Friday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
·
Friday, March 3, 2023
·
57 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).
Follow Steven on
Twitter
Fox News reportedly imposes ‘soft ban’ on Donald Trump
Awwwww… Pobrecito.
Alex Murdaugh found guilty of murder of wife and son
It only took the jurors 3 hours to decide.
Hmmmmmmm….
In other anti vaccine news: Estimated 20,000 people possibly exposed to measles at Kentucky religious event
The free market at work:
Say it ain’t so!
@OzarkHillbilly: WRT the Murdaugh defense, one important lesson is, whatever you do, don’t put a proven liar on the witness stand.
Yesterday, someone–it might have been KM— commented that Donald Trump is too lazy to be cruel. I disagree. Remember Adam Serwer’s Atlantic article entitled “The Cruelty is the Point”? I think the ability to inflcit cruelty on his opponents is one of his motivating forces, the others being greed and the quest for adulation.
This is, after all, the man who said that he enjoyed suing writers because it only cost him a few dollars a year and bankrupted them.
Republican sorry for suggesting ‘hanging by a tree’ as execution method
Pro life my ass.
@OzarkHillbilly:
3 hours…after they all get back to the jury room, all of them use the restroom, and have some snacks, it probably took about an hour to actually deliberate.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Notice that he seems to be defining “justice” as inherently retributive. That’s something that almost always comes up in the death penalty debate, even when it isn’t laid out explicitly. If someone kidnaps a person and tortures them for days before killing them, you could certainly make a moral argument that the most deserving fate for the killer is to have him tortured for days and then killed. No sensible person would seriously recommend that as a policy in our justice system. Yet most death penalty advocates come back to some version of the idea that we need to give the killer what he deserves. Once you follow that way of thinking, it isn’t long before you start considering more, shall we say, colorful methods of disposing a criminal.
And that’s without even getting into the ugly, racist history that’s really lurking behind this politician’s rhetoric.
The people who loudly and proudly fly the Gadsden flag are stomping all over the 1st Amendment.
I found this juxtaposition…amusing…
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1631654834716672003
Don’t fall in! ‘Never seen anything like it’: fisherman’s video captures shark feeding frenzy
A full suit of armor? Had never heard that one before.
@OzarkHillbilly: Sherrell is also co-author of a bill in the legislature to rename a portion of the John Lewis Blvd. in Nashville for Donald Trump.
Montana Weirdos Fail To Ban Vaccinated People From Donating Blood
There is never enough blood. As an O-, CMV- donor I swear they have a timer down to the nanosecond of when I can legally donate again as the emails and calls are clockwork. I get precision designed stories about all the babies in NICU I can save if I just suck it up and let someone stab me for science again (terrified of needles). I’ve honestly had to block numbers from the Red Cross due to the constant begging and harassment but in the end, I understand just how important it is and I have a valuable resource to spare that is necessary for some to live.
It is straight up evil to even try to restrict donors for no viable reason. It’s very hard to get people to donate as is so any tiny thing that can cause someone to delay or change their mind is ruinous. To purposely restrict viable willing donors for stupid ideological reasons? Monstrous. Murderous. May karma sharpen her stiletto heels for the inevitable kicking. Thank god reason prevailed but that it even got to the point it did is frightening.
Not only would it lessened the supply immediately to fatally low levels, it would also have increased pressure on the few still allowed to the point of breaking. Can you imagine if it had passed? 16% of people are O- and even few of them would be unvaxxed. Maybe, maybe 0.5% of the state would have been obligated to donate enough to keep the rest up every 53 days. Untenable. My imagination went to dark places with blood trafficking and involuntary blood banks. If the nuts had their way, some poor soul (likely a child) would become nothing but a walking ATM to be abused for profit.
I’m a few weeks out from my next donation. They’re so desperate I got a voucher for free craft beer, Starbucks AND a giant donut plus the usual goodies. The cruelty needed to make the situation worse for a stupid conspiracy theory is maddening.
@daryl and his brother darryl:
Dictatorship is the ultimate in minority rule.
@daryl and his brother darryl:..deliberate
I have been called for jury duty several times and sat in the box for one criminal trial. After the county prosecutor presented his case the defendant’s lawyer stood up and said “The defense rests.” That was it.
In the jury room we actually spent time deliberating. Long enough to get pizza for lunch before we voted to convict.
@a country lawyer: For some reason or other, I am not in the least bit surprised by that.
