Friday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Friday, January 6, 2023
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41 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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Eleven… Eleven… Eleven… ELEVEN… E-l-e-v-e-n…
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
eta:
So… Same as it ever was?
@OzarkHillbilly: I don’t see how McCarthy gets this. In order for him to get the 5 nuts he would have to give up so much that his allies may not agree. He may already be there.
And how can a different Repug get there if they try to backtrack on McCarthy’s promises…unless they make a deal with the devils… I mean Democrats?
@BugManDan: There is some talk of voting for a plurality rather than majority winner, but if you are the McCarthy group are you taking the chance of Speaker Jeffries?
And do the Democrats actually want the speakership? It might get them the blame for the guaranteed disfunction that this House is going to have.
@OzarkHillbilly: That is correct. They aren’t officially members of Congress until they are sworn in. They cannot be sworn in until the first task is completed: selecting a Speaker.
The longer this goes on, the more entrenched the players become. If McCarthy had identified a consensus candidate (with the Democrats, not with the Terror Caucus) somewhere around the fifth vote, there would be a few long-form “What Now for Kevin McCarthy” pieces in papers, but essentially we’d be moving on.
I don’t see how McCarthy wins this, I really don’t. And the worst elements of Congress think this is all just dandy.
Ultimately, the Democratic members can throw their support behind a moderate, compromise candidate for which they can deliver large numbers of D votes to push over the top.
But not yet.
You never interrupt the opposition when they are shooting themselves in the foot.
BTW: This is not really a clown show. Clowns have jobs.
Dennis Aftergut: The Chaotic House That SCOTUS Built
The Supreme Court enabled Republicans’ addiction to extreme gerrymandering. Now they’re reaping what they’ve sown.
And the thinness of the GQP majority is due, in part, to the Apartheid Court’s forced birth extremism.
This is what people mean when they speak of karma, not supernatural forces. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The Republican Party deserves every bit of this brand-destroying spectacle, and worse. Democrats should pass the popcorn and let them implode.
@BugManDan: McCarthy is a dead man walking. His political career is over.
Just like an arsonist’s intentions of building a house, the Qrazy Freedumb Qaucus desires to accomplish things.
the edit function is is there but it’s completely borked. Meant to reply to Tony too.
They also have principles.
Charlotte Clymer has just penned what is probably the most succinct description of Kevin McCarthy I’ve read:
Bingo.
Via her piece in The Daily Beast.
@DK:..This is what people mean when they speak of karma, not supernatural forces. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20; must have played some monumentally stupid games to get the “stupid prize” of being murdered in Moscow, Idaho recently.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’ve read about a half a dozen articles with CA Republicans squeaking about what a genius fundraiser and smart politician McCarthy is. I couldn’t figure out why that didn’t make sense and then I remembered that the CA Republican Party is destroyed, useless and full of idiot maniacs. Of course he’s the best of that bunch.
Seriously though, if he hadn’t replaced his honor and humility with blind ambition and hubris he’d politically seppuku himself and go home and cry.
@Mister Bluster: that’s a bizarre response. DK’s comment doesn’t apply to every terrible thing that happens in the world.
@BugManDan:
The signal that’s happened will probably be the nomination of a mainstream candidate other than McCarthy. That candidate may not get any more votes than the radical right-wing candidates are, but the signal is sent.
@BugManDan:
McCarthy picked up enough hold outs that he’s finally ahead of Hakeem Jeffries in the vote, which means they can motion to select the speaker by plurality
@Monala:..DK’s comment doesn’t apply to every terrible thing that happens in the world.
As I read it: “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.” is what people mean when they speak of karma. That’s what DK wrote.
Now you have you have expanded on the definition of karma that karma applies to some, not all, “terrible things that happen in the world.”
Please explain what you mean by “terrible things” and define which “terrible things” karma does apply to and which “terrible things” karma does not apply to and why.
As an old prof of mine used to ask, “Questions, Comments, Observations?” AKA, is anyone surprised?
@Mister Bluster: I would say that stupid actions often lead to bad outcomes. However, the reverse is not necessarily true: bad outcomes happen in this world for a variety of reasons, and are often not the result of stupid actions (at least not on the part of the person suffering the negative outcome).
Whether that meets the literal definition of karma or not is beside the point. And I think that was part of DK’s point: people use karma apart from its literal, supernatural definition.
@Mister Bluster: Outside of the lunatic swamp that is your twisted, sick, and deranged brain — who accused the Idaho students of engineering their own demise through bad decisions? Or of being deserving of their fate?
@Monala:..people use karma apart from its literal, supernatural definition.
So karma does have a supernatural definition. How are we to know when people are using the word “karma” apart from it’s literal, supernatural definition? Apparently anyone can make up any meaning for karma that suits their purpose. This would render the word “karma” meaningless.
@Mister Bluster:
As Lounsbury isn’t about, I must step up:
“Don’t be a karma dogma drama llama.”
🙂
@DK:..This is what people mean when they speak of karma, not supernatural forces. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
So you are not saying that karma dictates that people suffer consequences of their “stupid” behavior.
What then, is your definition of karma?
@Mister Bluster:
It’s when people who improperly punctuate their sentences get attacked by color-changing lizards wielding traditional Japanese sickles as weapons.
The dreaded comma karma kama chameleons
@DK:..who accused the Idaho students of engineering their own demise through bad decisions? Or of being deserving of their fate?
Not me. Your definition of karma suggests this.
@Mister Bluster:
Because no words have multiple meanings or uses at all lol
There’s a lot of very stupid people in the world.
