Monday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, June 3, 2024
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87 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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Magnet fishing, I might have to give that a try. If I do it up at Forest Park in STL I’m sure to find plenty of murder weapons.
More good cancer news:
The caveat (there’s always a caveat):
Still, it’s a good development which may well lead to more.
Been out of pocket the last few days but came across this article in the local paper.
Middle-aged Texas Republican women are ‘supersharers’ of fake news, study finds
Here’s the Science article the above was derived from:
Supersharers of fake news on Twitter
The funny thing is that, at first, I thought this was an Onion-like piece.
Britain’s most stunning seascapes – in pictures
Beautiful pics. I can’t say I have a favorite but if I had to pick one, this would probably be it.
As expected, Sheinbaum won. About 60 some percent of votes have been counted, but she’s ahead by over 30 percentage points. it’s not even close.
No info yet on the results of the congressional races, but I expect Morena to keep control of both chambers.
Hopefully Sheinbaum will be more focused on governing, rather than on promoting herself and going after her enemies.
@Kathy: I understand many people think she’s just a proxy for Obrador? Could that work? Is the party so strong that he can keep her under his thumb even after she assumes office?
This may be the worst op-ed ever in the WaPo’s history:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/06/02/alito-flag-marriage-jan-6-recusal/
It appears the convicted felon Donald J. Trump is ineligible to be on the ballot in Washington state.
@MarkedMan: This is likely to be struck down by federal courts, on the grounds that there can’t be any eligibility requirements for president beyond what’s explicitly laid out in the Constitution.
I also am not particularly enamored at the idea of knocking Trump off the ballot in blue states, because it would add a needless cloud over a popular-vote win by Biden.
@Kingdaddy: LGM has a post on that garbage, it starts out
@Mikey: You’re telling me that the writer who once argued that Obama’s allegedly excessive use of the passive voice proved he was a girly-boy, is an astoundingly bad columnist?
@Mikey: I wondered at first if it were a parody.
James Fallows wrote a great book, Breaking The News, in which he cited the cozy social arrangements between journalists and the elites whom they cover as one of several factors contributing to the decline of the news. There’s no better evidence for his argument than this column.
@Kylopod: As the article says, POTUS candidates are excluded from the ballot every cycle for failing to meet the qualifications. Accordingly, SCOTUS needs to be very careful how they craft a decision to mandate convicted felon Donald Trump’s inclusion, lest they open the door to hundreds of candidates for POTUS on every ballot in the nation.
@MarkedMan:
The short answer: we shall see.
The long answer, Morena is his majesty’s party. he set it up when infighting in the PRD got too be too much, and when it looked like they wouldn’t nominate him for the presidency for a third time.
On the other hand, he won mostly because after two PAN administrations and one PRI administration, things were still pretty much as before 2000, in particular drug violence and corruption.
These did not change in his administration, but he resorted to the old, classic PRI formula, which is a rehash of the classic imperial Roman formula: bread and circuses. Largely this meant more welfare programs, and direct cash payments for seniors and other people (something he had essayed while mayor of Mexico City). And that’s what most people who voted for Sheinbaum seem to have voted for.
How much power can his majesty still exert is not clear. Democratic institutions and practices have taken root. Nor is Sheinbaum some empty vessel his majesty can just fill with his essence.
Insane story from around Ft Bragg. A special forces officer murdered an unarmed man working for a power company, and these calls reveal the absolute psychosis which these people are swimming in. Most likely, the killer will walk, because it’s America and you have the right to shoot first and ask questions later.
The attempt to make stock using turkey bones was almost successful. For a variety of reasons, I wound up starting the stock at around 2:30 pm. So it slow cooked for 6 hours on high. It’s fine, but I feel it could have used another 60 to 90 minutes.
I still find it odd that 1) bones can make a soup base, and 2) the stock tastes a lot like the bird it came from, given very little meat was there. I say this fully cognizant that I’ve used marrow bones in bean soup.
Anyway, I put it in a container and froze it. I’ll use it next week to make bean soup (no marrow bones this time), and maybe pasta as well.
I’m more surprised my idea to use the temp probe to time the cooking of the turkey pieces in the oven worked so well. Also a short trip to air fryer to brown and crisp the skin. The thighs were just as moist as the breasts I did last week. I think I’ll try it next using chicken.
Frontier, the ultra-low cost carrier who failed to acquire Spirit, has introduced fare tiers. Each tier offers more ancillaries, from none, to seat selection, carry on, airport check in, and checked bags. In principle the model is still the same of low fares and high fees, but they are presented in bundles. This makes estimating the cost of a trip easier, and also of comparing the cost on Frontier vs the legacy airlines and others.
