Monday’s Forum

FILED UNDER: Open Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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

Comments

  1. de stijl says:

    Barr is a menace to our institutions.

    Why get a schmuck like Cohen to be your bagman when you can subvert the whole DoJ?

    This is Nixon × 100.

    The short-term and long-term implications of what Barr is doing to and with the DoJ is terrifying.

    If we have AGs who subvert justice to serve their Presidential master, that’s it. We’re done.

    5
  2. OzarkHillbilly says:

    “My mom called me and said, ‘Hey, I want to let you know I’m ready to go.’ And I yelled and screamed,” Tim Tarpley said.

    He then called his dad, who was on a different floor of the hospital.

    “He said, ‘How’s your mom?’ I said, ‘Well, she’s not good. She may not make it past tomorrow.’ It was like at that moment, knowing that my mom was then gonna go, it was OK for him to go,” Tim Tarpley said.

    Tim Tarpley says nurses he’d never met, especially one he only knows as Blake, made his parents’ last moments special by making sure the two were in the same room. “He [Blake] really went out of his way to get my mom moved from her room to his room, and then, he just placed their hands near each other. Next thing we know, they grabbed each other’s hand, and that’s how they went,” Tim Tarpley said.

    2
  3. MarkedMan says:

    I gave up reading Rod Dreher on a regular basis because of his hysterical obsession with The Gays and The Trans and how he might one day be forced to bake a cake for one of them. But I did occasionally stop by to see if he was having one of his better days. Lately, there have been no better days. It turns out that in addition to his near paralyzing fear of those who are sexually different, he is also deeply deeply afraid that The Blacks will get out of control and come for him and his family.

    7
  4. Scott says:

    @MarkedMan: I used to read Dreher way back in his Beliefnet days. I just can’t anymore. Mostly because I just don’t understand what he is banging on about. It is like he lives in a totally different world or paradigm and speaks another language. And it involves the end of the world as he knows it or something.

    3
  5. de stijl says:

    @MarkedMan:

    Re: Dreher

    You forgot the SJWs at Hamline or Oberlin or wherever demanding that be all treated equitably. 5000 words on the tyranny of equality.

    Seriously. Dude bailed on two previous religious faith practices in protest.

    Cannot see that for example BLM protestors are trying to change the system for the better and from within. These protestors are committed to a better system.

    Dreher’s response is to withdraw and pooh-pooh all that don’t. Screw him. He’s hopeless and hopelessly self-blind.

    Not worthy of attention anymore. Plus, he cannot help but self-promote his own books every other paragraph. It’s clinically diagnosable head up his buttitis. Likely terminal.

    4
  6. drj says:

    @Scott:

    And it involves the end of the world as he knows it or something.

    But it does! At least, I think that’s what’s going on.

    Dreher is facing a future in which his kind (white, heterosexual, Christian men) is no longer the benchmark compared to which all other groups (e.g. women, gays, ethnic minorities) fall short.

    In his view, it’s a perversion of the natural order that will necessarily lead to the ruin of society – not coincidentally because he and his kind no longer automatically get to run it.

    Dreher used to be somebody, just because of who he was. That is now being taken away from him.

    @de stijl:

    You forgot the SJWs at Hamline or Oberlin or wherever demanding that be all treated equitably. 5000 words on the tyranny of equality.

    Equality is a threat to Deher’s perceived birthright. Thus, he lashes out.

    6
  7. MarkedMan says:

    @Scott: I’m actually wondering if he will end up institutionalized. His whole life seems to be ruled by an obsessive fear that these diseased or animalistic people are coming for him and there is nowhere safe any more.

    1
  8. sam says:

    Ryan O. Ferguson
    @ryanoferguson
    ·
    Jun 27
    New England: yeah, our Dunkin burned down but don’t worry, there’s another one ONE HUNDRED YARDS AWAY.

    1
  9. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @MarkedMan: Sometimes I think he already is institutionalized and these columns are a part of his therapy.

