Monday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, March 25, 2024
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53 comments
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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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The headline of the day- Man gets on plane using photo of a girl’s boarding pass. Now he faces a felony charge
How does this help the situation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Doesn’t it provide cover for Hamas and the river to the sea crowd? And spit in the eye of US policy? Extremists are in control.
Israel announces largest West Bank land seizure since 1993 during Blinken visit
@Scott: Inside every crisis there is opportunity. And Bibi is going to make the most of this one.
Also, this:
Has NBC thought about bringing on an AI-generated Joseph Goebbels? I’m sure he’d have things to say.
James/Steve or anyone else. As most of us know Indiana recently passed a law requiring professors be intellectually diverse ie they want more conservatives. Then there was the recent article about the conservative Tufts law professor who is teaching a course about conservatism, with the full support of his colleagues. We also know that at most universities in most fields conservatives are in the minority, sometimes a small one.
So my question is if there is any actual real evidence that conservatives are discriminated against in obtaining academic positions? My sense is more that conservatives self select out of academia. I can see there being some uncomfortable times even if there is no discrimination. If you as a typical conservative claimed that Trump never lies or there was no violence at the 1/6 event you would get lots of pushback. Might have to date outside people. But that wouldn’t be the result of active discrimination. So am I wrong?
Steve
@Kingdaddy:
Why bother. They can hire the real Stephen Miller, who even looks like Goebbles.
Kevin Drum notes Chuck Todd’s rant against NBC hiring lying, gaslighting Republican Ronna McDaniel and having Meet the Press interview her. Drum asks if anyone remembers an instance of Chuck (Bothsides) Todd objecting to Republicans lying and gaslighting while he hosted MTP. So far, no one has.
Lying federal government agrees to remove misinformation it issued during pandemic. Ivermectin has long been approved and used for billions of humans but the FDA chose to lie in official social media and web posts.
Boeing news. CEO Dave Calhoun will step down… at the end of the year.
I’m not sure exactly when his administration began, but Boeing’s problems go well beyond the door plug blowout, and even the many quality control problems. The big two issues are the very delayed certification and entry to service of the 737 MAX 10 and 7, and of the crown jewel 777X.
Airbus is having troubles of its own. Namely the delayed certification of the A321neo XLR. But last I heard 3 > 1.
On related matters, Boeing wants to acquire Spirit Aerosystems, the erstwhile Boeing Wichita division Boeing sold off in 2005. One big problem is that Spirit has since diversified, and in plants it own in Europe, it makes components for Airbus (and also makes components for military and executive aircraft for the like of Lockheed, Bombardier, Grumman, etc.)
The most salient bit is a plant in Ireland that makes part of the fuselage and the wings of the A220.
So, it won’t be as easy as borrowing some billions to buy Spirit stock.
From TheHill:
This is from an opinion piece by a former Democratic Rep who stood with Netanyahu when he disrespected Obama by berating him from the Republican controlled house. He would not stand with Netanyahu today.
Like South Africa before it, Israel feels that their conservative allies are the strong ones and those calling for justice and reform are just weaklings to be pushed aside. I suspect that like the Boers, the Israeli’s will find that calculus wrong.
@JKB: “Lying federal government agrees to remove misinformation it issued during pandemic. Ivermectin has long been approved and used for billions of humans.”
Not for COVID.
@JKB: “Ivermectin has long been approved and used for billions of humans”
For treatment of lice and other parasites.
Clearly it doesn’t eliminate all parasites, though.
I see in NYT that a state appeals court has reduced the bond in Trump’s fraud trial. The very brief article notes it’s a five judge panel but says nothing about a vote, nor does it offer any legal rationale.
@steve: The short answer is that in my experience as an undergraduate, a graduate student, a faculty member, and an administrator, that it all matters a lot less than many conservative advocates claim. And my discipline is one wherein politics is rather obviously front and center.
And keep in mind that I considered myself conservative (and was a Republican voter during all of my time as a student and well into my faculty career).
Things have gotten a bit more fraught in the era of Trump and partisan polarization.
There is obviously a lot more to say about this, but I will conclude by noting three things.
1. Most disciplines aren’t really all that political (e.g., chemists, computer scientists, etc).
2. We can’t get the students to read the syllabus and prepare for class so the odds that there is a lot of indoctrination going on is more than a bit amusing.