Buzz in the aviation blogs, in particular those who focus more on the business side, is that these tiers are introductory offers, and that they will rise shortly. that may be, but it’s good to have more transparency.
Going through the morning papers I found this headline.
JUROR IN FEEDING OUR FUTURE TRIAL DISMISSED AFTER WOMAN OFFERS BAG OF $120,000 IN CASH TO ACQUIT DEFENDANTS
In a shocking development, a juror was dismissed Monday morning after a woman showed up at her house Sunday, offering a bag of cash to acquit the defendants.
Of course, all mobsters show tendencies to think alike this was found at ProPublica.
Multiple Trump Witnesses Have Received Significant Financial Benefits From His Businesses, Campaign
@Modulo Myself: The piece identifies the shooter as a colonel. It won’t be long before we find out who he is, there just aren’t that many colonels.
Ye gods.
Talking Point’s Memo’s “Morning Memo” today got me thinking about the future of the Republican Party and that in turn got me thinking about “betas”. The headline is “Republicans Can Never Grovel Enough To Satisfy Trump” and it hit me that for the past 8 years (and extending at least another year or so into the future and maybe more), being a Republican is about subsuming yourself into the MAGA world and performative subservience to Trump. That’s driven a lot of Republicans away from all levels, even top-of-the-Party ones, and prevented a number of competent people from joining, Which demands the question: what type of Republicans remain and what types are joining? I can’t help but put it in the terms MAGAs use: the Republican Party is Trump as the lone alpha and a boat load of betas. Eventually Trump goes away so I have to wonder what kind of party will it be after he is gone? Will it leave a power vacuum that another Trump-like figure will fill or will it return to the status quo ante? I suspect the former, because there are no alphas on the bench, only betas and given the nature of betas, they need an all powerful godhead to structure their lives around. Is this how parties die and get replaced?
@MarkedMan:
There is already Supreme Court decisions that don’t allow these type of (bad) State laws to be applied to Federal office.
Secondly, this is an example of a post civil war law that was created to prevent Black folks from holding office. Like felony disenfranchisement we shouldn’t embrace undemocratic and bad laws just because at a given moment they punish someone we don’t like.
@MarkedMan:
There is already Supreme Court decisions that don’t allow these type of (bad) State laws to be applied to Federal office.
Secondly, this is an example of a post civil war law that was created to prevent Black folks from holding office. Like felony disenfranchisement we shouldn’t embrace undemocratic and bad laws just because at a given moment they punish someone we don’t like.
@mattbernius: I agree with you. I just offered the article up as an interesting one.
@Modulo Myself: So, episode 752,963 in the ongoing serial of “Macho macho gun owner lives in a bizzarro fantasy world in his head and ends up murdering an innocent bystander and wrecking his own life”?
@MarkedMan: I’ve kind of reduced the entire right wing authoritarian personality to “Punch down, suck up”. It really doesn’t get any more complicated than that.
@Modulo Myself: @Jay L Gischer: @MarkedMan:
I don’t get it. Wasn’t the utilities worker wearing some sort of uniform or other immediately identifiable gear?
@CSK:
It looks like he was a subcontractor doing some sort of internet repair work. (Or allegedly, if you down the online wormhole.) In my experience with cell towers, most everyone who showed up was a sub and nobody wore a uniform. So it checks out, I think, but obviously if you ever wanted to sneak around, this would be a good disguise.
@Kingdaddy:..cozy social arrangements between journalists and the elites whom they cover…
Here is the documentary I. F. Stone’s Weekly (1973).
I saw this in a neighborhood theatre in the Sunset District of San Francisco in 1974 when I lived there. At that time the seats on the right side of the aisle of the auditorium were the smoking section.
In 1969 my college roommate had a subscription to I. F. Stone’s Weekly that’s how I learned about it.
Thank you for reminding me of this Kingdaddy. Watching this again makes it seem like 50 years was not so long ago.
At 7:22 See Tom Jarriel ABC News White House Correspondent play tennis with Nixon Press Spokesman Ron Ziegler.
(gotta love how the closed captioning tags the click clack of his manual typewriter as applause)
Isidor Feinstein Stone
1907-1989
RIP
In between cooking and voting yesterday, I streamed a documentary about MoviePass on MAX ultraimaginatively entitled MoviePass MovieCrash*)
Those who may not know, MoviePass offered a deal that was too good to be true: unlimited movies per month, at just about any theater, for $10 (ten dollars) per month. The slogan was “Any movie. Any theater. Any day”. At that, it was limited to one theater ticket per day. But, still, ti was the best deal ever (not quite). In many markets, a single movie ticket costs more than $10.
