Impeached Again Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Thursday, January 14, 2021
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105 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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US police three times as likely to use force against leftwing protesters, data finds
I just think this is pretty funny.
Not the Onion:
“Give me your melons or the i-phone gets it.”
The Cult of Victimhood continues…
And the Kristallnacht comparisons are truly disgusting…
True to form, Trump has recently been refusing to pay Rudy Giuliani.
@CSK: You beat me to it. Here’s a link… BTW, he’s also refusing to take Rudy’s calls.
@MarkedMan:
I wonder who Trump will retain to defend him at his impeachment trial?
@CSK: You know, from the very first time Republicans started to throw their lot in with Trump I was pointing out that in his history there are many, many people who knew he was a walking talking disaster but thought they could ride with him on the way up and jettison him on the way down. But no one has ever pulled it off. As far as I know not a single person, ever, came out better for having associated themselves with Trump. That’s not hyperbole, and if a counter example exists I would love to hear of it. Paul Ryan was the only one smart enough to see that reality, and he stepped into the lifeboat alone and pushed off as soon as he saw the iceberg. All the other Republicans are morons who believed they could use the iceberg as a way to advance their social standing on the decks of the Titanic.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I really love stories like the wobbly black hole, despite the fact that every time I dive in I am forced to recognize, yet again, that my brain will not do physics. It just won’t.
@MarkedMan:
Rick Wilson got it right with a single hashtag: #ETTD. Everything Trump Touches Dies.
Just so you know:
DOD Releases Report on Defense Spending by State in Fiscal Year 2019
@MarkedMan:
They’ve even picked up the Trumpian habit of thinly veiling their words. For instance, when they say they are afraid something, such as impeaching trump for trying to overthrow the US government, will further divide the country, what they mean is it will further divide the Republican Party
@MarkedMan:
I’ve never understood this myself. I’ve known since the 1980s that Trump was a crook and a backstabber, in addition to being a churl, a moron, and a laughably inept social climber. It’s impossible for me to imagine what, but I can only guess that he has some hidden (to me, anyway) charm that he exerts that enables him to cast a spell over even the ostensibly street-smart.
As for the rubes he seduced, they were taken in by the image he presented on his reality show–that of a fantastically successful tycoon. And they identified with him because he was an oaf and a buffoon–in other words, a real American, just like them. If I had a more generous spirit, I could pity them for thinking that he loves them and loves this country.
@An Interested Party:
So true. The only right the Right seem to recognize is the right to be an unmitigated asshat. Everything else flows from that- free speech to talk like one, 2A to threaten like one, capitalism to cheat others like one, etc. They were able to merge with troll culture so effectively because that’s what they *are* at heart. It’s no surprise that the truly nasty memes and $hitposts come from the depths of 8-chan, Parler, Gab alone with expressions of pure ugly id and bias.
Free speech has never been unlimited and unregulated in nature. Back in the day, you would be fined at best, sent to jail or challenged to a duel at worst. This is the freest America has ever been to allow this kind of hateful nonsense and look what’s become of it. They want more rope to hang us all with it.
I’m going to file this one under “OMG, Trumpies are so dumb….”
Apparently, because Dominion has a lawsuit against Sidney Powell, alllllll of the fraud facts are going to come out, the election will be overturned, and as long as the Senate doesn’t convict Trump, he can be President again.
@Jax:
I think I found what Republicans would consider fraud, and it happened in Georgia.
See, there were all these barriers to voting, and all these measures carefully crafted to suppress the vote, yet maintain plausible deniability, and these people defrauded the good white supremacists of Georgia by finding their way over and around these obstacles.
@Jax:
Well, that does raise the question of why Powell didn’t present all of these “fraud facts” before Dominion decided to sue her for over a billion dollars, doesn’t it?
File under, Karma’s a bitch
Monday January 18, 2021 is Martin Luther King Day. It would be a good idea for state, local and national authorities to be alert for any actions that the stinkin’ bigots in this country might take against civil order.
