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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024

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I doubt she is 100 iq. She did pass the bar. I would guess 110-115

There have been rumors circulating for a bit, at least on right-wing Twitter, that Kamala has a serious drinking and/or pills problem. That for many public appearances she’s on some combination of substances in order to quell her paralyzing anxiety. I have absolutely no idea if any of this is true, but if it is then it could explain why someone who, in her youth, was fairly cognitively acute could now, decades later, have lost a lot of that acuity or could be unable to demonstrate it when under the influence.

Yes because she laughs a lot and speaks in an odd manner; and seems confused or nervous at times. There was some leak about her asking her staff to put on a role-play dinner to help ease her nerves prior to meeting with some official. But it would be odd for someone so anxious to be also so ambitious and seeking the limelight. And if she was drunk or under medication I think she would seem worse somehow.

Didn’t she fail the first time?

She is also 60.

100 might be too low but she clearly is lower than 115 IQ.

That is for the February bar exam. Most new lawyers out of law school would be testing in July while those who failed in July would retest in February. I suspect that if you fail once the odds are good that you will fail again.

July 2023 pass rate was 51% and the overall pass rate seems to be between 40% and 50% depending on year.

https://www.calbar.ca.gov/Portals/0/documents/admissions/Examinations/July-2023-CBX-Statistics.pdf

Fair. I actually did add most of that in an edit, because I do want to make sure I have my numbers right.

Still, I'm aware Kamala is not liked here, and I'm not that impressed by her either. But it seems a bit much to act like anyone at barely above average intelligence should be able to go to law school and pass the bar on the first try, when half of law school students couldn't.

The problem with bar exams isn't necessarily how difficult they are (the questions will be significantly easier than the ones you've been answering in your law school exams for three years already -- the logistical pain of dealing with the neurotic complaints of 10,000 law grads over every potentially ambiguous questions means everything is presented extremely straight-forwardly). It's that bar exams might ask you about random areas of the law youve never bothered studying because who the fuck wants to waste time in family law when you intend to be a commercial litigator.

Whenever a high-profile politician turns out to have failed the bar on their first attempt (surprisingly common), my assumption is that they were overconfident and/or already busy at whatever prestigious job they had lined up for after law school, blew off the bar prep, then got unlucky when the essay questions were all on subjects they never took.

No one that successful is going to be dumb enough that they can't pass the bar if they bother to actually put in the minimum expected effort. But they are arrogant enough to think they can skip doing the minimum expected effort.

I didn’t know she failed it, is that official or just a rumour?