    “So, how are you doing today, Rod?”

    2
  10. OzarkHillbilly says:

    Things have been interesting up in STL. The DEM mayor appears to have lost perspective. Than again, maybe she never had any?

    “Rachel has a question, Mayor, about your meeting today with some demonstrators outside City Hall,” Long says. “She wants to know: How was that meeting, and what did you talk about?”

    “Well thank you for that, Rachel,” Krewson responds. “So there was a demonstration here, in front — sort of on Tucker and Market here — and the demonstrators wanted to meet with me. So I went outside City Hall, in the circle on the Tucker side of City Hall. The conversation wasn’t really a two-way conversation, I’ll be honest with you, because there was a very loud, um, very loud response from the demonstrators. And so they gave me some papers about how they thought, uh — in fact I’ll go pick it up off my desk, hang on.”

    At this point, Krewson walks across her office, retrieves a stack of papers from her desk, and then returns to the camera.

    “So they presented some papers to me about how they wanted the budget to be spent,” Krewson says while putting on reading glasses. “Here’s one that wants $50 million to go to Cure Violence, $75 million to go to affordable housing, $60 million to go to Health and Human Services and have zero go to the police. So that’s [REDACTED] who lives on [REDACTED] wants no police — no money going to police.”

    From this point in the video, Krewson continues to read the demands of demonstrators — most of them seeking to defund the police and shift that money into social services — as well as several of their full names and which streets they live on.

    RFT counted at least ten instances wherein Krewson read aloud an activist’s full name and the name of the street on which they reside. At one point in time she lists a person’s full name and full street address, remarking, “He lives around the corner from me.”

    That not being enough, she doubled down, because it’s all about her, doncha know?

    The backlash has been fast and furious, spreading rapidly across social media. There were soon people standing outside Krewson’s home in the Central West End. She came out to speak with them, but in an awkward (and filmed) conversation she declined multiple requests to apologize.

    “I don’t really think it was a mistake, but it was not intended to be hurtful to anyone,” she told the group.

    Krewson pointed out that the letters are public record, but people at the house argued that broadcasting the names and addresses of people critical of police, she put those people at risk of being targeted at their homes.

    “Just kind of like how you guys are here,” Krewson responded.

    At least until somebody on her staff pointed out what a complete asshat she is being, and now, she is ever so very very sorry:

    After not apologizing during the in-person conversation, the mayor apparently had a change of heart later in the night. She issued the following statement to the Riverfront Times at 9:17 p.m.:

    In an effort to be transparent and accessible to the public during the Covid-19 pandemic, for more than three months now I have been doing tri-weekly community updates on Facebook. Tonight, I would like to apologize for identifying individuals who presented letters to me at City Hall as I was answering a routine question during one of my updates earlier today. While this is public information, I did not intend to cause distress or harm to anyone. The post has been removed.

    And then this happened:

    As hundreds of protesters marched toward Mayor Lyda Krewson’s house this evening they were met by a surprising sight — a gun-swinging couple on the lawn of their Central West End mansion.

    The couple, personal injury attorneys Mark and Patricia McCloskey, shouted at marchers who seemed to be just passing through the gated community.

    A video recorded by freelance photographer Theo Welling for the Riverfront Times shows Mark, dressed in a pastel pink polo shirt and khakis, brandishing a rifle with an extended clip while Patricia, wearing black-and-white-striped top with capri pants, casually holds a small handgun.

    The protesters were walking to Krewson’s house for a demonstration, part of the backlash the mayor is facing for broadcasting on Facebook Live the names and addresses of advocates for defunding the police department.

    Multiple people marching tonight filmed the scene in front of the McCloskeys, and various angles show the couple sweeping their weapons in the direction of protesters who were standing on the sidewalk or walking past.

    Interesting times.

