Friday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Friday, June 30, 2023
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34 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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Recently we were debating the popularity of Obamacare and just like magic Kevin Drum posts a chart of its rising popularity. It has risen steadily from 35% in 2014 (Death Panels!!!) to 60% today.
Greetings! I decided to postpone going to bed until my first usual wake up time. I’ll let you know if it made s difference when I awaken. (My guess is that it won’t.)
When I see an airline launch with an unconventional business plan, I do immediately wonder: scam or white elephant?
When parts of the plan are preposterous, I tend to favor scam. But if assets are acquired, I begin to consider things like naivete, or a really bad case of Dunning-Kruger.
I wonder which is Global Airlines.
I’m thinking a bad Dunning-Kruger. The founder does run a successful business, or one that seems to be successful (it is active), but also is known for being “the youngest man to visit every country in the world.”
This suggests he has flown a lot. In Dunning-Kruger fashion, he might think that flying a great deal makes him an expert on all aspects of air travel. Imagine someone unfortunate enough to have undergone many medical procedures, who thinks they are an expert in all aspects of medicine.
I guess we’ll see. Seeing how the A380 fizzled in every business model except for Emirates’, it does not seem like a good omen.
Key document may be fake in LGBTQ+ rights case before US supreme court
Say WHAT????? I am shocked, shocked I tell you!!!
Hoocudanode that this fine Christian woman with her fine Christian lawyers would be party to a lie?
I rather suspect that if a non-christian filed a similar lawsuit for similar reasons they’d have to show actual real life consequences to establish standing.
Wait, what? I thought a key factor in a tort was actual harm. How does a party have standing based on *potential* liability?
Would love to hear from any of the lawyers on the board.
And no, it does not surprise me in the least that some person purporting to be a victimized Christian lied and falsified a document.
@Jen:
Not a lawyer, but while I was pleased with the outcome of Massachusetts v. EPA back in 2006, I did wonder about the long-term consequences on standing rules. The (then) four liberal justices plus Kennedy granted standing based on potential harms that would occur many years in the future. If there are at least five justices who want to issue an opinion on a case’s merits, they’ll grant standing.
That was another example for our hosts’ list of cases where the Court is trying to do a job Congress should.
The law is whatever the majority of SCOTUS says it is. It may or may not have much relation to any written laws and it doesnt need to honor historical norms. They have unlimited authority. It’s why it’s worth bribing them so much and why they try so hard to hide it.
Steve
@Kathy:
They confused ‘perspective’ and ‘prospective,’ in re their routes.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Wait, doesn’t that count as perjury, submitting a false document to the court?
Can Stewart sue as dragging someone into a SC case with a false document claiming harm seems like a pretty clear case of defamation and possibly identity theft?
Well, they ruled for the liar. Guess submitting fake docs to court doesn’t matter anymore. Hopefully Stewart sues the daylights of out of Smith for this
Alan Arkin, 89, has died. RIP.
With the affirmative action decision and today’s decisions on religious accommodations, same sex couples being served by public businesses, and the striking down of student loan forgiveness, the message from SCOTUS couldn’t be any clearer: if you aren’t white, Christian, heterosexual, and well-off, you are a lesser-than American.
@just nutha: Well that didn’t work. Still woke up at 4:30, 7, and now.
@Mikey: “the message from SCOTUS couldn’t be any clearer: if you aren’t white, Christian, heterosexual, and well-off, you are a lesser-than American.”
Unless you can afford to give them gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then it doesn’t matter who you are.
@CSK: I happened to catch The In-Laws” a couple days ago. Not the entirely forgettable remake, the original with Arkin and Falk. Damn they were good. Hopefully someone will run Catch 22.
@CSK:
I loved The Russians are coming, The Russians are Coming, which was Arkin’s first Oscar nomination. He followed it up “Wait Until Dark’ with Audrey Hepburn. A movie that has been much imitated but Arkin was very good in it. Arkin once said(?) you don’t get oscar nominations for being mean to Audrey Hepburn. I like WUD and Arkin’s 2nd Oscar nomination, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.
I love black comedies (Theatre of Blood is a favorite of mine. The Trouble with Harry and Brewster McCloud while having their flaws I enjoyed) but Catch-22 I think is a terrible film. The rest of Arkin’s work for decades wasn’t that memorable (Freebie and Bean, Fire Sale, Chu Chu and the Philly Flash the less said the better) with a few exceptions like the In-laws. I never watched Little Miss Sunshine or most of Arkin’s later work (post 2000) with the exception of Argo. RIP.