@daryl and his brother darryl: Because of the extreme liberality driven by the presence of UW the capital of WI is sometimes wryly referred to as the People’s Republic of Madison. I think I’ll start referring to my retirement home state as the People’s Republic of Florida, but with a rather different meaning.
@KM: I’m A-, they loved my blood and called me regularly. Now I’m on blood thinners and I’m not wanted anymore. Snif… snif…
@gVOR08:
DeSantistan
@daryl and his brother darryl:
Speaking of whom, will Trump scare DeSantis out of running in 2024.? That’s his plan.
http://www.axios.com/2023/03/03/trump-plan-attack-desantis
@KM: For a good chunk of my adulthood, I was prohibited from donating (lived in Europe during mad cow). As soon as they loosened the restrictions, I donated. First time went fine. Second time…was a disaster. I had a reaction that was apparently caused by a sudden drop in electrolytes (according to the EMT who was called when I looked to be having a seizure).
I’d be willing to donate again, but my “issues” were very disruptive and it took me well over 24 hours to fully recover. 🙁
All to say: Your point is incredibly important. It is monstrous to inhibit donors in any way.
According to Newsweek, John Fetterman might resign.
@daryl and his brother darryl:
I made two mistakes after clicking the link.
The first was scrolling down.
The second was clicking on the profile whose response was, “Squeal louder Nancy.” That person is disturbing.
A few months back I came across the notion that the average person does not exist.
Here’s a simple illustration:
Take a community with 100 homes with a diverse makeup. Some are single people, couples with children, couples without children, some take boarders, some are multi-generational, etc. So you count the population of residents and come up with 450.
So, the average home has four and a half people.
It’s guaranteed than not a single home has half a person living there. therefore no home has an average population.
How is this important?
Well, not hugely important, but it can have an impact. Say you take measurements of all Air Force pilots. You measure height, hand size, girth, arm length, etc., and draw an average. If you then design a cockpit for the pilot with the average measurements, odds are it won’t fit a single pilot at all.
The air force actually did this in the 40s or 50s. They had to make parts of the cockpit adjustable.
Then, too, sometimes outliers can skew averages, though these tends to happen in smaller samples sizes.
@Kathy: There’s an old Far Side on the “average American family,” where the picture shows literally two-and-a-half kids in the living room.
@Kathy:Is it any comfort that on any single measure there is an actual median household*? Which may differ considerably from the average on that measure. (And I don’t care what he has on his lapel pin, I ain’t voting for Andrew Yang. Yesterday I was talking about high IQ idiots.)
* OK, if N is even you have to fudge a little.
@CSK: I will certainly be disappointed if Fetterman resigns, though if he determines he can’t fulfill his duties as Senator, then it’s what he has to do.
I just checked Ballotpedia, and if what I read is accurate, then it’s good news for Democrats in the event of a Fetterman resignation: PA doesn’t have special elections to fill Senate vacancies. Shapiro would appoint a replacement, and that replacement would get to serve the rest of Fetterman’s term.
My wife was buying a new phone this morning so I had almost two hours to kill. I read for a while on my kindle and then walked around aimlessly for about an hour. Then I read articles from newsbreak on my phone. It is amazing how many stories there are about legislatures passing anti-trans laws. I never realized that trans kids have ruined life for everyone in so many conservative states. I’m surprised they haven’t passed a law to expel them permanently. Then there are the woke stories, where anything negative in life is now attributed to “woke culture”.
The entire Republican party seems to focus on these two “issues”. The Republicans haven’t been a serious party for decades, but they seem to have hit a new low.
@OzarkHillbilly: This problem isn’t new. 40-mumble years ago when I worked in the produce business The guy who delivered mushrooms one night told us he was worried. As he checked out his truck, he noticed the brakes were soft. Upon reporting same to his supervisor, he was told to just make his deliveries doing the best he could to stay off the brakes. He kept reporting the conditions at every stop. When he got to our warehouse (300 or so miles along his route) he had an additional report to make. As soon as he found his flashlight, he made his way back to our shipping office and call to report that the power pole that he’d struck when the brakes had finally failed pulling out of our dock had broken and fallen on the tractor totaling it.
4 or 5 blocks around our warehouse were blacked out (at about 1 am) for 3 or so hours. And yes, the company DID try to fire him for failing to report the problem with his vehicle, so the worker in your story was wise to ask her supervisor to put his instructions in writing.
@Kylopod: I like Fetterman and think he would be a breath of fresh air. But if he can’t serve, he can’t serve. This early in his term, his successor would be essentially become a full term incumbent, with all the advantages that would entail.
