Oh Dear, It’s Monday Again
An open forum to start the work week,
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, September 28, 2020
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88 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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The Florida headline of the day-
Florida surpasses 700,000 coronavirus cases as state enters Phase 3 reopening
Abandoned in Iraq: Inside Two Soldiers’ Harrowing Escape
The true story of U.S. soldiers left for dead in Iraq, their epic battle for survival, and the military cover-up that kept them silent for over a decade.
It’s a good read, not too long.
Brad Parscale has been hospitalized after his wife called police saying that he was threatening to harm himself.
Gee, the irony. Days before the first debate the WaPo drops a story detailing how The Former Reality Show Host, attempted to manipulate his ailing father to turn over control of his businesses to him. Effectively disenfranchising his siblings.
Then, to gild that lily, the NYT dumps the FRSH’s tax records for all to see.
Ya think Chris Wallace will be asking about this tomorrow?
Wonderful things are happening to a deserving man.
The other than Trump’s tax returns headline of the day-
Man Spent Donations to Black Lives Matter on Himself, Prosecutors Say
@Jen: So your saying a 6’8″ mentally unstable man with guns is less scary to the police than an unarmed autistic 13 year old?
@BugManDan: Yup.
@BugManDan: There’s that, but also the timing is peculiar. I’m wondering how much grift/siphoning off of resources has been going on, and what might be visible in whatever documentation the NYT has at hand.
@Jax:
Liver ice cream? Pass.
My parents tried to trick us into consuming liver by cooking it like milanesas (covered in egg wash and bread crumbs and fried), but they couldn’t disguise the foul taste. I never fell for it.
I’ve heard of meat milkshakes, too. And garlic ice cream. I like both, especially garlic*, but I wouldn’t care to try either.
* My garlic philosophy: one clove of garlic isn’t enough for any recipe, unless you’re making a dish called “one clove of garlic.” Even then, you should use two.
@Jen:
Parscale might have found himself running out of funds to subsidize what appears to be a very lavish lifestyle. He seems to have taken a lot of money from the Trump campaign.
@Kathy: My mother tried everything to get me to eat liver, nothing worked except fingers tightly holding my nose while quickly chewing and swallowing. And, of course, the promised ice cream if I finished.
Yesterday a reporter from the foreign press asked Trump about Azerbaijan. Trump replied that “We’re looking at that very strongly.”
Two questions:
1. Do you believe Trump knows where Azerbaijan even is? Or even what it is?
2. How do you look at something “very strongly”?
I think he bailed from the press conference right after the Azerbaijan question.
@CSK: Azure by Jean is the “premium” cologne being developed by his kids, right?
@Jen
Great tweet:
“Donald Trump is so poor, he can’t even own the libs.”
@BugManDan:
Yeah, to go along with Ivanka’s “Complicit.”
Amen.
@CSK:
You get a major league pitcher to throw cameras at it.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Maybe garlic is the solution to the liver problem. One head of garlic per bite of liver.
@Sleeping Dog: We were out on the bike for a ride yesterday, and saw quite a few more Biden signs out than just a few weeks ago.
I am not allowing myself to get hopeful just yet.
Liver is great!
If it’s sourced from a fattened goose.
Preferably from the U.S. or Spain.
@BugManDan: I have a # of recipes for Liver. They all end with, “Feed it to the dogs.”
@BugManDan: No edit function above: I will confess to a weakness for braunschweiger. I love that shit. A vegetarian buddy of mine says it is the one thing he misses.
More evidence is coming out about the police CYA in Breonna Taylor’s death. It’s starting to look like they withheld evidence from the grand jury and was actively trying to manipulate the outcome. Hankison, the fired officer is on camera entering the apartment while officers are investigating and is asking some pretty leading questions that shows he knew they screwed up big time.
Even FOX is posting that the officer immediately feared he was going to get fired and it looks like he was trying to tamper / influence things to go his way. Frankly, I’m surprised he didn’t started asking if they happened to find drugs or a knife conveniently in plain sight…..
Question to all the lawyers out there: if it comes out they deliberately withheld evidence from the grand jury, what’s the recourse? What happens now?
@Kathy: My philosophy is: you can’t have too much garlic.
On the other hand, my Mom made liver and onions and I rather liked it. Haven’t had it in years though.
@OzarkHillbilly: Braunschweiger on toasted rye is great.
I grew up in the Midwest which may account for more unpopular tastes. Heck, used to have peanut butter and mayonnaise (actually Miracle Whip) sandwiches as a kid.