    2
  11. Tyrell says:

    This is interesting:
    “Lightning strikes kill nearly 120 in India” (Washington Post)
    Thor’s mighty hammer pounds the earth!
    Are you kidding? That is several times the number killed in the US in an average year. The lightning was described as “thunderbolts”! Some were hundreds of miles long and literally melted the earth!
    Was this due to a magnetic field tremor that went around the earth? (Space Weather)

    2
  12. sam says:

    Yeah, I was just going to post about your last, OH. Think about this, though. Trump has made those folks famous (or infamous) by posting the video of the encounter on his twitter feed. (Better get over there before he deletes it.) He has not done them any favors. They will probably come to wish he had never done that.

  13. de stijl says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    What the STL mayor did was thisclose to incitement.

    I saw that story earlier and was spooked.

    She should resign now. That was not acceptable.

    2
  14. Teve says:

    Dreher was making an excuse for trump’s white power video, but unfortunately I wasn’t allowed to post because apparently I’ve been banned by the American Conservative. Good job previous me. 😀

    5
  15. de stijl says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Dreher certainly has the obsessiveness nailed.

    1
  16. de stijl says:

    @Teve:

    I got banned there because I said that he should think about censoring or explicitly condemning outright white power comments and their authors.

    He banned me. I was quite polite.

  17. de stijl says:

    @Teve:

    Think of it as a badge of honor.

    4
  18. OzarkHillbilly says:

    Jason Rogers@Rogers4Texas
    My brother asked someone who wasn’t wearing a mask to maintain 6 ft. behind him in a checkout line.

    The guy reached out and grabbed my brother’s mask, so my brother knocked him out.

    If you live in Oak Cliff and see a guy who resembles me, maintain 6 ft.
    Face with tears of joy

    3
  19. drj says:

    @Teve:

    Dreher was making an excuse for trump’s white power video

    Now, now. This is a bit unfair.

    Of course, Dreher did say that he believes that Trump is “so lazy and inattentive that he didn’t watch the whole video,” but he also bravely pointed out who the real culprit is:

    How can we be surprised by any of this, though? The American left, abetted by the media, is racializing everything, in extremely toxic ways.

    If only we could go back to “the liberal, MLK-era model of race relations,” Dreher laments.

    (OK, I’ll admit: I like reading Dreher sometimes. I find nominally smart people who think dumb things oddly fascinating, as well as instructive.)

    1
  20. Teve says:

    @drj: The guy saying white power starts at about six seconds into the video, so Dreher is just making stupid excuses.

    5
  21. de stijl says:

    @Teve:

    You over-write about the implications of the video you have, not the video you wished you had.

    Btw, here are 4500 words on my grievances. I will plug my new book, like a lot.

    3
  22. Moosebreath says:

    A couple of months ago, Dreher had a post on the segregated schools and how afraid his parents’ generation was of blacks getting political power. Someone asked what they were afraid of, and he responded they were afraid that blacks would treat whites the same way whites had treated blacks.

    I did not see anyone make the two obvious responses to this (although Dreher does tend to not approve comments if they are too awkward for him, and otherwise is very snarky with those who disagree with him):

    1. If conservative Christians are afraid of having others do unto them as they have done unto others, perhaps it is time to reflect on how far they have strayed from the tenets of Christianity.

    2. In what way is the treatment of gays distinguished from the treatment of blacks under segregation, where literally every fear Dreher expresses is something which conservative Christians have done to gays within his lifetime? If, as Dreher concedes, segregation was wrongful, what lessons should have been learned from it with respect to relations with other groups?

    8
  23. drj says:

    @Teve:

    I was just a weenie bit sarcastic.

  24. gVOR08 says:

    @MarkedMan: Dreher is like a few years ago when libertarians were going to go Galt because Obama or something. If the only thing for him to do is to withdraw from the world into his Benedict Option, would he please just go.