@wr:
For now.
There will come a point when even money can’t buy acceptance. Plenty of out-groups have assumed their cash and connections will save them when the tide starts turning, only to prove tragically wrong. I mean, what’s to stop them from taking your money and ruling against you anyways? The days of bought folks staying bought seems to be ending, now they’ll accept the bribe as their due and rule on their personal ideology. It just so happens the bribers and the bought are usually in alignment but I can see some of the more crooked ones taking the money “to think about it” and then turning.
@KM: It’s always hilarious when people who have bribed politicians discover that said politicians may not keep their word.
Wasn’t it Lyndon Johnson who said something like: “son, if you can’t take their cash, drink their booze, frolic with their women–and then turn around and vote against them the next week, you have no right to be in politics.”
@KM:
@grumpy realist:
You don’t buy a politician or a jurist. You rent them. That is, you keep paying them off monthly or whatever, and make it clear the money will stop flowing if they don’t keep showing you their favor.
@Bill Jempty:
If you want a movie that takes the thematic premise of Catch-22 and executes it much better, check out “Kelly’s Heroes” some time
@Kathy:
Lately it’s been like an AirBnb that’s renting out the same house to different groups at the same time. Cool if you’re betting one party won’t show or cause a fuss but if both show up to use the place, someone’s cash ain’t getting what they paid for. Maybe you walk away, swearing you’ll never use them again. Maybe you hedge your bets because they were the best (or only) deal on offer you could swing so you keep paying.
How often do bribers really withdraw their favor? It means sacrificing the chance at power and influence. The threat’s there but how often does cutting someone off really happen? I mean Disney was contributing to DeSantis when he started the feud and I’m unsure if they stopped.
@Michael Reynolds:
They’ve allegedly spent money on A380s. The stupid begins that high up 😉
@Kathy:
The thing to watch for is if the 380s leave the scrapyard they are now in. It’s one thing to “ink” a deal, but another to pay for it, and the holder is unlikely to release the planes from the boneyard until the money is transferred.
That they went to the trouble of painting “Global Airlines” on a white bird still in the lot has the reek of scam or desparate thinking. The image of a mothballed airliner with one’s name on it is obviously not a good look.
@KM: The bribe is a carrot, but with out a stick in the other hand you’re just another sucker waiting to be taken.
Trump claims Fani Willis will be dropping all charges in the “stollen” election case.
German fruit bread?
@CSK: Stollen election? I vote for my wife’s, she makes a delicious Stollen every Christmas.
@Mikey:
Yes, my maternal grandmother (of German descent) made a good one, too.
@Mikey: I have no idea what stollen is, but I heard the word fruit bread and I should vote for your wife’s stollen…..recipe, please? 😛 😛 I’m having a hard time keeping these teenagers fed properly this summer, they can finish anything I make off in a day, particularly anything with fruit in it!
On the plus side, they’re becoming excellent sammich makers. Made just the way THEY like them!!!
@dazedandconfused:
If they never own a plane, then it’s likely a scam. Although scam airlines have owned planes. Like Baltia.
To rise to the status of white elephant, they have to at least fly once with paying passengers.
A tiny spot of good news for this gloomy day: Fox “News” settled with Abby Grossberg on a gender discrimination lawsuit.
I’ve heard it said, mostly on lawyer shows, that a company that settles a lawsuit invites more suits.
Let’s hope that’s the case.
I occasionally note that there’s a difference between genuine, grass roots populism like the prairie populists of the late 1800s and Republican “populism”. Moms for Liberty was supposedly founded by three naive, nobody mothers around a kitchen table. (Might as well recycle the Tea Party founding myth.) Kevin Drum has the goods. The three housewives were two Sarasota County school board members and the DeSantis endorsed board chair, the wife of the Florida GOP Chairman. Their growth was funded by a $50,000 donation from Julie Fancelli, the Publix heiress you may remember from funding J6. (Publix has done what they can to make it clear she has nothing to do with the company.)
@Mikey:
My mouth is watering just thinking about stollen. One of the wonderous treats from Grandma’s kitchen.
@Jax:
Stollen also has kirschwasser in it. A lot of kirschwasser
@Stormy Dragon: So it’s a night-time dessert, then? 😛