I wish I could be confidant that police agencies across the country are ready for any disturbance these white power junkies might provoke.
Breaking away from politics for a bit, the Steelers might not have had the most inglorious end for a team with an 11-0 start, but ti was pretty bad. And this concludes the bashing of the team I claim to be a fan of.
Next, the Trek Q “novels” I’ve bookmarked are all around 3:30 hours long. They are more like audio plays than novels. The Picard novel I read a few months back was a full length piece. Still, they are good enough to listen to, thus far.
We tend to be addicted to outrage, in the country; and I’m probably no different. Skating to where the puck’s going (thanks, Gretzky), I’m already mentally preparing (hoping?) for any number of inquiries into who, within the walls of Congress (members, security apparatus), may have been complicit in the coup attempt. I’ve only ever seen the House expel one member (J. Traficant), and wonder what types of heads will roll from last week’s poop-show….
I get around that problem by just pretending it’s all magic. That way I can focus on how cool it all is w/o worrying about all the sticky details.
Rex Huppke at the Chicago Tribune has had two satirical articles posted recently that are so on-target it’s almost painful.
The first is Surprise! Insurrections have consequences, which contained gems like this:
The next is If this is Cancel Culture, then why is it I can still hear them?
The National Mall will be closed to the public on Inauguration Day.
@CSK:
Maybe Trump’s planned insurrection was to accomplish this. after all, Biden will have the smallest inauguration crowd ever.
@CSK:
So, it will look like the Trump inauguration?
I forgot to bring this up yesterday, but there is a story on thehill where it says Jared Kushner had to talk Trump out of creating a Parler/Gab account. The amazing thing is that some of Trump’s advisors were encouraging him to sign up due to his twitter/fb ban.
Clearly, Jared was well aware that the last thing the President of the United States should be doing is posting on an unsecured site like Parler. How unsecure, well…if the reports I have been seeing on-line are remotely true frighteningly unsecure. It sounds like a hacker has a ton of data they scraped from Parler before Google/Apple/Amazon removed them from their app stores.
If the hacking reports are true Dan Bongino has some splaining to do. Dan B says Parler will be back and he will go bankrupt if he has to as he fights to get Parler up and running again. He may get his wish, because I have to imagine folks behind the scenes are getting ready to sue him into oblivion. Of course, I am just guessing that he is going to be busy warding off a bunch of lawsuits.
Also, as noted in this thread it feels like Republicans redefine chutzpah/hubris on a daily basis when they say the real danger of 01/06/21 is not that a mob was sent to kill them but that it led to President Trump’s twitter and FB feeds going dark. Okay, then…sure, sure, that was what the GOP should have been stressed out about in the days following the attack, not making sure they are safe from further attacks but advocating that Trump’s twitter account be re-activated.
We all say that all the GOP cares about is staying in power and the profoundly sad thing is that some of the rhetoric from the GOP following the attack tells me they really would give up their left nut if it meant they could stay in power (for the ladies, I will say they would be willing to give up their left arm). Wow.
@Kathy:
I wouldn’t put it past him.
@DrDaveT:
It will, won’t it?
Harold Bornstein, the doctor to whom Trump dictated the letter about him being the healthiest person ever elected to the presidency, has died.
The Six Lowest Points of Trump’s Corrupt, Racist, Impeached, Ignorant, Incompetent Clusterfuck of a Presidency
An the surprises just keep coming:
New York’s AG, Letitia James, is filing a suit against the NYPD for the treatment of BLM protesters last year.
Trump’s whackadoodle doctor, Harold Bornstein, has apparently passed away. No cause listed.
@CSK: Ah, sorry for the duplicate mention–mea culpa!
@Jen:
Quite all right. I wonder if Bornstein died of embarrassment.
@CSK: No one. If it takes place after the inauguration, it’s on his dime, IIUC.
@Jen: He does have a point. Mother Jones magazine offers a money-back guarantee; cancel culture should, too.
It’s nothing but a scam!