    2
  25. Michael Cain says:

    The protesters in St. Louis are braver than I am. Too much time with Google Maps this morning says that they couldn’t have gotten to where they encountered the couple with guns without either scaling a substantial fence or walking right past a clear permanent “Private property, no trespassing” plaque. Those particular streets and sidewalks are not public. The rich people coming out with their own guns would be a surprise, but surely the chain of thought, “Private property, private security, this state’s castle doctrine laws allow owners to initiate attacks on intruders” had to go through their heads.

    But I’m not young any more.

    1
  26. de stijl says:

    Dreher remains intriguing because he is clearly not an idiot.

    Yet he clearly views our queer neighbors as queer rather than as his neighbors. Screw that nonsense.

    And he is on a lifelong quest to justify that.

    He is quite bright and very dim.

    A man obsessed with defining what is without the circle. Not a clinician but dude presents as pretty paranoid.

    1
  27. de stijl says:

    @Moosebreath:

    The likely responses were likely purposefully not approved.

    He likes a curated commentariat.

  28. Daryl and his brother Darryl says:

    So we knew about COVID but the President never saw it.
    And we knew about these bounties, but the President never saw it.
    Maybe we should hire a President that can actually read?
    Obama apparently read his PDB every night in the White House residence.
    I’ll bet you Trump has never read one. It’s been reported ad nauseam that they have to brief Trump like he’s a four year old. What else has been missed?

    1
  29. CSK says:

    Trump says the bounty story is another Russia hoax fabricated by the NYTimes.

  30. Jim Brown 32 says:

    @MarkedMan: I think term is properly written as “Teh Blacks”…

    1
  31. MarkedMan says:

    @sam: There were a fair number of people in all venues who were making excuses for why Trump posted the “White Power” video, including the (to me) ridiculous defense that “of course” he must have just retweeted it without looking at it. That was actually the second line of defense after the first one, “He didn’t watch to the point where the guy started chanting ‘white power!'” which failed because that happens in the first ten seconds of the video.

    I’m curious as to what excuses there will be for him retweeting the armed white couple waving their guns around at peaceful protesters.

    2
  32. CSK says:

    @MarkedMan:
    I think Trump always has time to watch a video in which people laud him.

    5
  33. de stijl says:

    @Jim Brown 32:

    Per Trump, The Blacks love Trump.

    Who are you to contradict?

    That man has the worst racial compass of any American alive. A tiny insecure man so desperate to be loved he pits neighbor vs neighbor. Fuck him.

  34. MarkedMan says:

    @MarkedMan: So it looks like the Trump line is that 1) he didn’t hear that comment (despite it being almost the first thing in the vide, repeated several times and very clear), and 2) He supports the people “his people” who are unfairly demonized.

    It is so unfair how people judge others who shout “White Power!” unfairly.

    “The president did not hear that phrase in that portion of the video, and when it was signaled to him that this was in there he took that tweet down,” McEnany told “Fox & Friends.”

    “But he made very clear to me that he stands with the people of The Villages, our great seniors, men and women in the Villages who support this president,” she continued. “He stands for them and his point in tweeting out that video was to stand with his supporters who are oftentimes demonized.”

  35. Gustopher says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    A video recorded by freelance photographer Theo Welling for the Riverfront Times shows Mark, dressed in a pastel pink polo shirt and khakis, brandishing a rifle with an extended clip while Patricia, wearing black-and-white-striped top with capri pants, casually holds a small handgun.

    https://twitter.com/popehat/status/1277420924581494784?s=21

    Patricia is casually holding a small handgun, pointing it directly at the protestors, with her finger inside the trigger guard. (There are other photos of her that make that clear).

    Her husband appears to be pointing his ridiculous gun at her.

    These are people who should have their guns seized by the police and not returned until after they have taken gun safety classes. Or never.

    3
  36. de stijl says:

    This is absolute speculation on my part.

    Someone close to Trump sold him on retweeting that vid. Someone who knew that Trump is just too fucking lazy to watch a two minute video. Someone who knew how to pluck his racist grandpa strings.

