Monday’s Forum
Another manic Monday.
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, June 22, 2020
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88 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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I am shocked, shocked I tell you: ‘State-sanctioned violence’: US police fail to meet basic human rights standards
When the Chicago PD is the gold standard of policing, we are all in trouble.
And now I am going back to bed in hopes of sleep.
Well, that didn’t work. Gonna be a long day.
I’ve tried several times to come up with a lead-in for this, but it’s just too horrible.
Noose Left In Black Driver’s Garage Stall At NASCAR Race Track
@Jen:
It happened in Alabama, that is all you need to know.
Trump’s data-hungry, invasive app is a voter surveillance tool of extraordinary power
Both presidential campaigns use apps to capture data—but Trump’s scoops up your identity, your location, and even your phone’s Bluetooth functions.
It’s beyond me as to why anyone would download some politician’s ap, but…
Hitting trump where it hurts:
Their new ad.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yeah, Tiny.
A new Biden ad.
Joe needs to get out everyday and do something athletic to show the contrast between a spry 77 and a lardarsed 74
@OzarkHillbilly: I certainly enjoy the Lincoln Project ads, but am realistic in my expectations. They are targeted to people like me, whose minds were made up in 2015, and so will have no effect on the election. And it’s no surprise that this is the output of a group of disaffected Republicans. The ads are angry, contemptuous and are not for anything, only against. They may be disaffected, but they willingly spent their whole lives as part of the Republican machine and so ultimately reflect who they are.
@MarkedMan:
You have a point, but they are also targeting the nominal rethug suburban voter and to an extent, the hate both candidates voter from 2016. It is a double win if those voters pull Biden’s lever this time, but it is also a victory if they simply stay home. Negative political ads work, unfortunately for those who wished elections were conducted on a higher plane, they work too well.
Independent political organizations will always focus on tearing down the other candidate, it is up to the candidate and his/her party to give the voters the reasons for voting for a candidate.
Good morning Steven, can you let me out of moderation?
@Sleeping Dog:
Actually, I think the more important aspect is that it happened in the locked-down garage area that should only be accessible to NASCAR folks. It ions’t an Alabama issue, it is an internal to NASCAR issue. Someone who had access either did it or let in people to do it.
General Grant monument removed by San Francisco nuts. Grant did as much, if not more for the freed slaves then Lincoln did.
Now the nuts are wanting to remove the Teddy Roosevelt statue in New York. Are you kidding me? Roosevelt helped start our national parks. He was mayor of NYC, and governor, as well as a great president. The statue is in front of a museum that Franklin Roosevelt started. He was the hero of the Rough Riders. He wrote more books than any other president.
I knew this craziness would have no end once it started. But people said no, no one would dare to want monuments to Washington, Jefferson, Grant, Roosevelt.
It’s here and it won’t stop until our leaders stop it and call it the stupidity it is.
Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Big Bill need to stop this now.
@SKI: In defense of NASCAR — not a phrase I use a lot — a few years back when I was researching a pilot set against the racing scene I was invited to a race in Fontana, and I was given access to the garage areas. Granted, there was someone with me, but it wouldn’t have been hard to slip away for a few seconds.
This isn’t to brag about my wonderful life, but to say that if even I could have gotten such access, I think the sphere of possible suspects must be pretty broad…
@MarkedMan:
Don’t forget that the Lincoln Project ads have the very great virtue of making Trump insane. (More than he already is.) That’s worth quite a bit, certainly.
@MarkedMan:
Yeah, and if we’ve learned anything the last few years it’s that “angry, contemptuous, and not for anything, only against” doesn’t get you anywhere…
…except the Oval Office.
@Tyrell:
I’ll bite on this on. What message is being sent, symbolically, by TR on a horse with a native American on one side and an African man on the other, standing below Roosevelt? Image here.
@Tyrell: Ahoy Tyrell! Thought I’d mention that TR also was the first President to host a black American leader (Booker Washington) at a White House luncheon and was horribly condemned for it.
But statues are not actual people nor actual history. When you look at that statue you’ll see what the protests are hoping to erase. Not the real person. (edited after seeing Dr Taylor’s comment above)
@Steven L. Taylor:
Look you understand that Tyrell still is salty that Disney no longer allows “Song of the South” to be in circulation. I’m sure he’s convinced that having those two natives there is a reminder of all the important work White folks did civilizing those savages.