3. In my personal experience, and in my observations in the industry, the most vocally ideological faculty are in economics and they tend to be more right-wing than left-wing. (I haven’t been around someone who considered themselves a true Marxist for a very long time–and it would have been fellow grad students not faculty, but I could easily find Austrian/Von Mises type economists without much trouble).
@Barry: Details, details.
@Kathy: The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Dumping the CEO isn’t much, but I guess it’s something. I haven’t seen any mention of the size of his golden parachute.
@Steven L. Taylor: You’re no. 2 reminds me of seeing a local FL grade school teacher being quoted to the effect of, ‘Indoctrinate? I’d be happy if I could get them to read the homework.’
@wr: Not just lice and parasites. I have a relative who uses it for a dematological condition. It was very difficult to get for a while, due to gullible trumpers snatching up everything on the market. Fortunately for her, she had a standing prescription of many years, which was good because that gave her priority over the idiots.
@Steven L. Taylor:
In a normal country with civil liberties, they aren’t.
In the increasing politicized environment, they can be.
Take biology, psychology, and sociology, for example. In all these subjects things like same sex attraction and gender identity are taught, because they are part of the sciences in question. Unless you live in Florida.
@gVOR10:
Lowered to $175 million. Trump also get another 1o days in which to post the bond.
Letitia James won’t be able to start seizing his assets till September.
@Kathy: Of course. Clearly, everything can be political.
My point is that your typical Chemist, Computer Scientist, etc. isn’t thinking a whole lot bout where they are conservative/liberal when the are in class.
@gVOR10:
I wonder how this affects things.
A surety bond is a guarantee, kind of like insurance for the beneficiary. But the party issuing the bond doesn’t have to pay it, if the party taking on the bond pays the amount instead.
So, Lardass is still liable for the full sum Judge Engoron determined, plus interest. The bond is there to guarantee the state of NY gets paid. I’m willing to bet once he loses all appeals, and even if he wins a reduction of the judgment, Lardass will claim NY can just cash the bond and that ends it. He probably has no idea the bond issuer will want to recover their money from him.
It would be hilarious if no one wants to issue him a bond for the reduced amount.
@Kathy: Of course. Clearly, everything can be political.
My point is that your typical Chemist, Computer Scientist, etc. isn’t thinking a whole lot bout where they are conservative/liberal when they are in class.
We have now allowed a ceasefire resolution through the UN. We’ve called for a ceasefire. We’ve criticized Bibi pointedly. So, all the things the Left kept insisting we should do. And the result?
We never had the influence over Israel that the Left imagined we did. The notion that we could force Israel to kneel by cutting off our aid – which amounted to ~1% of Israel’s GDP – was ignorant and naive. If we can’t compel them to obey us now, more than five months in, we certainly could not have stopped them in October when Israeli rage was incandescent.
The ‘cease-fire now!’ demands and demonstrations were pointless. Would not have changed anything in October, don’t change anything now. (Which is what I’ve been saying all along while earning much scorn and anger from the OTB commentariat.) We are not even able to get Israel to allow in adequate food, water and medicine.
In fact, I would argue, and have argued from the start, that had the US abandoned Israel in October, 2 million Gazans would be wandering the Sinai desert right now. As bad as things are, they could have been worse, much worse. Had we cut off the flow of precision offensive weapons, and the flow of air defense missiles, Israel would have felt they had no alternative but to use what they had – tanks and dumb munitions. They would almost certainly have decided to end the problem of Gaza, permanently, by inviting Gazans to walk to Cairo
The US, by staying in the game rather than flouncing off in impotent, virtue-signaling protest, can still pressure the Israeli government – a little. We can still demand humanitarian relief – to limited effect. But that’s all we can do, all we ever could do. Fortunately we have an experienced president and foreign policy team who focused more on the achievable and less on striking self-righteous and hypocritical poses.
This is not 1973, things have changed, Israel is not a US dependancy. They are a regional power, a nuclear power, and they may well have decided that their future has more to do with partnering with the KSA to thwart Iran (and to a lesser extent Turkey), than with listening to lectures from the Americans. Note the near-total silence of the ‘Arab street.’ Note the barely audible protests of Arab governments.
And note, too, that Hamas could still end this by surrendering the ‘fighters’ who have brought destruction down on their own people, and still use their own people as human shields. Hamas caused all of this. They could end it.