On recent notable aviation news:
The Israeli airline Israir conducted a flight to Bahrain from Tel Aviv, crossing Saudi airspace.
Jet Blue has secured slots at Heathrow. They announced plans to fly from Boston and JFK to London in 2019, using the narrow body Airbus A321LR. Given the pandemic, flights are unlikely before the fourth quarter of next year.
Airbus has finished assembling the last A380.
About the first item, given clearance to transit over Saudi Arabia, I wonder if an Israeli company could copy the Emirates/Etihad/Qatar model of routes from the Americas/Europe to Asia with a stop at their hub.
On the one hand, the Gulf Big three have a very early lead and established market. On the other hand, they’re luxury airlines offering outrageous premium classes and even among the nicest economy experience. No low cost airlines offer these types of routes.
I actually love liver, but I’m not sure I could stomach the thought of liver ice cream! I fry it in bacon fat with onions and MANY garlics. (Because Kathy is exactly right, one garlic clove is never enough, I want to scare all vampires in a 50 mile radius. 😉 )
One caveat is that the liver I get from our home grown beef is not the same liver as that available from the store. Store-bought liver is entirely too mushy and exacerbates the already strange texture/taste.
@Scott:
An old friend of mine was raised in Nebraska. She always said she had to come east before she saw a piece of fruit that wasn’t suspended in Jell-o.
@Jen:
I was coming here to bring that up, is there anyone in Trump’s orbit that is not on the verge of a nervous breakdown or has already cracked up? We had the DHS guy (or was it the top Health Department guy?) talk about shadows looming on the walls coming get him, Parscale has been hospitalized (even if it is only for a day…it is still startling to read this story about someone who directly spoke with President Trump), I think Ron Johnson is about to breakdown because no one took his Russia Report designed to help Trump and hurt Biden with any sort of gravitas (there is a Fox story where Johnson says he is angry the rest of the report may not be released until after the election and his feeling are hurt, but nothingburger stories do not command the front page for several days, and I know Johnson has already admitted that he feels that people are after him, so kinda already cracking up).
All of these people who are clearly not mentally fit to run this country being in or having been in Trump’s orbit should start to rattle even the GOPs Base voters.
Of course, there is now the Tax story which is not a nothingburger…see Ron Johnson, stories like the released Tax Returns are what get front page treatment for several days (possible weeks on end).
The Trump admin is in such bad shape now even if Trump were re-elected I wonder if things would not fall apart well before Trump could complete the task of totally ruining everyone’s lives in America.
About COVID-19, recent numbers are troubling. Many countries are trending upwards in new cases again, many after peaking once or even twice.
This thing is insidious. If you relax a little, cases shoot up. That’s why I’m keeping my guard up at all times, no matter what other people say or think.
I’ll relax when large numbers of people, including myself, are vaccinated.
Also, mark my words: those countries where the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines is low will see longer epidemic than those where it’s high. I wouldn’t mind making the vaccine free and mandatory, with only medical exceptions.
@inhumans99 :
Honestly? No.
Dealing with someone like Trump constantly is extremely damaging to your mental health. A malignant narcissist cannot abide people who are more capable then them, even if it’s just someone who’s psyche is more intact. I’m also firmly of the belief Trump is BPD and they’ve been described by associates as dealing with emotional vampires and drama incarnate. Anyone’s who has had to spend significant amounts of time with someone like this daily will tell you the toll it takes on them, let alone having one as a boss with seemingly unlimited power and no restraint.
His family has it slightly better in that they’ve been dealing with this their entire lives. They developed coping strategies (see the sons’ pathetic Daddy Love Me suckups) but there’s a basically zero chance their mental health has no been negatively impacted permanently by this. People who work for him, though? They never, never, NEVER think it’s as bad as it seems or that it will somehow be different for them. Humans have a remarkable ability for self-delusion and one that hangs around NPD and BPD is that “It can’t get any worse. There has to be a bottom and I can get them to see sense.”
Selfish grifters and con artists alike look at Trump and think they see a fellow soul. He’s not – he’s damaged and they shatter on the rocks of his sheer horribleness. That’s the *point*, conscious or not – they ruin you so you’ll be like them. Nobody’s getting out of this Admin intact and America will be lucky to be only as wrecked as it is now. That’s what you get for electing crazy and letting crazy set the tone…..
@OzarkHillbilly: My wife’s very German family loves braunschweiger. I only like it better because there is less chewing, so it stays in my mouth a shorter amount of time.