@CSK: I wouldn’t think so. Hard for someone with no shame to die from embarrassment.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I do wonder how Trump browbeat him into signing that letter, which was so ridiculously worded that even non-medical people knew it was a phony from the get-go.
Now, I’m not claiming Rudy Giuliani is an idiot, but a smart lackey would have insisted on being paid in advance and in full.
Another reason to hate the entire Trump family:
The $3,000-a-month toilet for the Ivanka Trump/Jared Kushner Secret Service detail
I never understand people who insist people working in their houses, such as remodelers, house cleaners, repairmen, etc. not use the facilities. It’s just a matter of basic human dignity. I hear it so often that I feel I must point out where the bathrooms are so they know they are welcome to use them.
@Kathy:..a smart lackey would have insisted on being paid in advance and in full.
Rudy probably thinks that Personal Lawyer to the President of the United States will look good on his résumé.
@Scott:
OzarkHillbilly can give us a definitive answer, but I believe that the requirement that contractors have a porta potty on site, even for residential, is part of the permitting process that the community enforces.
@Jen: Good. Yeah, being cancelled does seem to work like Going Galt or the Benedict Option.
@Mikey:
And got 74 million votes for reelection. Jesus wept.
@Kathy:
IIRC, this is why you always get a retainer, unless you’re working pro bono
@Jen: I never see a picture of Bornstein without thinking of the Brent Spiner character in “Independence Day”.
Kevin Seefried, the imbecile who swanned around the Capitol waving the Confederate battle flag, has been arrested.
I’m deeply sick of the veneration of all things Confederate. Are there statues of Charles Cornwallis and George III outside the state house in Boston? On Lexington Green? At Bunker Hill? At Yorktown?
@Scott: Unreal. I didn’t think it was possible for me to think even less of them, but…now, somehow, I do.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Whatever deluded sap it is, he or she better get all the money upfront.
@Scott:
The only valid reason ever to refuse anyone the use of a toilet, is if the toilet’s backed up or broken.
So, assuming Javanka are not petty elitists, one must wonder: what the hell do they leave in their gold-plated toilets?
@Kathy:
They’re petty elitists. Very petty.
@CSK: Not accusing anyone here, but IF your main service as an MD is prescribing whatever medicine your wealthy clients want, then you have a strong desire not to rock the boat. He had to decide which was the safer route: give Trump what he wanted or try not to become involved.
@CSK: One of the people arrested actually has the first and middle name “Robert Lee.” And he’s a Jr.
@Mister Bluster:
Too bad he only gets to claim to be The Grand Cheeto’s Lawyer.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
I can’t say of my own knowledge, but I doubt Trump the Loser pays retainers. If he did, how would he stiff his lawyers?
That said, I’m not terribly impressed with what transpired that got them banned from using the Obama’s garage loo:
Honestly…
@CSK:
Probs not. One in St Paul’s Cathedral though.
@Scott:
It never even occurred to me that this was a thing. One of the first things I do with any tradesman who’s going to be inside or outside my house for any length of time is show them where the bathroom is.
Like so much dickishness, this has the added negative of being stupid. You are asking these people for a service. In my case it’s fixing a pipe or a furnace, or cutting down a tree. In their case, it’s protecting the frickin’ lives of themselves and their kids. And yet they start out the relationship by essentially saying, “I think you are unclean and your mere presence would contaminate my house”@CSK: ? Where does that get you, exactly?
Love the fact that the Obama’s let them in to pee.
@MarkedMan:
I’m sure Bornstein was intimidated/bullied by Trump.
@CSK: There’s another guy with the same name with a good sense of humor. He tweeted something like, “Total bummer my name is going to get me on a no fly list but at least I’ll never have to pay for Cracker Barrel ever again.”
@MarkedMan:
Not sure what you’re referring to, but when I click on my name cited in your comment, it goes back to the observation I made to Cracker that whatever lawyer works for Trump better get his or her money up front.
The reply function is like the edit function: very glitchy.
@MarkedMan:
Good sport.