    Someone whose name rhymes with Stephen Miller.

    3
  37. Gustopher says:

    I’m kind of enjoying that all the people who go crazy on camera because they are being asked to wear a mask in a grocery store are being identified on Twitter and harassed in real life. Perhaps they wouldn’t be so easy to identify if they wore masks…

    I’m sure it will all go horribly wrong at some point, but it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

    2
  38. Gustopher says:

    @de stijl: why would Stephen Miller be in the President’s bathroom?

    4
  39. de stijl says:

    @Gustopher:

    There is no butthurt more than white privilege butthurt.

    I get to brandish a weapon at you without consequence.

    Tomorrow dude and wife get fired and issue an “I am so sorry” facebook apology.

    It’s a meme for a reason.

  40. de stijl says:

    @Gustopher:

    For the lulz.

  41. JohnMcC says:

    Those who take an interest in Rod Dreher’s mental health should rush over to TAC right away. The SC just overturned Louisiana’s anti-abortion-access law. That number does not include me.

  42. Jay L Gischer says:

    @Tyrell: I looked at that piece, and yeah, that really is attention getting: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/lightning-strikes-kill-more-than-100-in-india/2020/06/26/4c010886-b71c-11ea-9a1d-d3db1cbe07ce_story.html

    I think though, that what’s going on is climate change – there’s more energy in the atmosphere because its warmer – plus a really, really poor neighborhood with not much protection. Also, there’s a lot of people in India, and most of them live in places where there are thunderstorms at this time of year.

    The US gets about 50 lightning deaths per year, while India before now has been averaging 1000 deaths/year. That’s a big difference just as a baseline.

  43. CSK says:

    @JohnMcC:
    The TAC website appears to be down as of right this minute.

  44. CSK says:

    @de stijl:
    Nah. If someone presented that video to him by telling him it was of a golf cart parade of his devotees, he’d watch it. Believe me.

  45. de stijl says:

    @CSK:

    Mark my words. Trump is extraordinarily lazy.

    His minions are abusing his extremely limited attention span. Lil Seb Gorka juniors are pulling a fast one on the boss to signal to their bros.

    Rhymes with Stephen Miller.

  46. MarkedMan says:

    @de stijl: Why speculate on complex reasons why he didn’t know what he tweeted? Sincerely asking, as it seems obvious to me that it was a panicked Trump desperately fluffing his base.

  47. CSK says:

    @de stijl:
    Regarding Trump’s laziness, I don’t disagree at all. But even he will watch a 2 minute video lauding him. After all, it’s about him. That’s why he has the energy to do those rallies. It’s all about him. He’s the center of attention.

  48. Teve says:

    @CSK: not now. Dreher’s saying progressives are going to cause a race war.

  49. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    In the wee hours of this early am, grumpy realist opined:

    Except that we’re not the customers of Facebook, no matter how sweetly they may try to sing that tune. We’re the meat being served up to the actual customers, who are the ad purchasers.

    I’m not even sure that I’m the customer in a transaction at Amazon anymore. They may be making more selling whatever information they have about me than they make selling me stuff. (In my case, that’s almost a sure thing considering how little I purchase. 😛 )

    1
  50. reid says:

    @de stijl: Sounds like high intelligence, low wisdom. (Yeah, I played in grade school.)

    1
  51. de stijl says:

    @MarkedMan:

    Is there any reason to account for how Trump would even know about that video unless someone brought it to his attention?

    There is no way Trump plucks that video out of the multitudes out there. No way Trump found it on his own.

    He has minions print put e-mails and hand writes out his response on paper and hands it back to a minion, ffs.

    He is literally too ignorant to have found *that* white power video on his own except for intervention.

    Someone fed him that to retweet. Someone with an agenda.

    Can I 100% guarantee? No.

    Is is true? Yes.