@Scott @Jax
Also from the Midwest, but I still resisted liver even from the cows my family butchered. I did love a Miracle Whip sandwich, though.
@BugManDan: My mom would sauté onions and mushrooms. If you had enough onions and mushrooms topping the liver, it was edible.
This might explain the goings-on in Fort Lauderdale: Non-Partisan Watchdog Accuses Trump Campaign Of ‘Laundering’ $170 Million:
@CSK:
Hey, in the midwest, Jello is its own food group.
@sam: Such a dumb thing to do. FEC reports are required by law, on a very set schedule, and are easy to download and sift through. It’s probably one of the most efficiently designed government websites. Trying to hide anything in, or from, an FEC report is usually pretty simple to spot. These aren’t tax returns, for crying out loud. Amounts raised, cash on hand, and campaign expenditures–it’s simple accounting. Money in, money out. If you can balance a checkbook, you can read campaign finance reports.
@Sleeping Dog:
They must be thrilled by the renaissance of Wonder Bread.
Wonder Bread goes great with extra mild salsa.
@sam:
This, on top of being ignominiously canned by Trump, and the loss of his income, might have pushed him over the edge.
According to the Miami Herald, Candice Parscale told police that her husband hits her, and showed them bruises on her arms, face, and neck. This assault apparently took place 2 days before his suicide attempt.
@Sleeping Dog:
And nothing, absolutely nothing, beats a Wonder Bread ‘n’ Miracle Whip sandwich.
Would you believe I’ve never tasted Wonder Bread/ My mother wouldn’t allow it in the house, and I had no desire to purchase it as an adult.
@CSK:
Wonder bread and miracle whip, sounds tasteless.
@Sleeping Dog: “Tasteless” as a food or as a joke?
Pure speculation that will turn out to be true: Brad Parscale has been stealing from Trump’s campaign donors, almost certainly in league with Trump himself, and quite a bit of white powder went up Brad’s nose after he was dumped. A week or so of coke binging will get a man upset. Times like that a man needs barricades and guns.
Did I ever tell the story of the coke-fueled three-way with two of my alleged girl gang in a the Mark Hopkins, where we actually frolicked* on stolen money? No? Maybe another time.
*Ah, I remember the frolicking days.
@Michael Reynolds:
I think you owe it to the reading public to write your memoirs one of these days.
@CSK: have you also read Columbia’s Last Flight? That’s the only place I’ve seen that phrase. Miracle Whip on Wonder Bread.
Wrote three science communication papers on that piece in college. Masterful nonfiction writing. A writer I read, and say ‘Fuck, I could never be this good.’
@Teve:
Never read it, but thanks so much for the link. I’ll read it tonight with my pre-dinner drink.
There are lots of mayo/white bread jokes (around these parts) about typical WASP food. I may have made up the sandwich part.
I repost Columbia’s Last Flight on Facebook every few years. I wrote three papers in a science communication class in college on this article. It’s just masterful science writing. The kind I read, and think, ‘fuck, I could never be as good as this guy.’ I told Dr. Katz “I don’t know how I could ever write such a piece”, and she said “Don’t feel bad. It probably took him 6 months and 50,000 dollars to write that.”
Old Jay Leno joke: “Have you ever read the expiration date on a loaf of Wonder Bread? You should live so long!”
So, on the Parscale thing again…Channel 4 News (UK) is carrying a story saying they have access to Cambridge Analytica data that shows Black voters in the US were targeted with the objective of deterring them to vote (LINK). If true, this appears to be evidence that Parscale lied to Congress (not that that matters anymore, but whatever, I guess).
I can’t resist quoting it:
And you thought ants at your picnic was bad news.
@BugManDan:
In fairness, that is about the approach for the various liver sausage/pate/liverwurst/Braunschwiger recipes that are out there.
@KM: Not a lawyer, but I believe that the penalty is removal from office–contingent on the voters electing someone else at the next scheduled election, of course.
@CSK: Wonder Bread doesn’t taste any different from any other standard white enriched bread, it was just the first commercially mass marketed bread.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I actually meant for the officers in question. Can new criminal charges be brought if it’s come out that they perjured themselves to the grand jury or other fraudulently presented evidence? I’m pretty sure anything homicide-related’s already off the table but something else might still be viable to hold them accountable for actions other then damaging a wall….
@Michael Reynolds:
Meant to comment a couple of days ago about protest songs and the got busy. Here is a list.