@inhumans99:
It’s not like it would be hard. Twitter runs on their own hardware and system software, so can Parler. AWS says that they have preserved the data and will transfer it wherever else he wants. He might want to hire someone to do a better job of installing whichever messaging software he’s using and close up at least the obvious security holes.
Now, if his argument is that he’s entitled to run on the AWS cloud, that’s going to take a few years to work its way through the courts.
@MarkedMan: @MarkedMan: Yeah, I don’t know the origins either. It may be different in different parts of the country. It may be a class thing or maybe left over from a whites only mentality WRT to toilets and water fountains.
The CEO of gab.com, Andrew Torba, backed up Trump’s Twitter account and put it on the Gab site:
http://www.gab.com/realdonaldtrump
@CSK: I took an undergrad class on the Andean Ridge. During a lecture our professor was regaling us with Bolivia’s paltry martial history and claimed Bolivia was the only country in the world to build monuments to losing military leaders. I stated, “What about Stone Mountain”. My buddy sitting next to me (who was from Northern Georgia) smacked me upside the back of the head.
@DrDaveT: Yeah but with more people.
@Scott: @Sleeping Dog:
Some locales may require a JohnnyontheSpot as part of the granting of a construction permit but not many do. (only the ritzier ones in my experience) Most contractors of rehab/room additions will get one just as a matter of courtesy for the home owner. One gets used to it especially when so many jobsites have no water to begin with. I actually preferred to use one, as opposed to the homeowners’ as it meant I wasn’t tracking mud thru their house or a cloud of gypsum dust behind me. Besides, my presence alone was an invasion of their privacy.
It was always a little uncomfortable to me, seeing things that not many do.
@OzarkHillbilly: My assumption was porta-potty or taped down floor coverings from the door into the designated bathroom if there were a lot of workers or if they were going to get dirty and muddy, but other than that, come in. I do tell them which bathroom to use, but that’s just a case of not having people wandering around the house.
@Owen:
I think this whole business of the U.S allowing the South to put up statues of Lee, Davis, Beauregard, et al. as well as the naming of various army bases after Confederate generals was intended as a sop to the losing side. Sort of: “Let them have their statues. Let them wave their little flags. Hell, let them name the forts in the south after a bunch of losers. We won; we crushed and humiliated them. If this makes them feel better, we can afford to be generous. It’s no skin off our asses.”
They probably never dreamed that 155 years later, some assholes would invade the Capitol and prance around waving the Confederate battle flag–the very symbol of the south–to celebrate an even bigger asshole from…Queens.
@MarkedMan: A lot of times one needs to seal off the part of the house that is being worked on (which never really works, dust finds a way) but even then there are times when one has to enter the rest of the house to do this that or the other. I was always terrified I would catch Great Granny’s dinner service that she brought over from the old country at the turn of the century with my tool belt while trying to sidle by it to access that window…. or maybe just bump into a countertop and chip it with my framing hammer.
And then there are the moments they’d forget that I was there and do something they only do in private. They’d get embarrassed and I would suddenly become blind.
It’s just uncomfortable being in a strangers house, especially if you have to take a steaming shit in a spotless half bath.
In a follow up to my late comments yesterday, I note, with no little surprise, that the leopard continues to eat their faces (shock!)
From Newsweek: Jeff Flake, Cindy McCain and Arizona’s Governor Could Be Censured by State GOP for Supporting Biden
Maybe someone here with strong google-fu (or WordPress Fu) could provide the link? When I try, I go straight to the 7th Circle. The good news of that is most of my friends are there…
@flat earth luddite: Jeff Flake, Cindy McCain and Arizona’s Governor Could Be Censured by State GOP for Supporting Biden.
I live to serve.
@OzarkHillbilly:
At this point, that would be a badge of honor.
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks. And a h/t for not laughing at the weakness of my google-fu. Like particle physics and television, it’s all magic to me.
@Long Time Listener:
Traficant shoulda been expelled for his hair.
@CSK: that certainly seems to be how the (potential) censured ones seem to be looking at it.
