds the supply.”
The doxxing, outing, and cancelling activists are all perpetrating hate crimes, and they aren’t even hoaxes.
The B-Bee is fast becoming real news instead of parody.
https://babylonbee.com/news/after-hours-long-search-through-old-tweets-and-podcasts-activist-successfully-offended
https://babylonbee.com/news/new-pulitzer-prize-to-honor-publications-for-destroying-peoples-lives
https://babylonbee.com/news/cnn-launch-real-news-spinoff-site
I have included this last one because, as Reilly says in the Spiked! interview, “College kids that engage in these hoaxes very frequently say that they did it to call attention to a real problem.”
https://babylonbee.com/news/snopes-the-claim-that-trump-is-hitler-lacks-concrete-evidence-but-alludes-to-a-deeper-truth
“While Trump may not be factually Hitler, he is morally Hitler, so we’re gonna go with ‘Unproven,'” said one Snopes writer. “The important thing for a fact-checker is not the facts, but the truth.”
It appears that these three innocent kids names have not been published. All well and good.
But, as we all know–or should know–there are paper records and, then, there is the “grapevine.”
And it is the grapevine–the word (or even the look) that is passed from person to person (its contents usually never written down) that will determine how these kids are viewed and treated by others in the future.
And teachers, school administrators, and the parents of kids at the school in question each have, I’m sure, their own grapevines, and rumors can be deadly.
Once the idea of these kids having done something “bad”–true or not–is injected into a grapevine, it would be very hard, I’d imagine, to eradicate it.
(I am reminded of military promotion boards which, as I have heard, are usually composed of several people, but one person in each one of these promotion boards is a hold over from the last promotion board.
I have heard it said that, while the board is supposed to decide on promotions based solely on the file on each candidate, the printed records they review, in realty, they also rely on whatever the holdover tells them about this or that candidate.
In this way, people who you might think were eligible for promotion and had good paper records can be passed over–time after time–because the “word on them,” passed from holdover to holdover–is that they’ve done something, made some mistake, run afoul of some superior officer, one of “the powers that be,” and although this is not reflected in the records, the holdover makes sure that the board is aware of it, which means that that person “fingered by the grapevine” should be passed over for promotion.)