    1
  52. CSK says:

    @Teve:
    I saw. I thought he was going to become unhinged about the SC decision on abortion.

  53. CSK says:

    Kayleigh McEnany told Fox this morning that Trump didn’t hear the person on the clip yell “White power.”

    That’s their story and they’re sticking to it.

    She added that Trump retweeted the clip because he wanted to show support for his followers, “who are often demonized.”

    2
  54. wr says:

    @CSK: “Kayleigh McEnany told Fox this morning that Trump didn’t hear the person on the clip yell “White power.””

    No doubt he thought the guy was yelling “Russia is paying the Taliban to kill Americans.”

    2
  55. CSK says:

    @wr:
    Didn’t you hear????? Trump already said that Taliban business was another “Russia hoax” invented by the NYTimes.

    1
  56. Jen says:

    The RNC and Trump campaign moved the convention from Charlotte, NC to Jacksonville FL, because Charlotte refused to guarantee that they could carry on without masks.

    Jacksonville just passed a mandatory indoor mask ordinance.

    Someone flipped the script.

    3
  57. CSK says:

    @Jen: I just saw that, and thought: Trump is going to have a tantrum.

    Can DeSantis override–or get an exemption from–this at Trump’s request? Apparently the mayor of J’ville is a Republican.

  58. de stijl says:

    @CSK:

    Of course, it’s Jacksonville.

    What is the largest US city with a republican mayor?

    My google fu failed me.

    Why do RW folks hate masks so much? Do not get it beyond just crass tribal signalling.

    I want to protect others if I am spreading and want to protect me from others. It’s entirely practical and sound. I am not making a political statement by wearing a mask. It is prophylaxis.

    Why the bother and hoo-hah?

    Plus, I don’t have to wear my stupid annoying fake teeth to the grocery store.

  59. Monala says:

    @de stijl: another recent meme: “Hell hath no fury like a white person mildly inconvenienced.”

    7
  60. CSK says:

    @de stijl:
    I think right-wingers hate the masks because they feel wearing them is an infringement on their personal liberty. Some see it as a means of conditioning the population to accept more and more government control. And finally…not wearing a mask causes the libtards agita, and let’s face it, the point of life is…owning the libs.

  61. de stijl says:

    If you have to declaim “White Power” and advocate for it, you are seriously not very good at being a white person.

    It is incredibly easy. Keep yourself to yourself and basically no one fucks with you ever.

    No one ever asks you if you live here or to have to agree to a patdown in a store.

    I walk a lot often at night. Every now and again a cruiser draws up and shines their spot on me. I wave. Say I’m out taking a walk and they drive off.

    Life is incredibly easy.

    I would have to fuck up pretty hard for cops to pay attention and I could probably skate with a heartfelt apology.

    These “White Power” folks are apparently doing it wrong. If you are not actively a blatant criminal, it’s super easy to be white.

    4
  62. Jen says:

    Health insurance is bizarre, borderline insane. What the heck is going on here?

    Via NYT:

    The two got drive-through tests at Austin Emergency Center in Austin. The center advertises a “minimally invasive” testing experience in a state now battling one of the country’s worst coronavirus outbreaks. Texas recorded 5,799 new cases Sunday, and recently reversed some if its reopening policies.

    They both recalled how uncomfortable it was to have the long nasal swab pushed up their noses. Ms. LeBlanc’s eyes started to tear up; Mr. Harvey felt as if the swab “was in my brain.”

    Their tests came back with the same result — negative, allowing the trip to go ahead — but the accompanying bills were quite different.

    The emergency room charged Mr. Harvey $199 in cash. Ms. LeBlanc, who paid with insurance, was charged $6,408.

    “I assumed, like an idiot, it would be cheaper to use my insurance than pay cash right there,” Ms. LeBlanc said. “This is 32 times the cost of what my friend paid for the exact same thing.”

    Ms. LeBlanc’s health insurer negotiated the total bill down to $1,128. The plan said she was responsible for $928 of that.