Tyrell’s back is constantly bowed by the burden that good White Christians like him continues to shoulder. But that’s why he’ll still vote for Trump come this November.
(For extra points, anyone want to take the over under on if we go into the archives, Tyrell’s views on taking down Confederate Monuments or the Battle Flag?
And for extra points, the chances that he punctuated one of those comments with the good ol’ down home folksy touch of lyrics from “Sweet Home Alabama?”)
@JohnMcC: Indeed–the issue is not TR, but the clear colonialist imagery in that statue.
(I do begin to wonder about the general wisdom of statues…).
@Tyrell:
The problem of loudly expressing an opinion without taking a minute or 2 to educate yourself in a nutshell.
Image of the statue in question. It was clearly designed to convey white superiority over Native Americans and Blacks.
The museum that is removing it, was indeed founded in part by TR’s family and they honor the family and TR repeatedly – and that isn’t changing.
Bit of advice, Tyrell, when you presume bad faith on the part of others, you frequently end up looking like a fool. If you had tried presuming that the museum leadership aren’t fools and actually read the article that was linked initially to the twitter outrage machine, you would have realized that this is actually a reasonable approach. One that you may or may not disagree with but one that isn’t crazy or outrageous or “stupid”.
Chris Wallace pressing Mercedes Schlapp on Fox News this weekend about her ridiculous claim that protesters kept hundreds of thousands of Trump supporters away from Tulsa underscored the following points:
(1) Many of Trump’s most ardent supporters, particularly those closest to him, really are afraid of peaceful expressions of freedom of speech. I don’t think that people really stayed away because of protester-phobia, but they do see it as a legitimate excuse.
(2) “Mercedes Schlapp” is the perfect name for a character in a political farce. If you have a whitey-white, ultra-right, hypocritical, and not terribly smart character in the cast, you couldn’t come up with a better name than “Mercedes Schlapp.”
@Tyrell:
Tyrell, I’m going to take your comments at face value, because I’ve been thinking about these things myself.
Grant’s monument coming down is, in my eyes, a case of every cause beginning in justice and ending in Farce. But have you ever seen that Teddy Roosevelt statue? It is truly offensive and was obviously made by a white supremacist subverting a commission for a statue to honor Roosevelt for his own racist ends. The statue makes no sense and has nothing to do with Roosevelts life.
@CSK:
This would be wonderful. but do you know if it’s true? I can’t imagine anyone in his circle is pointing them out to him, or that they are being talking about on the twitter feeds he follows…
@Kingdaddy: Your first point was legitimate. But your second point got my thumbs up. “Mercedes Schlapp”. If she was a character in a political movie I would have called it lazy writing…
@MarkedMan:
There was evidence he saw the one about him trying to drink a glass of water two-handed and doddering down the ramp at West Point, and it drove him nuts. (Hence that idiotic performance in Tulsa, where he showed an adoring crowd that he can…walk and hold a glass. Wow, what an achievement.) And last May he spent about a week attacking project members on Twitter.
He knows. And it’s driving him mad.
@Teve:
McEnema. I love it.
@CSK: some GOP congresslady on Twitter got starbursts when he threw the glass. It was embarrassing.
@SKI:
During the few weeks leading up to a major race, the garage area and track in general is usually crawling with contractors and maintenance staff. Often the garages are left unlocked for their convenience. It would be pretty easy for someone not affiliated with NASCAR to have left the noose. That is not to say, that it couldn’t be someone affiliated with a competing team or the series itself.
Security tightens up when the teams arrive .
@Teve:
Oh, ffs. Tell me you’re joking. No, don’t bother; I know you’re not. Who was it who got the starbursts?
@CSK: I don’t remember her name and Google isn’t helping me, if I find it I’ll let you know.
@Sleeping Dog: because of Covid they had some real restrictions on who could be there, and they are going to be watching all the video to see if they can figure out who it was and permanently cancel his ass.
@Tyrell: TR totally betrayed 167 members of the Buffalo Soldier 25th Infantry Regiment in 1906 when, in Brownsville, Texas members were falsely accused of murdering two white men although the white officers swore all soldiers were in barracks the night of the murders. He allowed them all the be dishonorably discharged and all lost their pensions though he knew the evidence was a hoax. They were not exonerated until 1970.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownsville_affair
@MarkedMan: I know the ad on him doing the West Point Shuffle drove him over the edge. How long did he spend talking about it at the rally? Reen-fn-acting it?
@Sleeping Dog: And they zoomed in on his hands when they said that line.
