Talk:Rebekah Mercer

Philanthropist?
I don't think that any source has used "philanthropist" as the primary description of Mercer. The word generally implies that she is (1) giving away her own money to (2) social welfare causes. But sources describe here as (1) running a family foundation that she was not the principal donor of, (2) running a Super PAC, (3) financing a right-wing political movement. Can we just shorten to "Republican donor" or "conservative donor" or use "conservative political activist" or "conservative political operative"? (I'll choose one if no discussion results from this post.)--Carwil (talk) 17:02, 24 November 2016 (UTC)


 * The New York Times describes her as a "conservative philanthropist." I think using that description is appropriate as the NYT is an excellent source. Safehaven86 (talk) 04:04, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

An aside in an article about something else is your source. Seriously? I wouldn't be surprised if that was them repeating a description they themselves had given of her. It's not an article about her, and she is only mentioned in passing. That's weak. Where are the examples of her donating? All I find are her making political donations, which does *not* make someone a philanthropist. 118.148.86.147 (talk) 08:47, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

I wanted to the same change after reading about this woman. She is not a "philanthropist" she is a "political donor" plain and simple. dobodob 2/10/2017

I also question the label Philanthropist for Ms. Mercer. The definition of a philanthropist "is a person who seeks to promote the welfare of others, especially by the generous donation of money to good causes". I cannot find any evidence of selfless promotion for the welfare of others in her activities or speech. It would be more accurate to label her a political strategist, political donor, and businesswoman. 2602:306:B88B:C3C0:9BB:DE24:B398:5B5B (talk) 22:04, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

I further urge a removal of the parenthetical "(philanthropist)". She is an "ardently conservative" Republican donor who has exclusively funded far-right causes. I can find no sources that characterize her as a "philanthropist" with the exception of on NY Times article that mentions her in passing as a "conservative philanthropist." AxolotlCortazar (talk) 16:37, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Combine Articles?
I'm not sure how to do so, but I think this article ought to be considered being combined with "Rebekah Mercer (actress.)" I say that because I think they are one in the same. The actress's IMDB page credits her with being an executive producer of "Clinton Cash," which was created by Breitbart, the media company Rebekah Mercer (donor) finances. Moreover, I can find nothing to substantiate the claim that the actress is a New Zealander. All acting credits are from films in 1992-95 shot in New Zealand, but I see not where there's any proof that the actress was a Kiwi. It definitely needs additional verification.Nemoscis (talk) 23:49, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
 * You are correct, they are one and the same person, as verified by The Washington Post, USA Today, and The New Yorker. All three say that the same Rebekah Mercer who has bankrolled Breitbart also co-produced Clinton Cash. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:10, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

However, IMDB should not be used as a source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_IMDbDgndenver (talk) 00:30, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Wealth
An editor removed mention of her extreme wealth in the first line, but this is supported in many of the cited references. I have added that her father is a billionaire, which should suffice, but if this is also removed, the reader will be unable to fully appreciate why she is such an important financier of political activity for her chosen candidates. Zeamays (talk) 00:21, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Two issues, verifiability and weight:
 * Verifiability: Editors should not have to read through all of the sources cited in the article to verify content in the first sentence. The citation following the sentence doesn't verify extremely wealthy. If you find a source that does verify that she's extremely wealthy, then make that clear either by adding it to the first sentence, or by adding the extremely wealthy content to the body and adding the citation there (per WP:LEADCITE}. The fact that her father is a billionaire doesn't necessarily make her extremely wealthy. Btw I have no qualms with including that her father is a billionaire.
 * Weight: If the significance of her wealth is her importance as a political financier, then that point can and should be made explicitly with an appropriate citation.
 * --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 01:11, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Citation needed for politico claims
I've tried twice to add a citation needed in the Donald Trump section, for a claim I am unable to find a source for. Each time it was removed, the first time I assumed by mistake. The claim is:


 * Some said[who?] she had not favored Corey Lewandowski as possible Republican National Committee chair and that Lewandowski had reportedly resisted paying for services from data firm Cambridge Analytica–a company funded by the Mercers–early in the campaign, though a close associate of Mercer's denied the stories.