Thing is I kept drifting off and losing interest, because I felt like I’d heard the story before. I hadn’t and knew I hadn’t, but it felt that way. I had read a bit on it, enough to recognize the subject when I saw it listed in the app, but no more than that.
Then it hit me. It’s the American Airlines’ AAirpass!
That was a bit different, but close enough. For the low, low, low one-time price of $250,000, you got lifetime unlimited first class travel on AA, plus priority everything, and access to the AA lounges worldwide. You could also get a companion pass for about $150,000.
Few people ever bought it, there being few to begin with who could afford it, but as you might expect, many abused it. American lost lots of money over the years, though they kept selling them at higher prices until 1993 now at over $1 million.
A lof of people, no less than 3 million, subscribed to MoviePass. Many abused it, so to speak, watching a movie every day. On average, subscribers watched like 3 movies a month. So MoviePass was shelling out a lot more money than they took in. They didn’t even have a deal with theaters for discounted tickets (something that’s complicated given the chain of entities involved, like studios, production companies, and distributors).
Just about any program that offers unlimited anything for a price lower than what the average consumption will cost, will lose tons of money and eventually crash. I wonder why even a few keep trying.
I did wonder briefly about buffets in Vegas, but those are notorious loss leaders.
*MovieCrash doesn’t make sense.
@MarkedMan:
When people have suggested that the problem won’t go away when Trump does, I’ve disagreed for precisely this reason. One thug and a gang of ass-kissers, all hoping to grovel their way to power. Won’t work. And cults tend not to survive the death of their leader. Have not noticed a lot of Koreshis around. Remember the Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh? No one does. Heaven’s Gate? NXIVM? Hitler’s cult died with him – incels don’t quite rise to the level. The Stalin cult has nostalgia value for Russians, but did not survive him.
A lot of people dislike the Great Man theory of history, but leaders do matter, even, or maybe especially, when they’re bad leaders. Ted Cruz as the leader of the cult? Rubio? DeSantis? Bannon? Nah. If we survive this we’ll be in the clear for a while at least.
@MarkedMan:
When Felon trump recedes, there will be a mad scramble to grab the MAGAt crown led by one of his sons, but also Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, JD Vance, Abbott and a few others. I expect that the MAGAts will fracture, most of those who weren’t engaged politically before Felon trump will disengage. There will be a concerted effort among the elites to regain control and might be the smart bet if you are wagering on the outcome.
Remember, a big reason that Felon trump is so popular is that the MAGAt’s find him entertaining, after all, DeSantis, who punched down harder than Felon trump ever did, hardly received consideration from them. Add to that, today’s R party does not have have a definition of who they are, except in opposition to Dems and other generic elites. Hard to build around that. But what the R’s will benefit from is inertia, voters in red states will continue voting for the parties nominees keeping in viable and over time it will rebuild.
@Sleeping Dog:
Agree, there’s a very large entertainment component. And he’s already growing stale as an act. Numbers of rallies, and numbers of attendees at MAGA rallies are dropping. And his NY trial drew more counter-protesters than MAGAts. He keeps calling but fewer and fewer respond. He’s not Tay Tay, he’s more J-Lo. (She just canceled her tour cuz no one GAF.)
There’s something called Dead and Company that includes Bob Weir. They’re selling tickets, but as a force to be reckoned with, the Grateful Dead died with Jerry Garcia. Phish has done well, sort of following in the Dead’s path, but they are a niche nostalgia operation with no cultural impact. If Taylor Swift dies, who’s taking over for her? One of her back-up dancers?
ETA: Also, we may get a Khrushchev moment.
@Scott:
I think that if this is paired with the late Teve’s classic “shitty people with shitty values”, this provides enough nuance to describe 95% of all far right behaviors.
Pride month and pro-Hamas protestors conflict
pro-Hamas mob blocked Pride parades in both New York and Philadelphia, and also over in England
Civil War on the Left, US and UK
@Michael Reynolds: It will be an interesting real life experiment. There will be any number of wannabe cult leaders that will want to coopt the mechanisms of the Republican Party the way Trump did, once he is out of the way or so weak. I suspect the majority of Party leaders will welcome such a savior. But which one? And will any of them attract the Trump supporters that make up the Republican base? If I had to bet (and I wouldn’t bet much – no bottle of scotch, or even a pint of brew pub beer, more like a glass of second tier mass market beer from a 3 tap local dive bar), I would guess that, after a brutal fight, another alpha will rise to the top of the Republican Party, but won’t be widely accepted by the base. Long term, the Republicans will become an irrelevance and a party that breaks away from them and picks up a few stragglers along the way will become the second party in US politics and the Republicans will gradually fall to Libertarian Party levels of relevance before they die out completely.