@Sleeping Dog: Brutal.
@OzarkHillbilly: Not sure that was the ad. I never saw the ad but had seen the clip on every late night talk show, and a half dozen other news sources.
Not trying to argue but just wondering who would have the balls to show him that ad.
The Shake Shack “poisoning” case in NY was a lie from beginning to end. The cops ordered their shakes online, and they were ready when they arrived, so the workers had no idea cops had placed the order. What the cops smelled was the cleaning solution in the shake machines that hadn’t been thoroughly rinsed out.
Okay, so FL politicians of both stripes (R/D) are being slightly more forceful about telling people to wear masks, social distance, and they might put a bit more teeth into enforcing the rules put into place allowing restaurants and other business to open because you guessed it…Covid cases are seeing a spike in FL. What is interesting is that politicians do not just attribute the spike to more tests leading to an increase in the numbers. All of this is from a Politico article up today.
I know that folks have talked about a second wave in the Fall but it has also been noted that we are still in the first wave as the constant and noticeable increase in cases on a daily basis is still happening. This is…not good, and my being more of a introvert/homebody/hermit guy pre-Covid is serving me well.
I am already used to not going out much and yikes, given the news I have no plans to do anything but slightly modify my SIP practices because Covid is still very much a thing across the U.S..
@MarkedMan:
Well, Trump has seen the ads, because, as I said, he rage-Tweeted against the Lincoln Project members about them last month.
In early May, the Lincoln Project “Mourning in America” ad calling Trump a weak and failed president was shown on the Tucker Carlson show–while Trump was watching it. He must have choked on his Happy Meal.
@inhumans99: In Washington state, we peaked in mid-April, and the rate of new cases had been declining ever since…
…until June 1st, when we entered Phase 2 and a partial lifting of the “stay home, stay safe order.” Since then, the rate of new cases has been climbing again.
@CSK:
I missed that the first.
Thinking about Trump seeing those adds makes me very happy.
@Monala:
@Monala:
Yup, that made me spit up my coffee. Fortunately not on the computer.
The link to the Biden ad is worth a follow. Joe addressed West Point in 2016 and all but sprinted up the same ramp that Tiny worried about falling. The ad compares and contrasts both elderly gents.
@MarkedMan:
The Lincoln Project has been buying airtime on Fox and Friends as well as the evening opinion shows, to ensure Tiny sees these spots.
@Sleeping Dog: Just passingly curious. Do the contractors and set up crews know which areas are assigned to which drivers? I ask because I used to set up for conventions and tradeshows and although someone knew who was in which booth, people actually doing the set up generally didn’t until after the clients started arriving with their gear. Our work was limited to “Space A gets X,Y,Z.”
@Monala: Looks to me like “lieutenant from the Bronx” needs someone higher in the food chain to remind him that when bad things happen, it’s bad form to escalate the event by exaggerating what happened.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Some teams comeback to the same garages year after year or until a better location comes about. A contractor could be setting up team specific signage, sponsors etc, drive names, car numbers, stuff like that. The parking area behind the garages where the team member’s motor homes are usually has assigned spaces. So it wouldn’t be hard for someone to figure out where Wallace’s location would be.
@MarkedMan:
Just visualize it: Trump’s tucked into bed, looking forward to devouring a bag of McDonald’s best while watching Tucker Carlson give him (Trump) a virtual b.j., and…the t.v. screen fills with an image of a weary, fat, strangely orange-tinted old man returning from making a laughingstock of himself in Tulsa.
@CSK:
John Keats, “Endymion”
@MarkedMan:
😀
So…Trump will be holding a “Students for Trump” rally in Phoenix tomorrow. This despite the fact that Covid-19 cases are soaring in Phoenix. Swell.
And, correct me if I’m wrong, but AFAIK no schools or colleges are holding live, on-campus classes, so exactly how many students does he expect to show up for this wingding?
I fervently hope this turns out to be a worse disaster for Trump than Tulsa was.
ETA: This is being held at Dream City, a megachurch. No, the name is not a joke. All attendees must wear masks.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: The reality is, nothing bad happened in the original event. The cops smelled a little bleach from cleaning solution residue in their shakes (which were ordered and prepared without the workers having any idea they were cops), dumped them, and received an apology and compensation from Shake Shack. Their higher-ups decided to turn it into something, making Shake Shack a crime scene, sending the unaffected cops to the hospital, and claiming they were deliberately poisoned, all to support a narrative that police lives are at risk from an angry public.