@senyordave:
It’s so much worse than you think. Multiple states are on the verge of making it illegal for trans kids AND adults to receive proper affirming care. I’m not just talking about 18 year olds. All adults. They are also working overtime to scare drs into not providing any care for Trans people.
AR and TN are about to make it illegal for trans people to exist within their borders. They are also working to expel trans people by forcibly detransitioning people against their will and their drs care. It is a straight up attempt at genocide.
The Guardian reports that, once again, the leading cause of line-of-duty deaths among U. S. police officers is COVID, having fallen from around 300 to only 70+ last year. It will drop off the radar next year. The Guardian’s explanation is a bit garbled but there is expiring emergency legislation that causes COVID deaths to be counted as line-of-duty and pays additional benefits.
Cops have a moderately dangerous job and they deserve sympathy and support for being in a public facing job during a pandemic. But the resistance of many to wearing masks and getting vaxxed sure undercuts that sympathy. They want public support and immunity from prosecution based on the danger they face, but many of them won’t, themselves, take basic precautions.
Their second largest hazard is vehicle accidents. I found out back in the seventies that cops didn’t wear seat belts because they got tangled in all the cop gear they carry. Anybody know if that’s still true?
@Kylopod:
You’re correct. Shapiro would be able to select Fetterman’s replacement.
@CSK:
Reading the article, the only part that suggests he’s considering resigning is the headline. I believe the headline was written under the assumption that anyone in a prolonged stay in the hospital for mental health might resign, and is purposefully vague in order to be suggestive..
Yesterday they had a headline “John Fetterman Letter From Hospital Bed Raises Questions.” Who might be raising those questions you ask? Pennsylvania voters? Congressional Ethics Watchdogs? Fellow Democrats? Even his Republican colleagues who would have reason to make hay?
First sentence “Social media users have raised questions about…”
I’m chalking up this “might resign” article to the fact that they are far right pub masquerading as an old guard media source, and this is just a bit of rat fucking.
Watching the new season of Picard, and it feels like elder abuse. Patrick Stewart is looking for a chair or at least something to lean on in every scene, and has so much less vigor. He’s so incredibly old, even compared to last season.
I hope that Stewart is just playing Picard this way, rather than that way himself. He’s a charming man who loves dogs, so he’s probably not all that bad, and I want him to have many more active years.
Also, it’s the future. Will no one invent a lightbulb? It’s crazy how dark everything is — not thematically dark, just physically dark.
(As far as everything else… pacing is better this season, so far, and it feels more like everything is building in one direction, rather than the shaggy dog story of season 2, and the too many plot lines to tie up from season 1. Still not a particularly optimistic future. Not loving chunks of the plot that seem lifted from other shows and movies — feels like a Star Trek medley. Good to see some of the old TNG cast. Why did they keep Raffi? I miss Elnor and Rios.)
And the Pennsylvania GOP will file endless sore loser lawsuits.
@just nutha: I know, I’ve witnessed such things myself and some not even all that long ago. I was working a job on an Army base around 2015 when a cub was climbing an extension ladder with a board and a nail gun. When he got to the top he shot himself in the chest* with #16 sinker. We were all like, “How in the f did the dumbass manage that?”
It all became clear when the Corps of Engineers people showed up and somehow or other the gun had disappeared. “Ah, they were using *bump guns*.” and bump guns are quite illegal.
*it was a rather serious injury, he shot himself just below the sternum and it went thru his stomach and into his liver.
** A bump gun is one with out the safety feature of having to press the gun into what you are nailing first and only then will pulling the trigger cause the gun to fire. A good carpenter will have no difficulty getting the timing down to such an extent as being almost as fast as with a bump gun. Whereas with a bump gun one holds the trigger down all the time and all one need do is just touch the gun to the board and it fires. I had left hand experience with that problem when I put a nail thru it back in 1990. (they were still legal then)
@gVOR08: Before Covid traffic accidents were the #1 cause of on duty deaths. I don’t know about them not wearing seatbelts because of everything they put on their belts but it makes sense to me. The most dangerous time for them is during a traffic stop. All too often drivers do not give them a wide berth and either hit them or their car. My sister’s BiL got hit by a drunk driver during a traffic stop. F’d him up. He’s lucky to be able to walk, if you can call those shambles walking.
One of my all time favorite trauma cases was a guy who tried to kill himself with a nail gun. He put, IIRC, about 10-12 nails in his head. He managed to do this and not hit anything major so he survived and had no long term sequelae. If its not your time its not your time.