@Sleeping Dog:
@Michael Reynolds:
@MarkedMan:
If the base* gets a say, then based on entertainment value, aggressiveness, idiocy, ignorance, and overall outrageous behavior, it should be the Trailer Queen.
Except in Alabama, where The Coach will be elevated by acclamation, and therefore the state will secede from the Union.
*Is it just me, or does anyone recall that the term “al-qaeda” gets translated as “the base.” No reason to bring this up.
@MarkedMan:
I think the cult/Maga aspect is a smaller piece of a larger void. Look at Covid. Most scientists believe it’s zoonotic in origin. Is a lab leak possible? Sure. Could actual evidence settle the debate? Yes. But barring evidence, what you have with the lab leak is this Trump-like confidence scam of Here’s why the lab leak is more likely. It makes it sound obvious: Covid leaked from a lab. And yet, most scientists believe otherwise. Why? The article hand-waves that away, and if you read anything about the lab leak, there’s this belief that every scientist is being pressured into conformity. And yet, the so-called conformists aren’t running the NYTimes, but that’s a minor flaw in the theory.
We just have a world in which people are set-up to believe things which if untrue should have been obviously untrue. People are told that they’re skeptics and heretics for going against the grain. And yet they are extreme conformists and believers, and skeptical of nothing. If/when the bottom falls out and they’re proven wrong, they don’t question why they might have been the type to be taken in. They just move onto the next scam and the one after that, all of which say the same thing: you’re unique, and not like the others.
RE: post-Trump GOP — I think a lot will depend on how it happens. I agree with the sentiment that the GOP will fracture, but none of those listed (Cruz, Hawley, Vance) are going to be able to duplicate Trump’s populism, mainly because they are all products of the fancy law school wing of the GOP. Even Vance’s blue collar childhood isn’t enough to overcome this…there’s a tactical smarminess that results.
What will really matter is if Trump fades from the limelight (disease/infirmity/illness) or if it’s more sudden and unexpected.
The Adam Kinzingers, Mitt Romneys, and Liz Cheneys of the party are probably hoping for a massive reset. I just don’t see that happening. They don’t just lack a deep bench of thinking GOP candidates–they not only don’t have the candidates, the actual bench is missing too.
@MarkedMan: Given that this particular bizarro-world denizen is a relatively high-ranking military officer and the deceased is (apparently) a refugee escaping a war-torn region, my guess is that this will end up down the memory hole with a stern warning to keep it there to the co-worker/witness. We can’t be ruining the lives of our war heroes ya kno.
Then again, Trump WAS convicted last week, so here’s hoping I’m wrong on this one. [Fingers crossed emoji]
@Kathy: To some degree, the mistake was believing that pass customers would end up buying concession stand merchandise in sufficient quantities to offset the cost of the free admission (for which the commission to the studio would still have to be paid). The town I just moved from’s multiplex still sells a version of movie pass and has $1 admission nights for some movies, so it must work some places.
@MarkedMan:
@Michael Reynolds:
@Jen:
I’m in the “It Won’t Really Change Anything” camp. I suspect Trump himself was a bit of a rogue wave that was able to put everything together in one awful package, but there is a whole bunch of behinds the scenes people. Leonard Leo was probably the fastest on the uptake with Trump, with Thiel a close second. Behind those two are a whole lot of truly awful rich assholes bent on mostly religious domination, but also masculine domination. People like the whack jobs in TX. But then you have Ken Griffen, Musk, and a whole lot of other chuds.
Whatever happens to Trump himself, those buttholes will still be out there doing there best to control everything and not pay taxes. I suspect the unholy alliance between these groups is an agreement to allow Christian Nationalism, so long as the others 1. get some part of the power, and 2 don’t pay any taxes. Trump dying or failing or whatever won’t really change anything for these people except they now know what is possible.
Ok, I need some help from the crowd. Let me preface with a couple of things:
1. I’ve never really been afraid of being assaulted or killed, mostly because I’m apparently a physically large human, but also cause I’m suicidal and getting murdered would be fitting;
2. Until very recently, the idea that women get street harassed, assaulted, or put in uncomfortable, potentially unsafe conditions was mostly academic. This is, obviously, not a good thing on a lot of levels. Masculine socialization/indoctrination really did a number on me that I’m constantly getting crash courses in how stupid it was and how wildly unprepared I am.