In another incident that followed this one, a cop in the South posted herself crying on social media because she had to wait for her Egg McMuffin at McDonald’s. Even though having to wait for your order is something that happens on a regular basis for anyone who eats at Micky Dee’s, she claimed they were trying to poison her. As many pointed out, someone who gets that freaked out shouldn’t be carrying a gun.
Link
@Steven L. Taylor: I believe you will see a statue commemorating Teddy Roosevelt’s uniting the country, from white men to the ancestors of slaves to our native populations, and leading them forward into the egalitarian 20th venture where all were united and equal.
Oh, that didn’t happen?
Yeah, get rid of that statue. Replace it with a less transparently racist statue of the man.
@MarkedMan: There’s this thing called “twitter”. Maybe you’ve heard of it? I know trump has. The Lincoln Project is biiiig on it. Very popular. They put out an add and it spreads across twitter like wildfire. The only way trump could avoid it is to stay off twitter.
Really, you are being obtuse. 1+1=2.
ETA and I see others already got there. Didn’t mean to pile on.
@CSK: And the pastor at that church has a profound belief in the technology someone sold him and that “99% of COVID will be gone in 10 minutes!” If he’s talking about what I think he’s talking about, it’s probably good technology and good that they installed it. Heck, my company is installing additional filtering in certain areas. But the idea that adding filtering and UV lights to your HVAC unit renders a crowded church safe is delusional.
I propose an experiment for Pastor Genius. Before bringing everyone into church serve them a big dish of red beans and rice – no Beano allowed. Wait for an hour or so and then crowd them into that technological church. If someone farts, well, designate them the COVID carrier. Anyone who smells the farts would be potentially infected.
Low cost scientific experiments at your disposal.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Steven, I’d put a couple of bucks on the over/under, but seems like too much like fish in a barrel… but in the meantime, we could just replace all the statues with, oh, maybe, cylinders/cubes/cue balls? Maybe giant 8-balls? I’d contribut to that one.
@MarkedMan:
I’ve seen hospital rooms sterilized with one of these UV devices, but they have to be unoccupied when the device is operating, and of course, the minute the device is turned off and someone enters the room, it’s no longer sterile. This is not going to work in a huge, occupied hall.
@SKI: Given that James Earle Fraser is more known for his “End of the Trail” which sympathetically portrays the effects of Western colonisation on Amerindians, it’s probably more likely that the Teddy Roosevelt statue was done on demand: “we want a nice big statue of Teddy Roosevelt up there on a horse, and oh, put an Indian on one side…we need something to balance on the other, make it symmetrical, so why don’t we put a Negro on the other? That’ll look nice….” What I’m scratching my head about is why whoever came up with this idea thought they needed secondary figures at all. Was it to keep the statue from tipping over in the wind?
P.S. It looks like a good statue of Teddy Roosevelt, so it would be nice if it could be salvaged. I’d move it to an interior quad if people get that upset about it.
Straight Outta’ Callaway County Missouri
I remember hearing news reports of the construction of the Berlin Wall on the radio in 1961.
I have visited Fulton and seen these remnants several times.
I can not help but think of the East Germans who died attempting to flee the Communist state.
And for what?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_at_the_Berlin_Wall
@Mister Bluster:
Good God, what a trashy-looking duo. Would you vote for that guy as your lieutenant governor? Or her as your congressional rep? They look as if they have fleas.
@CSK:..Or her as your congressional rep?
Don’t get over to Missouri as much as I used to when I was working there and when my parents were alive and living in Columbia.
Maybe @OzarkHillbilly: can help you with some background on these two.
@CSK: If that UV thing is what I think it is, they put it in the main intake or outtake of the HVAC vents. I’m not sure that it would do anything, as the dwell time seems pretty short. But the HEPA filtering will most likely take out the virus, as long as they use real filters and not knockoff’s.
Since starting to work with filters I’ve learned that they are magic. One of the few things that actually do their job better the older they get, provided they don’t develop a leak. But eventually it just gets too hard to push air through it.
@Mister Bluster:
@CSK:
While I’m enjoying the schadenfreude of a couple of wannabe rethug politicians busted for dope, what they did should be legal.
Steven, James, can one of you release me from moderation again? Thank you.
I used to dismiss The Bangles, but their cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Hazy Shade of Winter” was awesome.