The limits on further Israeli military surges has almost nothing to do with world opinion, and quite a bit more to do with economics – they want reservists to go back to work. Capitalism will have greater effect than all the protests. All the division on the Left, the fracturing of the progressive coalition, the rampant anti-semitism, the bullying by Jews of opposition voices, all of it absolutely pointless, a great self-inflicted wound.
As I’ve said from Day One, this is a tragedy without visible solution. It is not fixable, at least not at this time. We’ve been watching an avalanche and imagining we could stop it by chanting and waving signs.
@Michael Reynolds:
The result is leftists who prefer a renewed Trump-Netanyahu alliance will move the goalposts again to find more reasons to “abandon Biden.”*
Emails, or Wall Street speeches, or DNC rigging or whatever lame excuses du jour prove sticky this year — pending marching orders from astroturfing Russian trolls.
(*They didn’t vote for Biden and Democrats in 2020 and were already determined not to do so in 2024.)
@Steven L. Taylor:
Minor spoiler for 3 Body Problem, the Netflix adaptation, follows.
You’ve been warned.
Proceed at your own risk.
Ok, when the Chinese radio scientist propose amplifying radio signals using the Sun (preposterous), which is a purely technical and non-political matter, their boss nearly takes their heads off for an even more ridiculous, political reasons.
When you get strongman rule, even with a weakling posing as one, you get things like this.
@Kathy:
More whining and tantruming from Don Poorleone and his crybaby apologists like Kevin O’Leary, about why it’s unfair when rich criminals who look like them face consequences for their crime sprees.
@Kathy: I totally understand your point. I fully and totally understand that all things can be made political.
But my point is that in the broad conversation of American higher ed, the lib/con, Rep/Dem thing simply isn’t what the critics make it out to be.
@Michael Reynolds:Michael, I just find your position bizarre to the point of incomprehension. We don’t have much sway over Israel (as has been obvious since shortly after the assassination of Rabin) so we must continue to support them? How does that make sense?
The Palestinians and the Israelis are in a fight to the death over land – they each want to drive the other into the sea, and are willing to use any means to make that happen including mass killing. It’s the policy of the rulers on both sides and has been for decades. Why should we be involved at all? Sure, there are historical and logistical reasons for the time being, but the goal of every administration should be to disentangle the US and Europe from the whole mess.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I must be in a disagreeable mood today.
And I wanted to bash bad science fiction ideas.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/forensic-psychiatrist-physical-signs-trumps-094504165.html
Snip
(IMO, only early in the progression, Trump has progressed to where memory is affected too).
Snip
Snip
@Michael Reynolds: Although I appreciate you not calling me an anti-semite in your entire post, I do find myself trying to figure out what it is you’re actually saying. That it’s a complete shitshow and nobody knows how to make it better? Has anyone here ever said anything other than that?
Is it that leftists are stupid because they objected to the slaughter of civilians? Honestly, I’m lost.
Trump says that he will have “no problem” testifying at his hush money trial beginning April 15 because he did nothing wrong,
@steve:
Not sure what you would consider “real” evidence. But I pasted a few links below that you might find relevant.
Few studies allow one to draw causal conclusions — not surprising given the topic. How people read the correlational and circumstantial evidence depends on one’s priors.
I do caution against finding (too much) solace in the self-selection explanation. Not because it’s wrong — it certainly contributes to the political imbalance amongst faculty. But because representation matters, so much so that it is a primary emphasis of DEIB.
And don’t forget the B (belongingness). This too gets a lot of emphasis in other discussions of DEIB. And rightfully so.
Political Discrimination and Law Professor Hiring
Political Diversity in Social and Personality Psychology
Does Politics Influence Hiring? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment
@CSK:
Come now, If the lawyers are getting paid, they must be made to suffer in other ways.
I want to see their licenses to practice medicine.
@Kathy:
Please, please no more suffering. Or at least more money.
@CSK: I expect 7 hours of “I do not recall.”
@Steven L. Taylor:
I question whether that is most disciplines. And certainly the students in those disciplines have to take courses in history, English, etc. (if I could change one thing about computer science programs, it would be to add more history and English, and maybe theater or something for presentations — new grads are sorely lacking, but I digress)
I also question whether those disciplines are as non-political as you make them out to be. There are often Ethics in Foo courses for every definition of Foo. And you can’t discuss radiation without Madame Curie coming up, or computer science without Alan Turing. Women and gay people are “political.”