So, on Friday night (actually saturday morning) I was coming home from a club at about 3:30. I was alone, drunk and high. I had my wits about me enough to know it was bedtime and what was going on, but I was toast. The Lyft driver identified himself as Russian and didn’t speak english. On the way to my house he was frantically trying to get me to translate what he was saying, but I was too gone to get that to work. He eventually pulls up to my house, gets his translator working and tells me I am beautiful. Ok, I like compliments. But then he proceeds to grill me on who I live with, how we have sex, that I have a perfect figure (lol) and so on. I don’t think he locked the doors, but every time I tried to excuse myself it was implied I couldn’t go. I finally dove for it and sat on my porch watching his car not leave as I frantically dug for my keys. I got in, locked the door and was grateful for the pitbull.
Friends are like, you need to report him. I’m like, I don’t know if I read that wrong or if reporting him to Lyft will cause problems for me later. I live in a well off neighborhood, but getting cabs down her or to come here is a nightmare. Lyft has been a godsend. Also, in all my years of being messed up I’ve never experienced this.
I don’t know how to process this?
@just nutha:
The thing is MoviePass had no deals with any theaters. Not a penny of concessions sales went to them.
Here’s how it worked:
You paid $10 and were sent a debit card with MoviePass branding.
You selected a theater, movie, and time on the app.
Once the app reported your location as the theater you chose at around the time you chose, MoviePass credited the exact amount for one ticket to your card.
You paid the theater with the debit card and got a ticket. This ended all involvement by MoviePass.
The business model was to get to 5 million users (it seems to have topped out at 3 million and change). Then they’d get deals with theaters and sell user data to the studios. Meantime they were chasing market share off a cliff, and keeping the stock price high through hype and throwing lavish parties at movie festivals now and then.
As their main investor was a publicly traded company, they eventually filed papers detailing how MoviePass was doing. It had losses of around $150 million. that’s when it crashed. I don’t think the business model would have worked, even if they’d reached 10 million subscribers.
One of the founders, who’d have been eased out along with the other founder, acquired the company as part of chapter 7 bankruptcy, and has relaunched it with a different business model (limited theaters, tier pricing, limited showtimes, etc.) I gather it’s directed now at a more niche market of movie enthusiasts, not the general population.
@Beth:
First of all, I don’t think you read the situation wrong. And I also think you should report it to Lyft. Just my 2 cents.
@Beth:
I don’t think it will cause problems for you with Lyft. Maybe the guy himself could be an issue, since he has your address. And yeah, you didn’t read that situation wrong.
@Beth: That was HIGHLY inappropriate behavior and I would report it for sure. Lyft would probably thank you. That guy is a lawsuit ( or worse) waiting to happen.
Dr. Fauci testified before a congressional group today, and I don’t understand why. To me this investigation is not a quest for information but an opportunity for grandstanding. If I were him, I wouldn’t answer a single question with any other than a assertion of my 5th amendment rights.
@MarkedMan:
There is the rub.
I think that Trump is not replaceable, if he was he would have been replaced by now.
My prediction is that MAGA will scramble to the next pseudo Trump wanna be, but they will all scramble to different people. Then the fight it out for who is the “real” successor to Trump. Different factions of MAGA will split. The Incels will go with one, the Evangelical Christians will go for another, the Sovern Citizens yet another and the “I don’t care as long as ty taxes get cut” yet another. All will make their case, but they will never go all in on one name because, well they want different things and they will all use the “never give up, never surrender” playbook Trump outlined. But since they are all doin it, it will fail. That election cycle will be a blood bath for Maga and the Republican party will have to reboot or be taken over by another Whig party 2.0. Then they will have to sit at the kids table for a few election and be relegated to the same status as the Libertarian party.
Or they could jettison MAGA and adopt some more moderate policies to get a claim on independents and come back with MAGA being relegated to what the progressive caucus is to the Democrats.
@Rick DeMent: You said it better than I did
@Paul L.:
Or by a jury of ordinary New Yorkers, selected via the normal process, including defence challenges.
Which is hardly surprising, as the crimes concerned were breaches of New York State law, and committed in New York.
And I may have missed something, but IIRC
were not among the 34 charges brought, and of which Trump which found guilty.
@Kathy: Looking it up on Wikipedia, I see that Movie Pass was started in 2011, while I was in Korea. That version completely eluded my notice altogether, but it does have the hallmarks of lots of startup plans of the era:
1. Create a service that promises miraculous opportunities
2. Stay in business long enough to be purchased by Microsoft or Google.
The usual suspects are off their meds again.
@Beth:
Hey Beth,
I drove for a Lyft about five years ago for shits and giggles when I was between jobs. I wanted to see what it was like. I immediately stopped doing that when a very, very drunk 19-year-old offered to give me a blowjob on the spot shortly after I picked her up. At least she said she was 19. She was completely wasted. And a friend of hers had arranged a ride for her.