@Mister Bluster:
Personally, I’m wishing that the police actively corral them, or contain them. What I fear is many LEO joining them in their thuggish-fu.
@Michael Reynolds: i gots a degree in the subject and special and general relativity still give me headaches.
Special Relativity…I think I kiiiiinda get that now. General Relativity I don’t and, having seen (and briefly owned) The Textbook, (the black one, for the hip kids out there) and knowing the differential equations involved, I’m not going to waste months or years trying. There are more fun things to do in life than try to be the genius I am definitely not. 😀
@Mister Bluster:
In many states the legislative session has started. After the imagery from Michigan last year (where, I note, the Republican legislature changed the law so that open carry is no longer allowed in their capitol building) and last week in Washington, the police are going to be all over everything. As a general rule, take good care of the people who can change the law to make things very difficult for you.
@flat earth luddite:
The bad part is that they’re censuring Ducey for his pandemic response. From the link:
So he’s guilty of saving lives, or trying to? Would it be a defense that he wasn’t very good at it? I mean, Arizona is like paradise for SARS-CoV-2 right now.
@flat earth luddite: I, a fellow luddite, would never laugh at somebody’s difficulties with anything computer related. I mastered that one task and still resort to a framing hammer for all other frustrations.
@gVOR08:
a guy in south Florida I used to know used to tell his kids, “it’s important to always keep in mind the fact that you’re not special. Not me, not you, everybody gets replaced.”
@OzarkHillbilly:
This was a primary reason for my giving up firearms 40+ years ago. Too many targets, too little ammo. Every problem can’t be solved with a .308 or .45. Thus began my path towards the Light. But some days…
On the aviation front: and another one’s gone, another one’s gone, another one bites the dust.
Norwegian is eliminating its long haul routes and retrenching to short haul routes in Europe.
Ok, it may yet survive, but it’s the latest in a long line of low cost airlines that have tried long haul at low cost and failed. This stretches back to Laker Airways in the 80s. in the last decade, WOW and Primera went bust. All this in an era, stretching back to the 80s also, where low cost and ultra-low cost models are proliferating and quite successful.
Why?
Part of the explanation is the low cost model depends on extracting many flight hours per plane per day. This is far more easily done with shorter routes. Also, long haul usually means longish layovers at one side of the route, meaning the plane cannot fly for several hours, due to scheduling due to time differences between destinations. Another factor is the need for a crew base at the destination, since the crew that flies in cannot, because of regulations limiting flight hours per day, fly the plane back.
The most successful model thus far is Icelandair’s offers from the eastern US and Canada to Iceland. From there, passengers can fly Icelandair to other places in Europe. it’s not low cost, but it beats the prices of most airlines from, say, NYC to London or Amsterdam. Plus you can do a stopover in Iceland for a few days at no extra cost.
@MarkedMan:
One of the first ways I knew intelligence was compartmentalized was, 20 years ago I dated a woman whose dad had the record in his country for the fastest ever math phd. 6 months after his BA he had a math phd. He would take a class a week. Screw around for five days, read the textbook on day 6, take the final exam on day 7, get a 98 or something. Textbooks with titles like ‘Real Analysis of Harmonic Functions’. Where if you know what you’re talking about, the first two words are scary. He recommended a book on Function Theory. I said it’s in German, I don’t know German, he said, “I read it because it’s important for math, you can figure out the German.” He had a whiteboard in the living room. I mentioned that I was having trouble with Relativity and he walked to the board and wrote all four equations from memory and said ‘what’s wrong about them? They’re all time-invariant translations of Newton.?’ and yet I watched this same guy chew out a waitress who hadn’t delivered his food yet, like the world’s biggest dumbass.
@Kathy:
I’m with CSK on this one. Why assume that?
Occam’s Razor and all…
@OzarkHillbilly: As I recall, the contractor who converted the garage of my childhood home into a family room solved the problem by plumbing toilet for the half bath into the utility room first thing. Problem solved.
