Monday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, March 4, 2024
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25 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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My repeated prediction over the past year that Trump would do a clean sweep of all the primaries and caucuses has officially failed, with Haley’s victory in the DC primary. She beat Trump by a whopping 1,274 to 676 votes.
@Kylopod:
According to Trump, he deliberately failed to win in D.C. because it wasn’t worth the trouble and expense to campaign there.
@CSK: “I meant to do that.”
@Kylopod:
Exactly. God, he’s pathetic.
@CSK:
It’s common for toddlers to claim not to have even wanted something, once they finally grasp they’re never going to get it.
@Kylopod: @Kathy:
It may not be probable, but Haley could pick up Massachusetts, Maine, and Vermont tomorrow.
JetBlue and Spirit have called off their merger.
I don’t know enough to predict how this will affect fare and fee rates, nor do I have working clairvoyance. But I wonder whether Frontier is still interested.
They’ve probably moved on already, and/or figure a merger of the two would be blocked as well.
For some reason, I forgot to mention that the third and last season of The Bad Batch is out now.
In boring climate news, yesterday was yet again the hottest global sea surface temperature ever recorded. Since early January, every daily reading has been above 21° Celsius, a level that had never happened at all prior to 2023.
@DrDaveT: Gee, it’s almost as if you’re saying we’re already past the tipping point. 🙁
In a display of unnecessary efficiency, I got my ice cream maker today. I also got the wrong powdered chocolate milk mix.
Given the workload I expect this week, I don’t think I’ll be able to try it until the weekend.
@DrDaveT: we need Celsius Truthers — those people in France who maintain the metric standards have been manipulating them to make Celsius degrees smaller, to make it look like there is global warming.
Global Warming is not just a China Hoax anymore, the French are in on it too.
So Allen Weisselberg, former CFO of Trump Org, pleaded guilty to perjury (he lied under oath on three occasions). He’s getting five months in jail. This is after serving 100 days for failure to pay taxes. This sentence does not require him to testify at Trump’s upcoming hush-money trial.
I don’t understand why they do this. Go to trial and seek a much bigger sentence, let this piece of crap rot in jail. If you lose, big deal. But a five month sentence? For a guy who has a felony conviction? Would they ever do this for an ordinary person? Weisselberg made his decision, he committed crimes for Trump and lied about them. Try to ruin his remaining life and use it as leverage.
@SenyorDave:
Regarding putting Wiesselberg on the stand: it’s probably not worth it. He’s a known and soon to be convicted liar. That’s a difficult problem to deal with under the best of circumstances. This is worse though, since I’m pretty sure that Wiesselberg had either indicated or it’s a certainty that he would lie again for Trump. That makes him worthless as a witness, maybe even worse. It’s also probably not worth the time a resources to keep prosecuting him for all his lies. Make him serve the whole five months somewhere terrible and be done with him.
Also, doesn’t he have kids he’s trying to protect? It’s probably worth it to him to die in prison if it helps his kids either in general or with Trump. Trump might think that’s a honor or something stupid.
@SenyorDave:
@Beth:
I’ve read on Great Courses law lectures that perjury can be very hard to prove in court. In particular ambiguities in questions and/or answers can result in reasonable doubt.
If so, then Wiesselberg might serve as a warning to others in the Lardass orbit not to lie in subsequent proceedings.
And what Beth said. Truthful testimony can be impeached as a lie, given a history of perjury convictions.
@SenyorDave:
At least he’ll never be able to vote in Florida…
Notes on important news items:
Too little oxygen in Europa? There’s still no substitute for landing there and drilling through the ice to get samples. If measurements rule out life as we know it, we may find life as we don’t yet know it (but most likely not).
Forecast calls for confusion among both Swifites and anti-Swifties. Travis looks like the main subject in that photo.
@Beth:
So is Michael Cohen (already convicted liar), whose testimony has been used in both the civil fraud trial and the upcoming hush-money trial. Now, the difference is that Cohen has actually flipped on Trump, whereas Weisselberg never did. But it is possible to use the testimony of a convicted perjurer, provided that there’s corroborating evidence.
@Kylopod:
True, but I remember they’ve had problems using Cohen’s testimony because he’s such a known liar.
Some random notes:
Thanks @Gavin for the book recommendation the other day. I’m reading it now.
It occurs to me few cases, even high profile ones, get the kind of pres coverage we see in the various Lardass cases. So, I wonder if delaying tactics, and appeals on rulings, and motions to dismiss on spurious rationales are also employed by other rich people charged with criminal offenses.
Say by Holmes and Balwani of Theranos infamy. On the other hand Bankman-Fried was charged, tried, and convicted at warp 10.01 (maybe he had little money left?)
@Kathy:
Recommend the Jon Oliver bit on Boeing from this weekend. I think you were right, Boeing didn’t so much take over McD as McD’s execs took over Boeing.
I had thought the Boeing people had deliberately chosen those execs, but was wrong about that.
@Kylopod:
It appears Weaselberg got paid off, Cohen surely wasn’t. I would speculate the cash is seven figures as well hidden overseas as a career crooked accountant can make it, and the only risk to that money is what Trump might say if they became enemies.
@dazedandconfused:
I saw about Oliver. I hope it’s on Youtube. It’s on Max (formerly HBO Max), but they tend to stream his new eps anywhere from a few days to a week late.
From what I recall of my reading, Boeing paid for McDD with Boeing stock. This meant a lot of high McDD executives, including the CEO and other bean counters, got a lot of Boeing stock and seats on the board.
So it was like eating a xenomorph parasite. It takes you over.
ETA: I see the link is for the ep on Youtibe. Thanks.
@Kathy:
“Aliens” is a pretty good analogy: When poking around in a wreck be careful you don’t acquire what caused it to wreck yourself. McDonald Douglas made the best planes for a long time, had some of the best people. Big plants. Then the guys who just wanted to make big short term profits took control.
Word is that Biden is likely to go off on shrinkflation at the SOTU. He focuses on potato chips. But turns out the price of potato chips is through the roof, but I’m not sure Biden should focus on it given it’s drought, blight and other natural acts causing it.