I was fortunate and that I got her to her location safely, and I immediately stopped driving for Lyft. I’m not going to lie. I could see very easy how something like that, under different circumstances could go very badly very quickly for me. She could’ve taken my rejection personally and reported me for any number of things I did not do. I very quickly saw the downside and it wasn’t worth it to me.
Having said that, you should 100% report the incident. 100%. Behavior like that is not stand alone behavior. If he did it to you, he has done it to others, and he will do it again to someone else.
You should get no pushback from Lyft whatsoever. In fact, they will probably commend you for the report. They really want bad behavior reported so that they can get rid of those people before it becomes a problem.
I’m sorry you had to go through that.
My two cents.
@Slugger: I am ignorant on how these hearings work. Why would anyone attend unless forced to? It is always a one way conversation and confrontation. Are travel and lodging expenses paid for? I don’t think I would be polite to the inquisition. As for swearing in, could I just say (in response to “do you swear to tell the truth, etc”) nope. Can I just insult questioners as to their intelligence or parentage? If they want a show, then give them a show.
@Beth: For the record: Male, still 6 ft (used to be ~6’3″, but posture and shrinking disk took a toll), live in Downtown but am still doing well enough that at 72, I’m not looking frail yet, so I check similar boxes except for the female part. For what it’s worth, I will concur with CSK, Modulo, and becca. Report the incident to Lyft.
You might even get better driver selection from them for it, particularly if you are a frequent customer. Who can tell?
@Beth: You are not misreading this (I’m reading you as placing him somewhere on the line from super creepy to genuinely dangerous).
He’s probably only super creepy, but it’s a quickly sliding scale.
As to what you should do — I dunno. He knows where you live, so that increases risk, so I understand not reporting him. Lyft would like you to report him, but Lyft doesn’t have to deal with that risk.
Maybe wait long enough that he likely doesn’t remember exactly where you live, and then report him? Presumably Lyft will not let him look up your address.
@MarkedMan: But you said it first …
@Slugger:
The opportunity for grandstanding is exactly “the why,” so yes, you do understand.
On your other point, I think you’re 100% wrong and 180 degrees off course. Dr. Fauci could not perform a better or more important service to Republicans and Trump than to take the 5th in response to every question. I know it would please you, but what direction will Faux News, OANN, NewsMax, and FTFNYT run with the story? Fauci decided that risking being stranded at the intersection of Damned if You Do and Damned if You Don’t was more fulfilling than retiring. Where he is now is the price for that choice.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I’ve a relative who did something like that in the late 90s. it was some kind of free online lotto. He didn’t expect to be acquired by MS, but by someone, anyone. This didn’t happen.
Some years ago, Caesars began to offer a 24 hour buffet pass. You paid some money, I forget how much, and could visit the buffet at any Caesars property as many times as you wanted for the next 24 hours. There were exceptions, namely the two buffets at the Rio (which I think was sold off some time ago).
I tried it back in 2009 or 2010. I think I paid for 2 or 3 days. When I wrote about it in a gambling message board, I got some questions like “did you gamble much at Caesars’s properties?” Honestly, it never entered my mind to do so. But the purpose of the pass was to get people to visit Caesars properties, and play or shop there after eating.
I’ve no idea if it worked or not. over the years, I gathered prices were increased The Rio buffets and the new Bacchanal buffet at Caesars Palace were added for a hefty surcharge. At some point, the whole thing was discontinued.
@Beth:
I have tried many times, over many years to get women I knew to understand that men can be dangerous and they need to put more effort into PerSec. (Personal Security). Sometimes women are less aware of potential threats than men are. Denial? I’m 6’2″, 210, and appear more fit than I actually am, but I still keep an eye out and watch my back.
Yes, report it to Lyft.
@Rick DeMent: The “I don’t care as long as my taxes are cut” faction is the one with the money, so their choice will prevail. As to MAGA, my take is that MAGA permeates all the cohorts rather than being a discrete and monolithic bloc, but I could be mistaking what I’m seeing. As to a guess for which cohort joins with “I don’t care…” my guess goes to the evangelicals given that they may well be the second richest cohort (as well as being significantly represented in “I don’t care…”) and the taste of power they’ve had recently will invigorate them. Whether this union will dispatch the GOP to “the kids table” as you suggest may depend on what significant sized cohort will be strong enough to replace them in the duopoly. I’m not inclined to think that this event is a “Hoover destroying the GOP for a generation” type event, but, again, I don’t follow this crap enough anymore, and I may be (hopefully) wrong.
@Paul L.:
Fixed it for ya. Voters got rid of Convicted Felon Trump in 2020 in part because he’s an Epstein-bestie pervert, a rapist yahoo, and pedo-adjacent thug who admitted wanting his own daughter. Gross.