Some directly about Trump:
Maybe We’ll All Get Along Someday – Joe Purdy
I Give You Power – Arcade Fire & Mavis Staples
Tiny Hands – Fiona Apple
Too Dumb for Suicide: Tim Heidecker’s Trump Songs
Demagogue – Franz Ferdinand
Hallelujah Money – Gorillaz
Happy New Year (Prince Can’t Die Again)
This is America – Childish Gambino
Thoughts and Prayers – Drive-By Truckers
I had a Dream – Loudon Wainwright III
A couple more general and mostly a bit older:
Holiday/Blvd of Broken Dreams – Green Day
Take Back the Power – The Interupters
Children’s Bread – Jimmy Cliff and Tim Timebomb
Wasteland of the Free – Iris Dement
All YOu Fascists – Billy Bragg
@BugManDan:
Definitely as a food and for yucks if I invited you for lunch and served miracle whip on wonder bread, you’d consider it a tasteless joke.
@sam:
The family being overrun seems remarkably unfazed by their attackers.
@BugManDan:
Thanks!
@Jen:
The Parscale thing looks a lot like an abortive suicide by cop attempt. Barricading, threatening suicide, not going through with it, cops showing up. I don’t think lying to Congress gets you to suicide. I suspect it’ll be something bigger, something with prison time involved. Prison and poverty?
Newsweek says at this time 4 years ago, fewer than 10,000 people had voted, and at the moment the number is over 860,000.
About liver, I don’t mind people who like it, I do mind people who think I should like it (which I can be accused of in regards to garlic).
On other things, I’m reading Jill Lepore’s latest tome “If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future.”
It’s about a company, the Simulmatics Corporation, which was an early pioneer in compiling, processing, and commercializing data (she mentioned them in season one of her podcast “The Last Archive”).
@Michael Reynolds: Agreed, but of course we have no idea what else is under the Cambridge Analytica rock. I don’t think that he was pushed to the edge by a lying to Congress possible charge, no. But there seems to be suddenly a lot of stuff out there that it could be (something in the Trump taxes story–possible, but unlikely; something in the FEC disclosure–this is most likely as there are clear laws there; or the Cambridge Analytica/lying to Congress story–this is unlikely, but it could have led to a feeling that the walls are suddenly closing in).
Because dang, that IS a lot of bad news in a short time frame, if you’re already in it up to your bearded-Viking neck.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:..Wonder Bread doesn’t taste any different from any other standard white enriched bread, it was just the first commercially mass marketed bread.
…early Tibet…
@inhumans99:
@KM:
Along similar lines, an interesting article by Anne Applebaum in the Atlantic on the topic of the damaging mental effects of being a Trump partisan and having to deny objective reality; and that for some plunging into QAnon style conspiracism can be a coping strategy.
Liver: I’m very partial to it fried.
Must be in a v.hot pan, and quickly done to get the outside nicely browned but the inside still rare-ish.
Served with fire onions and bacon, and broad beans.
But: it depends crucially deal on what sort of liver.
Calves or lambs liver is nice; ox-liver is not suited to quick frying; and pigs liver is really only usable for pate.
Use pigs liver for the quick fried method and you’ll regret it.
Fire onions = fried onions.
What has happened to edit function?
Seems to be here one minute, gone the next.
The bad news, if we needed any, about COVID-19 is that the coronavirus family seems particularly adept at infecting people multiple times.
But it’s not that clear this applies to SARS-CoV-2.
There have been documented cases of re-infection. One involves a Hong Kong resident who had a mild case early in the pandemic, then got reinfected recently on a trip to Spain, resulting in another mild or asymptomatic case.
It seems reasonable to suppose if reinfection were common, then given the high number of cases, one would expect more reinfections to have taken place. But there are many confounding variables. Perhaps people who’ve been infected, and developed COVID-19, are far more careful about not catching it a second time. But then perhaps they believe themselves immune and no longer take precautions seriously.
It’s hard to extrapolate much from little data, but thus far this makes the notion of herd immunity look less desirable. It may be SARS-CoV-2 will become endemic in human populations, like the various strains of influenza. perhaps we can keep it under control with updated annual shots, or perhaps semi-annual ones. perhaps it will become less deadly, too. it’s been known to happen (namely by killing off the more susceptible individuals).
But, then, it may become as bad as the bubonic plague.
That pernicious disease recurred in Europe and Asia multiple times, from the reign of Justinian I to the present day (yes, it’s still around). Smallpox was a recurring nightmare as well, as were other diseases now kept under control with vaccines, like polio, measles, whooping cough, etc., or diseases averted by better hygiene and nutrition, like rickets, scurvy, or ringworm.