Steve
AOC taking an “I told you so” lap.
https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1631706682597179405
@OzarkHillbilly: Some years ago we had some downtime on a project and I spent some time talking to the foreman. He got off on how OSHA was ruining things for kids. When he was a kid you could get a job like he did running a punch press and if you were ambitious beat the standard production rate, make some money on piece rate, and make something of yourself. Now they got all those stupid guards and press safeties and they’re stuck. He was getting animated and waving around a hand with a finger and a half missing.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I have a Harbor Freight nail gun that is functionally a bump gun. Nail spewing air powered slot machine would be a better descriptor. That thing was great. It would fire nails clear through boards, across rooms or just because if you weren’t touching it. I spent $80 on it and it built 2/3rds of my home remodel. 10/10 would almost shoot my foot off again.
@daryl and his brother darryl: Yeah, this whole race to the bottom deal of states and cities and counties outbidding each other for a new facility never seems to work as promised. FOXCONN in WI comes to mind, but I also remember a company I worked with laid off X number of people. The story in the local paper said X laid off, 5% or something of the workforce. I asked somebody there about that, it seemed more like 20%. He said well yeah, but it would be 5% of the workforce we promised the county we’d maintain when we got the tax breaks to move here. We don’t want to raise any flags, so we say 5%.
@Gustopher: We’ve been watching it too, and what struck me is how labored Sir Patrick’s voice seems to be in some scenes. I’m sort of glad this is the final season. Let the man rest!
@gVOR08: I can see how that math works though. If you subtract 15% of the workforce that you didn’t hire but would have laid off if you had hired everyone you promised to employ, effectively you only laid off 5% of the workforce you imagined you would have. Makes perfect sense. 🙁
@Gustopher: @Jen:
Stewart is 82. He ought to have a break.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Ain’t no dogwhistling for these people, they’re right upfront with it these days.
@gVOR08:
I recall many years ago, when at university, I had an agency summer job working at a firm that reconditioned auto water pumps etc.
Using a power press to remove the bearing shafts.
Being on piece bonus, there was a considerable temptation to do it quicker by not using the clamps, holding it in place, and not lowering the guard.
The foreman explained, with profane detail, why this was why a f’in’ stupid thing to do, the potential unpleasant consequences of split shaft or bearing ring, his profound dislike for mopping up blood and filling out accident forms, and inclination to kick the backsides of fools..
Lessons learnt. 🙂
@OzarkHillbilly: compared to the current “torture by chemical cocktail” method of execution states are using, hanging is at least predictable.
We’ve had a bunch of botched executions lately where someone suffers for hours.
This is a case where the performative cruelty is actually less cruel than the status quo often is, and it has the chance of disgusting more people and moving the needle against the death penalty.
I am so not listening to this. Donald Trump singing:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/03/donald-trump-song-charity-single-january-6-prisoners
@Neil Hudelson:
He might resign. He might rob a bank and flee to Mexico. He might switch to a career in interpretive dance. There’s no end to the hypothetical things he might do!
@CSK:
@Jen:
@Gustopher:
I’ve been fortunate to work with many 80+ year old actors. Off the top of my head, Ed Asner, Elliot Gould, Judd Hirsch. I was amazed at how well these old guys could handle grueling 13 hour shooting days. Off set, they were shuffling, and slow. Once the cameras rolled, they were in character and killed it – every time. To me, there is nothing as good in my business as finally working with a legend and having them live up to the billing.
@senyordave:
Check out this fresh hell.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/88x4a5/florida-trans-kidnapping-law
@Beth:
I’m actually shocked Pennsylvania is on this list
@Stormy Dragon:
I saw that. I don’t think it’s particularly useful though. I don’t know what got filed here in IL but it has zero chance of becoming law. Hell, we just made name changes easier.
https://www.them.us/story/anti-lgbtq-legislation-bills-tracker-us
It’s the list that never ends.
@OzarkHillbilly: Respectfully, bump guns are not illegal. I don’t know the laws everywhere but I can buy one in Oregon. I would guess that they are probably not allowed on union jobs here. I agree that they are a cause of avoidable accidents and that we don’t really need the slight advantages in speed . A guy I work with 20 years ago shot a finish nail into his thigh, required minor surgery. Wouldn’t have happened if the gun wasn’t able to bump fire.
Here’s a Makita framing gun at Home Depot. It has a switch near the trigger to choose sequential or contact nailing.