But a New York jury convicted Trump of deliberate and willful falsification of businesses record, made a felony by Trump doing so to defraud New York voters and misrepresent a $130,000 campaign gift — a hush money payment to a former mistress.
$130,000 is a lot of money. Obviously, it breaks campaign law to launder a donation of that size.
Go full Lois Lerner!!1!!
Convicted felon private citizen Donald Trump took the 5th over 400 times during a deposition with the office of New York Attorney General Tish James in August of 2022.
Source
@Paul L.:
Because through his attorneys Convicted Felon Trump repeatedly lied to court and jury about the encounter with Stormy Daniels. The prosecution therefore needed to establish her credibility with her detailed recollection.
A better defense strategy would concede the encounter happened, and downplay it. Trump’s pathological lying hurt his defense:
One, juries do not like being so blatantly lied to.
Two, Trump’s ongoing insistence on lying about this adultery shows his dedication to the coverup, thus lending plausibility to the prosecution’s theory of his motive.
Trump’s dishonesty helped destroy his defense’s credibility. But his dumb cultists will continue to blame everyone except Trump for Trump’s self-owns.
This is not the worse crime ever, but it’s also not a minor crime. A candidate laundering a $130,000 campaign contribution would be a big deal even if he were a Boy Scout and an upstanding family man. Of course, a good guy would probably not commit such a crime.
Megyn Kelly exhibits how to
debate mainstream media talking pointsconduct kangaroo court regarding Trump’s verdict:@DK: …even if he were a Boy Scout…
Yeah, well, he would have been but his charity didn’t have the money to pay his fees.
@Mister Bluster: I see it more as “Megan Kelly demonstrates the difference between an argument and a quarrel while Paul L. continues to conflate the two types of discourse.”
@JKB:
As someone who was at Philly Pride yesterday, we were far more inconvenienced by the garbage trucks they had to wall off the area with to keep some MAGA guy from driving a car through the festival than by a small crowd hanging out in one corner waving signs.
But obviously you’ll believe literally any crazy fairy tale you read on the internet, because you’re a rube.
@Paul L.:
You execrable fuck face. You unmitigated disgusting shit bag. You are an absolute danger to women. I feel sorry for all those around you.
Thank you for bringing me a level of clarity I needed you fucking tumor.
@DK:
Three: Trump’s attorneys never actually objected to Stormy Daniel’s testimony, so the judge had no basis for cutting it off:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/09/politics/judge-merchan-calls-out-trump-attorneys-mistrial/index.html
@Slugger: I don’t credit the Rs in Congress for being able to pull off Moriarty-level complex plots, but I do think they were trying to distract from any discussion of Trump’s responsibility for bungling the pandemic response.
Quite simply because his lawyers said it never happened. Once they based part of their defense on that, they opened themselves to exactly that testimony. As to her going into details that even the judge was a little uncomfortable with, it was trump’s lawyers job to object. The judge is not there to defend trump.
trump either had shitty lawyers or he was a shitty client who told them what to do and how to do it. I’m pretty gawddamned sure which it was. And unless you are an idiot, so are you.
@DK: Don’t forget Pecker’s catch and kill campaign contribution.
The jury disagreed. And unlike you, it was their decision to make. And they decided trump’s defense was not credible.
You know the best part about trump’s conviction?
He could have paid off Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal and done it in a perfectly legal way and never been brought up on the 34 felonies he was found guilty of. But he’s a cheapskate SOB who wanted the business write offs and a coward who was afraid people would learn the truth about him.
He nailed himself to this cross.
@OzarkHillbilly:
As the Vorlons like to say: yes.
@OzarkHillbilly:
He could also have repaid Cohen without trying to pass it off as “legal expenses.” But then he wouldn’t have been able to deduct it from his taxes.
I wonder if the IRS should go after that as well. They’re clearly owed some money.
@Paul L.:
#MeToo is irrelevant. This case was about Trump’s willful falsification of business records to illegally launder a $130,000 campaign contribution.
Vis a vis their sexual encounter, Stormy Daniels is more credible than patholgical liar Trump. She detailed it intimately and thoroughly. Yet Trump forced his attorneys to repeatedly lie to the court, denying it. Your inability hold Trump accountable for that dumb choice speaks to your lack of credibility.
Convicted Felon Trump is a liar, thug, traitor, pervert, and crybaby who repeatedly made gross comments about wanting sex was underage daughter, and who incited the Jan 6 terror attack rather than accept he lost due to his failed presidency of hate, division, chaos, mass death, and record job loss.
