Friday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Friday, January 29, 2021
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52 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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Rep. Greene is on the case: GOP Congresswoman Blamed Wildfires on Secret Jewish Space Laser
Suck It, Wall Street
In a blowout comedy for the ages, finance pirates take it up the clacker
Read it for what it’s worth: ‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years – ex-KGB spy
Keeping in mind that this is coming from a former KGB major, who no doubt knows of what he speaks but was also heart and soul a part of the game. He is in all likelihood still playing it on some level or another for his own reasons, old habits die hard, right? Still, the book could be an interesting read.
@sam:
No doubt Marjorie will attribute this entry to one of the multitudinous people who “manage” her Facebook page.
@OzarkHillbilly:
It may be just that I loathe Trump, but this has the ring of truth. I can see it happening.
A top MAGA gathering finds life complicated after Trump
This will make you laugh:
“Your proposal is acceptable.“
@CSK: I am quite sure there is more than just a kernel of truth to it, probably a whole sack full of kernels of truth. I won’t blindly accept it as gospel tho and can’t help wondering about ulterior motives. We all have them and he would be trained in hiding his own and exploiting those of others.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Quite so. I’m sure Shvets does have ulterior motives, just as I’m sure my inclination to believe anything bad about Trump colors my views.
@sam: Sounds like Ernst Blofeld (Diamonds are Forever) and Morty Carver (The Hebrew Hammer) had a love child!
More threats against Americans and American democracy from the radicalized right.
Conservatives warn culture, political wars will worsen
Ouch.
Marco Rubio Deserves Ivanka Trump
Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
As much as I will hate to see the Princess in the senate, squashing Lil’ Marco maybe a fair trade.
This is very interesting:
http://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/01/29/trump-antipope-president-mar-a-lago-463238
Dum dee dum
Minnesota town is flummoxed by resident who claims he’s above the law
Of course the irony here is that this is a community in a part of the state that is overwhelmingly trumpist, whose residents, those that are upset with this citizen, will make claims of their own impunity from various laws and societal expectations.
Something about chickens and roosts, what was that saying. 🙂
@OzarkHillbilly: There are limits on what can be included in a reconciliation bill. If the Dems go that route, the $15 minimum wage will almost certainly have to be taken out. Don’t know what else, it’s a big bill with lots of moving parts.
I was reading AOC’s twitter feud with Ted Cruz and have to say… her Twitter game is completely on point. The oldsters in the GOP are out of their league.
@CSK:
I continue to read about GOP “leaders” worrying about her actions. I doubt that. They know full well that idiots who agree with Greene’s moronic views make up enough of the GOP voting coalition that without them no Republican could win anything. Having someone like Greene saying this stuff out loud lets most other Republicans avoid having to do so while still holding those votes.
And now much of the media is fixated on unity and bipartisanship. I would personally be disgusted with anyone who could find common ground with her.
@Michael Cain: Yeah, the Byrd rule and all that. There is talk of killing it as a way to get around the filibuster that they seem inclined to leave in place as some sort of fig leaf to Synema and… Manchin? I don’t know what that will do and what rules will still apply etc etc etc. I am no expert on Senate rules and am quite befuddled by them.
@Pete S:
Apparently Greene has deleted those FB posts from 2018 and 2019 that indicate her approval of the worst sort of paranoid fantasies. (Of course they’ve all been screenshot.) I don’t know whether she’s having second thoughts about saying out loud what she thinks or there was pressure on her to do so.
Cicely Tyson died yesterday. She was 96. Fine actress. Beautiful woman. RIP.
These appointments, albeit of some small consequence, made these advisory boards a joke, and highlight the contempt of Trump and his fellow travelers for all things government.
Pentagon halts Trump appointments to advisory boards
@OzarkHillbilly:
We are all quite befuddled by them. The written rules, some statutes, and then some thousands of precedents and procedural rulings. The Senate Parliamentarian is the only one that knows for sure. And IIRC, a simple majority can rule that the Parliamentarian is mistaken.
@OzarkHillbilly:
It might be worth mentioning at this point that the Byrd rule is named for Manchin’s predecessor in the Senate in WV, who was one of the foremost defenders of the filibuster while he was alive and who now has a “rule” named after him designed to protect the filibuster from the abuse of reconciliation as a loophole to get around it. (Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, who currently heads the budget committee, has a history of advocating doing away with the filibuster by using reconciliation for pretty much anything then having the vp overrule the Senate parliamentarian.) So in addition to Manchin’s brand as conservadem swing vote, he also has a brand as an institutionalist.
I don’t know how much of this matters, especially after Schumer managed to get Manchin and Sinema to back down after threatening to go along with McConnell’s demand to commit to keeping the filibuster.