Where is the source for that? The editor reverting my tag included the comment "see footnote 13 - footnotes aren't needed for every sentence", and footnote 13 is https://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/donald-trump-rebekah-mercer-227799

I cannot find "Corey" nor "Lewandowski" in that article. What am I missing? There are mentions in https://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/donald-trump-tech-data-fundraising-224865 and https://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/trump-campaign-corey-lewandowski-manager-224536, are they the sources? Please understand I am trying to verify claims made to meet Biographies of living persons. -84user (talk) 06:48, 27 March 2018 (UTC)


 * My apologies, I got the cited Politico sources switched up. Here's the correct source. I added a ref. Please confirm that I addressed your concern. And thanks for being persistent. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:49, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Ok, I checked the politico article and the following quote fragment does support the claim (copying in case of linkrot):

This addresses my citation needed concern for that section. -84user (talk) 22:11, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Mercer was seen as frowning on the possibility of fired Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski being tapped as chairman of the Republican National Committee, according to three people close to the Trump transition. They said Mercer was displeased with Lewandowski’s unwillingness early in Trump’s campaign to pay for the services of a data company called Cambridge Analytica, which is owned largely by her family.

Scientific consensus on climate change
, please stop edit warring to add unnecessary expressions of doubt about the scientific consensus on climate change. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:19, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

The idea of consensus science is absurd. Albert Einstein was informed of the publication of a book entitled "100 Authors Against Einstein." His response was, quite properly, “Why one hundred? If I were wrong, one would have been enough.” As is often pointed out, the consensus of scientists at one point in the past was that the sun revolved around the earth. Science does not involve deciding on scientific conclusions by majority vote. If I am in the majority on an issue but we are all incorrect in our analysis then that just means that lots of people are wrong. "Lots of people" doesn't equate to "correct." The term "climate change" is itself intellectually laughable because climate is always changing. It's a dishonest term, actually, because it came into use to hide the fact that there is no global warming. "Global warming" was all the rage among the climate "experts" until the data started to come in -- much better data because of superior measurement involving satellite measurement and not locating data collection stations too close to artificial heat sources, let it be said -- that global temperature is NOT rising.

Please cite one example where some other scientific principle has been established by majority vote.

You yourself have no scientific credentials such as might lend a shred of credibility to your position that you are qualified to judge what doubts about the supposed scientific consensus are "unnecessary." Substantial authority exists that does in fact challenge the notion of AGW as can be seen at this Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_who_disagree_with_the_scientific_consensus_on_global_warming

The vaunted climate experts can't even build computer models that correlate with observed data as can be seen here for the years 2000 and after:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nlPqXT4KpxA/VOzu0Q3KNQI/AAAAAAAAAp4/bHbrxgg5hmo/s1600/Global_warming_actual_v_computer.JPG

Please use proper terminology and stop making claims about how science works that are wrong.

Richard Ong (talk) 21:49, 19 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Consensus is not the same as unanimity. We say there is a scientific consensus on climate change because reliable sources say there is a scientific consensus on climate change. Here for example. You can that these published experts are wrong all you want, but it won't change our verifiability policy. Moreover this issue has already been discussed ad nauseum over at Talk:Scientific opinion on climate change. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 19:24, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Heiress?
I think Rebecca's father will be surprised to hear that she is an heiress.

Or are there grandparents not mentioned in the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by David Lloyd-Jones (talk • contribs) 06:07, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Trump grabbing "genitals" is not accurate
Trump used the word "pussy" as everyone knows, and the word "pussy" has possible metaphoric connotations that the word "genitals" does not. Genitals is the clinically correct term, and can only mean one thing in the most concrete manner, i.e. one's hand physically grabs a woman in the area between her legs. This may or may not be what Trump intended to mean, but that's a matter of speculation. What Trump actually SAID was "pussy" and by grabbing a woman by the "pussy", while it could mean the concrete and physical act of grabbing a woman by her "genitals", there are also many other metaphoric definitions that could also have been intended. Further, given the physical structure of a woman's vagina (i.e. "genitals") it would be almost impossible to physically grab a woman by her vagina, unless of course she has pubic hair of sufficient length, and then the technically correct term would be "pubic hair" (as in "grab a woman by her pubic hair"), which Trump also did not say. Therefore, given the wide range of possible interpretations and the fact that the most literaly interpretation is physically impossible to do, I think the Article should use the word that Trump used "pussy" and not the word some (lol) random and possibly cherry-picked "reliable source" used.2605:6000:6FC0:25:681C:395:EC3B:52E9 (talk) 16:06, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Support for Domestic Terrorism
Rebekah is an outspoken advocate for a domestic terrorist ringleader, Donald Trump, who recently led an attempt at overthrowing the United States Federal government. Feels like we should probably highlight this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.243.227.219 (talk) 06:06, 12 January 2021 (UTC)