So Trump has no credibility. Neither do you who blindly make excuses for everything Trump does and says instead of blaming him for his own poor choices.
@Paul L.:
The implication being that Paul L. thinks a woman’s right to be free of sexual violence is contingent on her willingness to abide by Paul L.’s behavioral demands
I suspect the IRS is loathe to delve into that black hole of corruption for fear they might never see the light of day again.
@Stormy Dragon: It’s easy to say that when you have no women in your life. Even if he does tho, I wonder how he can be so sure of their sex lives? Does he have them under 24/7 surveillance? Does he do weekly genital inspections? Daily?
Sounds perverted to me.
@Paul L. (via @Beth): Look, we get that you will always and forever be unmoved at the danger others believe Trump to represent and that you have no understanding whatsoever about how amazingly, completely, and profoundly incompetent to the task he was and remains to this day. On the other hand, I’m not sure that you get how divisive your views are–or that you even care about it, for that matter. Still in all, I think it would be an act of humanity on the part of the hosts of this site to ban you from posting here as Paul L. and force you to go to the effort of opening another email address that you would need to maintain so that you could come back to posting here using another sock puppet pseudo identity. For my take, I think you’d find posting your inane manifestos at some more receptive site, Truth Social comes to mind, more rewarding than coming here to be verbally abused without anybody else giving a gawdam about it happening. (For example, Beth’s outburst just a while ago probably violated some–if not all–of the policies governing user comments, but no one cares and we will all laugh about it and tease you if you complain. We’ve done it before.)
But, as your (probably only) friend Matt B. would say, you be you. Stay for the abuse if it tinkles your bells, and take to heart that this may be the only message you ever get from me where I’m not trolling you* (well, mostly not anyway).
*Which is also a violation of comment policy that our hosts mostly ignore.
@MarkedMan:
I can only hope it wrecks his (already clearly disturbed) life. My fear is that it won’t.
I think trolls need to be addressed in their native language. I’ll give it a try.
Andrew McCarthy, who writes at the failing National Review, is a very stupid man. A very bad person. You know that, I know that, Paul L knows that.
Trump fucked a porn star. Everyone knows that. Mike Johnson knows that, Fox News knows that, everybody knows that. Bad. Very bad.
Etc, etc, etc.
@OzarkHillbilly: He actually could have done it legally and secretly with shell corporations, so it boils down to, “because he’s a cheapskate”. And a moron.
@Beth: A Gustopher suggested, you could wait a couple days. But please report it, for the sake of others if not yourself.
Lyft probably won’t ask why you took a couple days to report, but if you feel it is needed you can just say you were afraid of retribution. They will understand if they’re even halfway competent, and furthermore should hide identifying details in the complaint from the driver.
Sorry this happened to you; I can’t imagine how scary it was. Good luck and peace to you.
Video of lawyers explaining Convicted Felon Orangefuhrer’s NY state trial.
Little I didn’t know, but succinctly presented and with more references to documentary evidence than you get in most other media. At around 22:40, there’s a critique of Orangefuhrer’s lawyers.
I don’t expect this would work with any of our trolls. But if I find a similar video with animation of talking animals and/or using sock puppets, I’ll link to it.
@Paul L.:
No need. Weinstein and Franken also have nothing to do with Convicted Felon Trump falsifying business records to launder a $130,000 campaign contribution.
No, #MeToo is a grassroots social movement, not a Democratic Party invention. Since #MeToo emerged, Democrats booted MAGA from the White House, flipped the Senate, and built a fairly strong win streak elsewhere.
The rest of us don’t care that Republican voters don’t care. I get that today’s imposter conservatives have adopted Trump’s infantile narcissism, but the world doesn’t revolve around tantruming rightwing crybabies.
Because Trump’s attorneys didn’t call on her?
The defendant’s lawbreaking was established via a robust paper trail + witnesses — assisted also by unwise defense tactics exposed to the jury, in real time, the Trump’s enthusiasm for lies and coverup.
@Paul L.:
She wasn’t called on. Documentation amd the other witnesses established Convicted Felon Trump’s guilt.
Trump was tried by the state of New York. Please state the campaign finance rule that makes it legal to lie about the true nature of a $130,000 campaign-related payment, falsifying business records to do so.
Any complaint about “why didn’t X testify?” can easily be answered with, “Because the defense didn’t call X”. If the defense thinks witness X’s testimony would help Trump, then they should have called them. There are two possible conclusions, that I see:
1. X’s testimony would not, in fact, likely help Trump, or
2. Trump’s lawyers were incompetent.
It is not the prosecution’s job to call every witness. Just the ones that make their case the strongest. Helping the defendant is the defense’s job.