@CSK: If it helps any, her name actually IS pronounced Mac-a-ninny. My mom’s Irish, so I would know. 😉
@DrDaveT:..cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Hazy Shade of Winter” was awesome.
Time Time Time See What’s become of Me!
@Sleeping Dog: Thanks. That’s a little different from what I was doing, all right.
@Monala: Exactly why I go to AM/PM for a breakfast sandwich (sausage, egg, cheese on a muffin)–same stuff, just as hot, no waiting.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
The Gaels may well have the world’s least easily pronounced names.
@CSK: They certainly are interesting. I don’t think it’s that hard to get on the ballot in Missouri, and the state primary, IIRC, is in August. So, candidates, yes but not THE candidates, if that makes any sense.
@Mister Bluster:
That one’s good. My favorite is Something to Believe In.
@MarkedMan: Coincidentally, the Skullduggery podcast episode that aired this afternoon had an interview with a Lincoln Project member. He said that one goal of their ads is to get into Trump’s head, because all the time he spends attacking them is time he’s not attacking Biden. Trump got upset that he was seeing Lincoln Project ads on TV and not his own, so his campaign spent a few hundred thousand dollars to air ads in DC, which he will never realistically win in a million years. So their intention is to waste Trump’s time, attention, and money, in addition to giving topcover and reasons for unhappy one-time-Trump-voters to change direction this time (but still maintain their Republican identity). Interesting interview and I wish them luck.
@SKI:
If you look at the rather portly Teddy Roosevelt on that horse, and than look at the bare chested man to his left (I believe that is the port side of the horse), it is hard to think that statue really conveys white superiority. I mean, yowser.
Just in case anyone thought otherwise.
Secret Service tells press to leave White House grounds in highly unusual move
Arrests, injuries after DC police clear camps around Black Lives Matter Plaza
@wr:
We did an episode in 2010 in which we partnered with Nascar, at Homestead in FL. We had Brian Vickers, Joey Logano, Carl Edwards, and Tony Stewart join us along with a ton of Nascar teams, with their trailers and entire setups. Someone saw what happened. Someone knows who did it. It’s impossible to go into the Richard Petty garage area, during a race delay, and do something like that without being seen. Question is what will they do if it’s one of their name drivers. I’ve met a few of those good old boys, and it’s still 1964 to some of them.
@Gustopher: No, Teddy Roosevelt’s girth compared to the fitness of the other two men reinforces the white supremacy. Even being overweight, he still dominates the other two. Although not an exact example (given that TR had legitimate life accomplishments), it’s on the spectrum of LBJ’s saying about convincing the lowest white man that he’s better than the best [black] man, or Ta-Nehisi Coates’ observation that in response to a black president who represented the best of African-Americans, white people responded by electing the worst of white Americans.
@OzarkHillbilly: Actually, I guess I don’t know how Twitter works. Haven’t used it since the first few months it came out. I thought you had to follow someone to get their tweets? Or is it like Facebook where they show you posts they think you might be interested in?
@MarkedMan: The way a tweet goes viral is to get re-tweeted. So, if someone you follow retweets a post by the Lincoln project, you’ll see it.
From what we know of Trump, it’s unlikely he reads Twitter. But even he retweets stuff with some regularity, so either someone is queuing these things up for him or he has some methodology where he sees stuff.
@MarkedMan:
Wirecutter: can HEPA filters protect against the virus
@Monala:
ouch.
@Mister Bluster: “For what? ” You can’t be serious. Freedom, opportunity, and human rights in West Germany. East Germany was just a tad better than North Korea.
Watch “Bridge of Spies”.
@OzarkHillbilly: I would say most citizens would not be too happy with the idea of serial killers, bank robbers, terrorists, kidnappers, and psychos running around loose while the police have their hands tied.
Gun sales are soaring. People are not going to sit back and watch their neighborhoods get destroyed and families assaulted. And most of the gun buyers now are women.
@Tyrell:
But here is the heart of the delusion: the idea that most of what police do is protect us from that list (not to mention the idea that prisons are full of simply the worst of the worst).
And then you stop and think about George Floyd being executed on suspicion of passing a fake $20 and then go down the list of persons killed by police on the flimsiest of charges and you should start to think about how our irrational fears of serial killers and kidnappers leads us to give the police carte blanche to “protect” us.
Not to mention all the people in prison for marijuana-related charges.
Tell you what: let’s rethink the police to deal with the real public safety issues, but do so in a realistic manner.