    Emphasis added by moi.

    How would you even know about this unless you asked, and how would you know to ask? This is INSANE.

    8
  63. de stijl says:

    @Monala:
    @CSK:

    Do they not wear seatbelts? Do they not buy home insurance? Do they not buy car insurance?

    The mask thing is tribal performative bullshit. There is no reason other than being publicly contrary.

    3
  64. de stijl says:

    When I was a kid it was when seatbelts became mandatory and unleaded gas and oh my god the butthurt!

    Fucking weenie snowflakes.

    1
  65. de stijl says:

    @Jen:

    Republicans tell us we have the best health system in the world.

    Who are you going to believe? Them or your lying eyes?

    4
  66. CSK says:

    @de stijl:
    Some of them don’t wear seatbelts, for the same reason they won’t wear masks. They do carry auto insurance (mandatory except for New Hampshire and Virginia) and homeowner’s.

  67. de stijl says:

    @de stijl:

    Found it. The largest US city with a Republican mayor is San Diego.

    Second is Jacksonville. Then Fort Worth, El Paso, OKC, Fresno, Mesa, Omaha, Colorado Springs, Miami, Virginia Beach, Tulsa, and Arlington of the top 50 by pop.

  68. grumpy realist says:

    @Teve: He started banning me quite some time ago. Apparently pointing his hypocrisy out to him is a no-no and causes one to be identified as a troll.

    (I also kept pointing out how law didn’t work the way he and his supporters thought it did and that REALLY ticked them off…)

    3
  69. Sleeping Dog says:

    @Jen

    Saw this and I’m interested in your thoughts?

    https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/06/29/metro/nhs-latest-political-identity-crisis-is-it-even-swing-state-anymore/

    My thoughts are that it is all about Trump. I expect Sununu to reelected by a wide margin, Chris Pappas should retain his seat, I don’t know enough about the 2nd CD to have an opinion. The legislature will likely continue to be Dem, because of turnout in a presidential year (but 2022 is a different story). The governors council? Probably they’ll all get reelected unless there’s a vacancy the party majority won’t change. Of course fewer than 5% of the voters can tell you what the GC does.

    1
  70. de stijl says:

    @grumpy realist:

    I knew I had seen you nym there in the comments.

  71. An Interested Party says:

    Those who take an interest in Rod Dreher’s mental health should rush over to TAC right away.

    They won’t be disappointed…SCOTUS to unborn: drop dead

    Kayleigh McEnany told Fox this morning that Trump didn’t hear the person on the clip yell “White power.”

    So, basically, we have a president who is Sergeant Schultz

    1
  72. Jen says:

    @Sleeping Dog: I agree with your assessment.

    NH tends to be fiscally conservative and anti-tax, which typically plays well with Republican politics. But it’s also a “mind your own business” state, and I think people here are genuinely bothered by the hateful rhetoric that comes from Trump. He still has his supporters, clearly. But the “I don’t want my taxes to go up” contingency is getting split, and I think that Biden wins that support.

    I like Pappas, and I think Kuster’s seat is probably safe too.

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  73. CSK says:

    @An Interested Party:
    They’ve used the excuse that Trump didn’t hear the shout of “White power!” twice. It must be the best one they can come up with, which is likely given that Trump tweeted the clip and gave it his approval.

  74. CSK says:

    @Jen:
    All of New England is pretty much “mind your own business,” don’t you think, which is why busybody social conservatives really haven’t done well here since the Salem witch trials. Okay, there was the Watch and Ward Society, but that was mostly about gambling, and it became a prison reform group almost 50 years ago.

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  75. Mister Bluster says:

    (from the Cold War thread)

    @de stijl:………Not that mall octoplex bs, but the old big movie houses with names: The Regal or The Orpheum.