We may be condemned to repeated waves of COVID-19, with outbreaks taking place here and there the world over for decades, or much longer.
It’s not hopeless. Bubonic plague is still around, yes, but no major outbreaks have taken place in a very long time. We can control it with sanitation measures that keep rats, with their bacteria-laden fleas, away from human habitation. It can also be treated with antibiotics, albeit with a still high mortality rate.
If vaccines keep it under control, that’s well and good. if not, then perhaps we will develop better antiviral treatments, maybe eventually the first antiviral cure.
We need to leave the wilderness alone as much as possible, though, which is where many of these new diseases come from. To stop developing it, invading it, deforesting it, etc. COVID-19 is patently not the worst thing that can happen, there have been worse contagious diseases within the last 150 years. Imagine an easily transmissible disease that attacks the heart and lungs, but has a 50% untreated mortality rate.
We also do know the really bad pandemics are spread by casual contact. This si true of smallpox, plague (it develops a respiratory version, and people spread the Y. pestis pathogen, polio, and both Influenza and COVID-19. That’s why at the first sign of a new dangerous and contagious disease, we should adopt preventive measures like masks, distancing, etc., even before any official announcements. Not panic, as panic only gets in the way, but reasonable caution.
@JohnSF:
Aw, and here I thought you’d spliced ghost pepper genes into red onions. 🙂
Reload/refresh for edit. Works for me every time.
Jesus.
@Teve:
She told the cops he’d hit her two days before and showed them the bruises on her neck, face, and arms.
@Kathy:
For me reload works sometimes, and sometimes not.
* shrugs grumpily*
@JohnSF:
Same here. You’re not alone.
The bold, italic, and link buttons also vanish occasionally.
@JohnSF:
If I were to guess as to what’s going on, I would guess that the page is getting redrawn before all the calls have been completed. But given that I know almost nothing about modern web pages you shouldn’t bet any money on it.
@Kathy: Speaking of red onions, what is the commentariat’s collective opinion on cooking red onions? My wife and I have a disagreement on this…
@MarkedMan:
They’re best raw in salads and such, because the flavor diminishes sharply when they’re cooked. Just my take.
@MarkedMan:
I cook them or eat them raw as I would regular onions, depending on what I’m making.
Speaking of liver. Recall the worst thing that Alexander Portnoy ever did.
@sam:
Even people who never read the book remember that part.
I’m guessing Potemkin Don is so upset over the NYT disclosures, he’s not even wished his con in law a happy Yom Kippur.
@Kathy:
Has he expressed any concern about Brad Parscale?
On a lighter note, Rick Gates claims that Trump wanted Ivanka to be his VP, because she’s “smart and and beautiful” and “people would love her.” Apparently Ivanka managed to dissuade her father from carrying out this ambition.
Not that I have much use for Brad Parscale, but having watched that video it feels like we should note that once again police escalated to force absurdly quickly, even on the white guy this time.
@KM: I gravitate more toward if society/the justice system had wanted to hold the officers accountable, they wouldn’t have erected the big blue wall for this case in the first place. But some people say I’m too cynical.
@CSK:
Does he know what concern means?
@Just Another Ex-Republican:
You know, was going to go full snark and say he wasn’t shot and no one stepped on his neck. But you’re right. He was unarmed, he was not violent. The cops could have waited him out.
@MarkedMan: I’m with CSK. I don’t care for sauteed red onions, but I have seen a recipe for braising them quickly in Balsamic vinegar that some people swear by. My take is that they end up tasting like warm Balsamic vinegar.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Oh, I didn’t think of that one. I’ve made red onion as a side dish. I sauté them a looooong time, mostly covered in low heat, then add balsamic vinegar and stir until it’s almost all gone. Then I add ketchup (the no sugar added kind; regular ketchup is red icing).
@Kathy: When you saute the red onions a long time, don’t they break down, or is that the point? The red onions I get up where I live seem to have a high moisture content and are just like the sweet onions that grow in Walla Walla in that when you cook them for any length of time they cook down into a sort of paste. 🙁 It’s not the effect I’m looking for in onions at all. (And the Walla Walla sweets don’t taste like anything either. They turn into a kind of gruel or pulse. Very unappetizing.)
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
No, they kind of begin to brown, and that’s when I add the balsamic and ketchup.
There’s a recipe for making onion sauce, which does require the onions to break down. But that one uses white onions.