@OzarkHillbilly:
The other day I read that piece at Spytalk and it reminded my of a book by the late author/ex CIA officer, Charles McCarry, “The Tears of Autumn,” which essentially was an alternative theory on the Kennedy assassination that held together much better than the leading conspiracy theories of the time. The Spytalk piece is loaded with the same type suppositions and accretions that McCarry used in a work that he admitted was fiction. Yes, “take it for what it is worth,” but to lean on it too hard can lead to a leftist version of Q.
That said, it is a delicious read and it will be nice if large parts of it are true.
Which now has me wondering about the recordings of Trump’s conversations with Putin and what do the translators have to say? Inquiring minds need to know.
@Sleeping Dog: I foresee a fire ala Skidmore in the near future,
Reynolds talks about Republicans being more a cult of personality than a political party. I felt that was only partly true. But the last few days of news is sure full of Republican pols acting like they can’t live without him.
@Kylopod: Ah yes, the good Exalted Cyclops Robert Carlyle Byrd, whose ghost haunts us still.
sigh….
@OzarkHillbilly:
A bit OT, but it wasn’t until several years after the first time I watched O Brother Where Art Thou that it occurred to me the John Goodman character, who was clearly based on the cyclops from Greek mythology and who is later seen in the Klan gathering at the end, was probably a reference to the “Grand Cyclops” rank within the Klan. If so, it’s a pretty obscure and subtle joke. I didn’t even know about that rank until reading about Robert Byrd. It could just be a coincidence that I’m reading too much into, but it does strike me as the type of gag the Coen Brothers would do.
@Kylopod: I never really thought about it but now that you mention it, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. It’s right up the Coen Brother’s humor alley.
China will no longer recognize the BNO (British) passport for Hong Kong residents.
Add this to the National Security Law, and this week’s (unusually strong) comment that independence for Taiwan would “mean war”…. Bad things are going to happen in SE Asia.
Crime In America: Study Reveals The 10 Most Unsafe Neighborhoods
Neighborhoods in LA, SF and Kansas City(!) lead the list with multiple neighborhoods represented.
Somehow, StL and Detroit were denied this honor.
I trust, Kylopod and @OzarkHillbilly, you both are aware that “Oh Brother Where Art Though is set in 1937 rural Mississippi during the Great Depression. Its story is a modern satire loosely based on Homer’s epic Greek poem The Odyssey that incorporates social features of the American South.“
I trust, Kylopod and @OzarkHillbilly, you both are aware that Oh Brother Where Art Though “is set in 1937 rural Mississippi during the Great Depression. Its story is a modern satire loosely based on Homer’s epic Greek poem The Odyssey that incorporates social features of the American South.“
@Joe:
You would be correct in that assumption. That’s why I said the Goodman character is “clearly” supposed to represent the cyclops. I took that as a given–it’s one of the film’s most obvious Homeric allusions, and I think it’s something that even people who are only vaguely familiar with The Odyssey usually pick up on. What I was commenting on was more subtle: the fact that one of the ranks within the KKK literally bears the name “cyclops,” and even though this never gets mentioned in the film, I suspect the revelation of the Goodman character being in the Klan was put in there intentionally to imply that additional parallel. I don’t know for certain, and if my suspicion is accurate, then it’s an amazingly obscure joke, as I doubt very many moviegoers are even aware of that fact about the Klan.
@Kylopod:
You can count me in on that. However, I find it entirely plausible that the name of the office in the Klan inspired the entire film.
And in thinking about it, the film captures the unusual nature of Ulysses – he never tries to be a hero – in the film, he has no concept of himself as fighting for racial justice. In Homer, he’s just trying to get home (and he does a few underhanded things on the way). And yet there he is at the forefront.
@Sleeping Dog: Wow, that piece does not impress me. There is a map that is labelled “San Francisco” in the caption, but the insert in the map itself reads “Los Angeles”. Also, I don’t really recognize it, unlike the later map of Market Street/Union Square.
Second, these are very small areas, and so there is a small sample size problem.
Third, these are predictions made by a learning algorithm. There’s no reason to think they did a good job training the algorithm or that they just embedded a bunch of biases in the training of that algorithm.
So, it’s junk. Ignore it. It might have something to it, it might not.
Reposting this since I didn’t get to yesterday’s thread till late:
I appreciate that they are now being direct about wanting to abolish democracy.
@Kari Q: I’m too lazy to look, but what does the Arizona state constitution say about the matter? There are too many state legislators who somehow think — erroneously, IMO — that ACB and the other new SCOTUS justices are just going to let state legislators override their state constitutions on this.
@OzarkHillbilly:
@CSK:
Traditionally there are two primary categories of agent, the witting and the unwitting.
To these, Trump has added a third: the nit-witting agent.
He should be an agent, but he’s two damn stupid to realise it.
Most of the time his “hanging with the hard men” is all part of his kayfabe, pretend wise-guy, wannabe mover and shaker, act.