    Or the RKO Palace, capacity 2916, in Rochester NY where I saw the Sorcerer’s Apprentice when I was very young.
    RKO Palace

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  76. Sleeping Dog says:

    @Jen:

    Great minds…

    The race I’m looking forward to is the 2022 Senate. Maggie v. Sununu. You know it is going to happen unless Biden brings Maggie into the administration.

    The failed Free State Project of a couple of decades ago has really benefited NH and insulted the state from the social conservative Repugs. Those libertarians were good for something.

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  77. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: Nice story. With all the other crap going on, this was refreshing. Thank you. 😉

  78. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @de stijl: @Teve: Indeed! One does what one can with the tools one has available. [Thumbs up emoji here]

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  79. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Teve: Maybe not. It doesn’t take 6 seconds to see a geezer with a MAGA hat and Trump signs on his golf cart. Give them a break. 😛

    ETA: @de stijl: Again, cut the guy a break. He’s self-marketing his book. Tough job.

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  80. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @wr: Or “Soylent Green is made… of people” maybe?

  81. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Jen: Recently, I had a biopsy done. My copayment was the standard for my insurance company of $250. The insurer paid something on the order of $1200. The invoice I received from the hospital for my records had $39,000 as the charge.

    How does anybody know what ANYTHING costs in the medical field at all anymore? A few weeks back, I had a $5000 echocardiogram for which the insurer disallowed $4700, too.

    If it were me being the doctor, I might take my chances on socialized medicine. Either that, or my “rack rate” is horrifying!

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  82. Teve says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker: i was in a massive car wreck about three years ago. I was in ICU for three days. The bills they send me would buy a house. The United States has a Third World medical system.

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  83. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Teve: So, what? The insurer can give me a break because your insurer (or, more likely, you 🙁 ) are subsidizing my hospital costs? WTF?

  84. de stijl says:

    @Mister Bluster:

    My formative place was The Uptown at Hennepin and Lagoon in south Minneapolis in the Uptown neighborhood.

    It was a revival house. Kinda art house.

    They would run themed gigs. Like March is film noir month which was teh awesome!

    I fell in love with Lana Turner even though she was so scary I think my testicles retracted.

    There was a old school place downtown that used to be a big movie palace, but got chopped up into four little boxes.

    A guy named “le dial” let’s call him, might have skipped out of work after carefully seeding his calendar with a phony meeting at the tech center on the edge of downtown. Half hour to walk there, hour meeting, half an hour walk back. So two hours blocked out.

    le dial might have met up his friends there on a boring Wednesday afternoon for a matinee showing of Die Hard, for instance.

    We did not abuse the privilege. 4 or 5 times a year and never on Mondays or Fridays. It was a fun motley crowd. One worked for the public defender’s office and the other was a super junior DA and they were a couple. Sounds like a hokey Hallmark movie, but they were super sweet together.

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  85. de stijl says:

    @de stijl:

    Back fill on PD gal and DA boy.

    They knew each other in law school. They were just friends. Both fancied each other fiercely unbeknownst to us.

    I knew Jen. Super solid citizen. Smart is sexy. I sorta fancied her myself.

    I knew Steve. He came along on a Black Hills camping trip and we bonded over a campfire. Conventional style dude, but a good guy. Was a bit too much into Bukowski, but there are worse things.

    One October night at a house party. People were drinking and some were smoking. Cool, chill night.

    Jen and Steve were dancing together and about two minutes in they just started kissing.

    It was so cool. People clapped who knew about them fancying each other insider knowledge.

    They later got married and had two kids.

    That was a good party.

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  86. @Just nutha ignint cracker: This is why (among other reasons) that anyone who makes any kind of “market based” argument about our health care system (or that its “private” nature is radically better than “socialism!”) is impossible to take seriously.

  87. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: Yeah, I’ve been pretty clear on this point since I lived in Korea during the ACA debates. Going on Medicare was a real eye opener, because my HMO never revealed all of the bookkeeping like I see it now. As Teve says, YIKES!

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