Not to mention that the backbone of the internet is maintained by people who fall into one of the following groups with almost no overlap:
– LGBT folks who are not furries
– LGBT folks who are furries
– libertarians who are pedophiles
– libertarians who are not pedophiles
(There really seems to be a strong correlation between skill with computers at that level and either some form of queerness or some naive expectation that people are rational actors and that libertarianism would work if just given a chance.)
I suspect that the right wing’s desire isn’t so much that math professors instruct students that lowering taxes increases revenue, but that someone has a position to put that nonbinary kid with the blue hair in their place. Or that black person. Or that woman.
@Mimai: From one of your links:
When I start looking for work, I think I will put pronouns on my resume just to make sure that more “conservative” workplaces are less likely to contact me.
I’ve tended to work for large corporations in the past, where the culture is more noncommittal-to-bland, but I’m thinking a smaller company might be a nice change, and there the boss’s views end up dominating far more.
@Bill Jempty:..I ain’t got time to take no fast train…
When I lived in San Francisco in’74 one of the guys who had relocated there with me and two others decided he wanted to go back to Indiana where his mother lived. He made his way to SFO and walked right on a plane with no ticket or boarding pass. I vaguely remember something about a squirt gun. They got him off the plane and into jail. As I recall his San Francisco girlfriend who he had been living with bailed him out. I think there was a fine to pay.
The other two guys who I traveled from the mid west to SF with knew him better than I did. He was just back from a tour in Viet Nam and recently divorced. There was some concern about his behavior but nobody saw this airport incident coming. Not long after that he was able to get a legitimate ticket and return to the midwest.
His mom had visited us in Southern Illinois before we moved to the west coast so we had her contact information. Attempts were made to reach her but we never heard back.
@OzarkHillbilly: I expect he will say that he wanted to testify, but his lawyers wouldn’t let him.
@Gustopher: That is a far more likely scenario, tho I’m pretty sure that would be a lie (that his lawyers wouldn’t let him). The truth is that he is an absolute coward who blusters his way thru life while hiding behind his lawyers’ skirts.
@Gustopher: @OzarkHillbilly:
Trump can say that his lawyers prevented him from testifying, but in actuality, they have no power to do so. If he really wants to take the stand, he will.
@OzarkHillbilly:
No. Trump will lie. Even under oath, he’ll lie. He has before.
@Beth:
Not you. You obviously know better than to work for Lardass, or some other would-be tinpot tyrant with delusions.
@Gustopher: If Trump testifies he did absolutely nothing wrong, wouldn’t that open the door to the prosecution putting Stormy on the stand to testify that he did absolutely nothing right?
@CSK: Pretty sure, “I do not recall.” will be a lie 90-95% of the time. Like I said tho, he’ll never get on the stand anyway, he’ll just hide behind his lawyer’s skirts.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Per ABC, Trump now says he’ll welcome a conviction in the Stormy Daniels hush money case because it will make him “more popular.”
It probably will, with the MAGAs.
Notes on affogato:
A double espresso, especially as made by the Nespresso machine, is too much. The ice cream melted quickly, leaving a tepid drink.
So, I placed it in the freezer for a few minutes, and had a rather nice vanilla quasi-latte.
It being Easter or something this week, we leave early on Thursday and don’t work on Friday. So I get a chance at some more ice cream experiments. I may get to the apple* ice cream, but first I want to get the coconut pineapple sorbet right.
*I think I need to cook the apples in butter and cinnamon, and add nutmeg and vanilla to the mix before churning. Pretty much it’s going to be applesauce and milk.
I would put a couple of US marshals outside the Hungarian embassy in DC, as well as all consulates, should Lardass get any ideas after he’s convicted and loses the election.
@CSK: Yep. All I can say is, “You keep telling yourself that, D.”
@Kathy: Sheeeeit.
“Please Victor, take him. Keep him. Just don’t think you’re ever sending him back. “
@OzarkHillbilly:
It depends.
If a convicted criminal out on bail while the appeal process grinds mindlessly on, is caught trying to flee the country, can he be arrested and tossed in jail? If so, then take Lardass in and lock him up.
If not, then let him go to Budapest.
@CSK: And if I understand correctly he denies having had sex with either Daniel’s or MacDougal. So his testimony should be interesting.
@JohnMc:
Trump claimed back in 2018 that he paid Stormy off to prevent her from telling false stories about him. Pardon me while I collapse laughing.