And on the Trump Pandemic front, I had a hell of a time today looking up the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
It’s on phase 3 trials, and earlier in the day it released preliminary results for the combined phase 1/2 trials, claiming good immunity response. The reason this is important, it that it’s the first of the major big pharma vaccines to require only one dose.
The thing is I could find the recent news just fine, but couldn’t find it on vaccine trackers or other sites. I wanted to see at least which vaccine type it was (there are several by now).
It turns out in such sites it’s listed as the Janssen vaccine, Janssen being a wholly owned subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson (which is far better known for baby shampoo anyway).
Anyway, it’s an inactive virus vector vaccine, like the AstraZeneca/Oxford shot. I won’t mention the figures of efficacy I’ve read, not from a phase1/2, but it does seem to require between 28 and 56 days to reach full efficacy. In other words, about as long as the two-dose vaccines.
There’s still a big advantage in requiring only one dose, though. And as an inactive viral vector, it should require mere refrigerator temperatures to keep effective. I hope the phase 3 trials show high effectiveness.
SARS-CoV-2 has spread so widely it will likely be an endemic disease for decades to come, like the flu or the common cold, only deadlier. It’s likely we’ll need annual shots, just like the flu, so it’s a good thing so many vaccines thus far have been quick to develop and seem very effective.
Now, as to the next pandemic, we can only guess what it will be. I hope the mRNA and inactive virus vectors are proven safe and reliable. perhaps for the next pandemic we could crank out a vaccine in a couple of months, perhaps even weeks and forego phases as we do with flu shots every year.
@CSK: “Malice toward none and charity for all” turned out to be a mistake, all right.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
It seems that way, doesn’t it?
@Teve: Wow, that’s THE WORST hairpiece I’ve ever seen. Yikes!
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
To imply they often back up their toilets.
There’s little that’s more unappealing than imagining something coming out of a person that would break a toilet.
@Kathy: Doug is on a local news interview right now. Better late than never, there is a big push to stick needles in arms (I have an appointment to take my aged mother to the stadium that the Cardinals won’t play at any more this season), with the plan to use doses faster than the state can be supplied.
And he did tweet “STFU” to our stellar state GOP leader, Krazy Kelli Ward.
@CSK: Yeah, but we probably shouldn’t look to me for moral analysis in the political policy arena because 1) I don’t believe that conventional moral postures apply to governments (they are more “state of nature” in my mind) and 2) I lean sociopathic in my responses to problem solving.
It’s all part of why I don’t run for office and have never sought to be a “leadership type.” I went to a leadership conference while I was in middle school. The principles seemed unworkable to me even then.
@Owen:
For a minute I thought you were talking about our much missed Doug.
@Flat Earth Luddite: While in my early teens, I remember reading an article on the tense situation in Poland with Solidarity raging, and loud harrumphs from the Kremlin causing Jaruzelski (the guy who looked like Elmer Fudd) great stress. As part of the report a young Lieutenant was interviewed, who apparently stated with great conviction: “I have six rounds in my revolver. If the Russians invade I will take five of them with me.” I never understood death cultists.
@Flat Earth Luddite: Shiiiiiiiit, there ain’t nothin’ I can’t fix given a big enough hammer. 😉
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Man’s got to know his priorities….
@Kathy: Hey. I resemble that remark.
@Michael Cain:..open carry…
I heard a report on NPR recently that open carry has been prohibited in the Michigan State Capitol building but concealed carry is still allowed.
Apparently the Trump Org. put the lease on the Trump. Int’l. Hotel in D.C. up for sale for 500 million dollars. The best bid they’ve gotten so far is for less than half that. The broker has quit on them.
Guess the Trump brand has lost whatever magic it ever had.
@CSK:
It is known. 😉
@Kathy: Back in the dear, dead 70s, I flew Loftleidir from Luxembourg (their hub of sorts on the European mainland) to New York City via Iceland. It was no different from what was then a “normal” flight within the U.S. The only problem was that JFK was their only American destination. I think Norwegian tried to serve too many destinations on this side of the pond.