@Mister Bluster:
Yes you. I didn’t define karma.
I said Republicans’ increasing extremism has made them unable to govern, and then I said this is the kind of thing most people mean when they cite karma.
How you extrapolated this out to the Iowa host students deserve to be murdered, I don’t know. Except that either you’re a psychopath or an idiot.
@Mister Bluster: context, like when the person writes, “not supernatural forces.”
@Mister Bluster:
I said exactly what I wrote: Republicans’ are suffering the consequences of their stupidity, and this cause and effect is what most people mean when they cite karma. There’s no need to paraphrase, extrapolate, or ask questions. I said what I said, not words I didn’t say.
Nobody but you implied 1) the Idaho students deserved to be murdered or 2) that every bad thing that has happened to anyone at all ever in the history of space and time is their own fault according to karma. Stop putting your slippery slope black-and-white zero nuanced childish thinking in other people’s mouths.
Serious question: are you located above the 50% mark on the autistic spectrum? I’m not trying to insult you in this particular comment, I’m just trying to understand what on earth is going on inside your head.
On a lighter note: why doesn’t my phone’s auto fill complete the words Gmail or Yahoo?
@DK:..I’m not trying to insult you in this particular comment,..
Yes you are. You shouldn’t do that. It’s bad karma that will come back and bite you in the ass.
…that every bad thing that has happened to anyone at all ever in the history of space and time is their own fault according to karma.
Republicans’ are suffering the consequences of their stupidity, and this cause and effect is what most people mean when they cite karma.
I get it,,,Karma only applies to Republicans
@Mister Bluster: I am gonna defend Mister Bluster here. All my life I have heard how Karma is the explanation for everything that has ever happened to every human being who was ever born anywhere no matter how tenuous the connection.
All I can say is, BULLSHIT!
There are no gods. There is no Karma. I have known people who suffered insufferable pain thru no apparent fault of their own. If you think you are seeing karma, you are seeing what you want to see.
Fuck Karma.
Fuck the gods.
Fuck you if you believe in this BS.
They don’t exist.
If there is karma, why is trump still here?
The only possible reason is that the gods are evil. In which case, fuck them.
@OzarkHillbilly:
And here we open the discussion of “The Problem of Evil”.
Actually Ozark, you remind me a bit there of my father, and his quiet insistence that the real universe showed no signs of an active god or inclination to ethical judgement.
Perhaps understandable, given his experiences, starting with dead uncles and aunts, continuing to hauling dead families out of bombed out houses at 17, and moving on from there.
Perhaps the only real thing about karma is that if you behave like an arse, very often that will bite you in the arse.
Or at best, damage your personal capacity for happiness in relation to the universe.
OTOH, I’ve met several nasty individuals who’ve’ behaved like arses, gotten way with it, couldn’t give a flying f@kq about their relations to anyone or anything, aimed at screwing the universe and all in it, and seemed completely at ease doing so.
“Pray for a god of judging wrath; but will he come , when you pray for him?”
What the fuck does this even mean?! Because apparently NOT ENOUGH guns were removed from the home to save 7 innocent people’s lives. (I don’t count the husband as an innocent)
https://www.ksl.com/article/50552596/family-of-southern-utah-father-who-killed-7-family-members-says-they-are-devastated-
@OzarkHillbilly:..fuck karma,,,fuck the gods
Well said. You have my vote for Speaker of the Show-Me State.
I’m convinced by now religion arose out of the human tendency to anthropomorphize nature, and the desire to control the random and impersonal forces that plagued our ancestors*. things like the weather, wild animals, finding plentiful game, finding enough edible plants, wildfires, volcanoes, pests, disease, etc.
Past that, gods most often punish rather than guide or teach. In one of Asimov’s latter novels, Foundation and Earth, we see tiny glimpse of a religion or superstition based on He Who Punishes. I’d like to have seen more of that.
Sometimes the gods confer favor. When people believe this happens, they are victorious in war and the subsequent pillaging. But also they get more good years than bad ones, fewer natural disasters, etc.
In other words,the gods are capricious. just like the random, impersonal forces our ancestors wanted to have control over.
*By ancestors, I mean also some hominids which came before H. sapiens. the psychological, if not the cultural, tendencies should go back that far.
Just in case you were having a nice day or thought that this country couldn’t get much worse…..
6-year-old shot teacher at Newport News, Virginia
@Kathy:
Or if they were the Greek gods, primarily concerned with shagging anything that they could get hold of, two falls or a submission.
Which may account in part for some pagans incredulity re. Jews and Christians:
Though, to be less snarky, the Greek and Persian philosophers had actually tried working out a cosmology of assumed gods (because how else do you account for it all?) and come to the “unmoved mover” and the ultimate god who just don’t care that much, but also isn’t into swans and such kinkiness.
Arguably post 1oo AD Christianity owed rather more to Greek neo-Platonic and Persian dualist thought than to it’s origins as a Jewish-adjacent system.
@Mister Bluster:
Well it was a valiant attempt at being funny even though it failed miserably. So are you or are you or not autistic?
Rebecca Watson Over at Skepchick has predictions for 2023, and reviews of the 2022 predictions.
My two favorites:
From Biologist and DNA specialist Karen James: Ancestry dot com will merge with Twitter and charge $8/month for “Twitter Blue-Gene,“ which will provide a (scientifically bogus) validation of one’s race or genealogy of choice to win arguments against SJWs.
From astronomer Phil Plait: Elon Musk will buy the ACLU and shut it down.
@Jax: I am by profession a communicator, and my diagnosis is that statement is gibberish.