I think sometimes he is forced by circumstances to see his liabilities and has a brief, sickening, realisation of how compromised he is.
But then he retreats to the comfy world of being Mr Big Time in his own empty head.
His problem is that at least some of his interlocutors are rather more serious people.
@OzarkHillbilly:
They are a relic of a time when the Senate attempted, and in a lot of ways succeeded, to be a body of gentlemen placing the interests of the country above the party and personal.
For quite some time it functioned so. 2/3s should be achievable with honorable, educated and informed people who are capable of acknowledging facts and truths. The House was for the animals. The Senate aspired to be something greater so they created procedural rules which are only suitable for honorable men, but such rules are vulnerable to abuse by the dishonorable. Abusing the filibuster, the ability to place secret holds on bills, et al. In the old days a Senator could would be socially ostracized for being a dick. Now everyone commutes back home by airplane every week. They barely have to meet.
@JohnSF:
I’m not sure the realization that he’s compromised bothers Trump, or even that it occurs to him.
What I think bothers him is the occasional flash of realization that when it comes to being tough, he’s nowhere in Putin’s league. He is, to use one of his favorite accusations against others, a pussy.
@Jay L Gischer:
Yeah, articles like that are one step above clickbait, but I can’t resist when it is offered as a link in an opinion piece for a
respectedlegitimate periodical. Plus it is potential fodder for the forum.@Kari Q:
@Michael Cain:
It likely won’t get as far as the supremes, the AZ supreme court will likely shut it down. Far too many state legislators haven’t a clue as to what is in their own state constitutions that are far more detailed as to what the state can and can’t do.
I saw this yesterday on an AZ political website and the sense I came away with is that this legislation won’t get out of committee.
@Jay L Gischer:
I didn’t know either. I had no idea, the first time I watched it. It wasn’t until many years later, when I had given the film a rewatch around the same time I had read about Robert Byrd’s past, that it suddenly hit me.
I would estimate that the percentage of the moviegoing audience who picked up this reference the first time they watched the film (assuming it was intentional–I’m still not certain of that) to be under 1%. And I’m someone who probably knows more than the average person about the Klan, as I’m both an American history buff and someone who has spent years reading a lot about extremist hate groups in America. For example, most people are unaware of the fact that there is no single group called “the Ku Klux Klan” anymore, and hasn’t been since at least the 1940s. There are, rather, numerous unrelated groups who have adopted that name. So whenever you run across a news article that refers to David Duke as “the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan,” that is actually a bit misleading. He was never the Grand Wizard of the Klan. He was the Grand Wizard of “Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,” an independent organization which he created.
I’m going to wager that the majority of people reading this were unaware of what I just said, just as I was unaware of the Klan rank called “cyclops” until I read about Byrd. It’s that obscure. That’s why I find the possibility that the Coen Brothers did make this reference intentionally to be so astonishing.
@Joe: Oh yeah.
@Kylopod:
That’s because Superman smashed them. 😀
@Sleeping Dog:
This past November, they appealed a ruling where the Pennsylvania supreme court had applied the Pennsylvania constitution to the SCOTUS. At some point not too much farther back, they appealed the Pennsylvania supreme court’s ruling that partisan gerrymandering violated the Pennsylvania constitution to the SCOTUS. The Supremes might not hear the case, but given sufficient money to fund things it will likely get appealed that far.
My understanding — and IANAL — is that a certain amount of precedent would have to be overturned, and it seems unlikely the SCOTUS would do that, but it’s possible that they would rule the US Constitution gives the state legislature sole control over selecting electors unless the legislature has explicitly delegated that power. The “at any time before inauguration” would be a problem, as it conflicts with long-standing federal law.
@Sleeping Dog:
Not all Republicans in the AZ legislature are insane. Some of them have watched progressive ballot initiatives pass, their majorities at the statehouse shrink, the US House seats get to 5-4 Dem, and both US Senate seats go Dem, and they would still like to hold onto their suburban seats.
@CSK:
Yes, and that’s Putin’s whip. I recall Putin was displeased once and publicly called Trump ‘weak’. Putin’s ring in Trump’s nose is being the kind, approving father Trump never had. He’s been well trained, and one does not rise to be head of a place like Russia without big time psy-chops.
Putin will probably refuse to speak to him now, I reckon. Don will wonder why…
Anybody up for crowd-sourcing a sky writer to put a half-mile long “LOSER” over Mar A Lago on a golfing afternoon?
@dazedandconfused:
Too late. Someone in a plane already flew a banner over Mar-a-Lago reading: TRUMP YOU PATHETIC LOSER GO BACK TO MOSCOW.
Of course, we could always do it again.
Like Capt. Renault, I’m shocked, shocked I say!
h/t to Joseph Fawbush, Esq. and my dear friends at Findlaw. Once again, proving that truth is so entertaining because fiction has to make sense.