Post-SC Primary Open Forum

Hot takes for a Sunday morning.

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. Bill says:

    In the last three days I’ve gotten three junk mails (I automatically toss all political mail in the garbage) from Mike Bloomberg plus my Republican registered wife got a text message asking if he can count on her vote.

    Thank you nomorobo or otherwise the political phone calls would be pouring into my landline for the next few weeks.

    1
  2. OzarkHillbilly says:

    I think they have Biden severely miscast but a good chuckle anyway.

    inspirepragmatism

    Ok y’all
    Iowa: A new Hope
    Nevada: The Empire Strikes Back
    South Carolina: Return of the Jedi

  3. OzarkHillbilly says:

    John Harwood
    @JohnJHarwood
    for those keeping score, change in Dow Jones Industrial Average from the day they were inaugurated into the presidency through Feb 28 of their 4th year in office:

    Trump +28%
    Obama +63%

    If some intrepid reporter was looking to get banned from the White House all they’d have to do is cite this sort of, kind of, apples and oranges comparison.

    1
  4. OzarkHillbilly says:

    trump would probably blow an aneurysm at this tweet:

    SpartansRUs
    @ScoutMacKenzie2
    Replying to
    @JohnJHarwood

    Top 8 Largest Drops in Dow Jones American History:

    (the “American” is kind of redundant, is it not? or did England or France or Singapore or Hong Kong have a DJIA too?)

  5. OzarkHillbilly says:

    BlueVotr #ConvictTrump
    @BlueVotr
    Replying to
    @JohnJHarwood
    #MarketCrash2020
    #TrumpVirus

    Dow Jones the last 6 market days:

    -357 2/28/20
    -1,191 2/27/20
    -124 2/26/20
    -880 2/25/20
    -1,032 2/24/20
    -228 2/21/20

    Total: -3812

    There is always a tweet:

    cookie brit
    @cookiebrit

    Replying to
    @BlueVotr
    and
    @JohnJHarwood

    donald j trump
    @realdonaldtrump

    If the Dow drops 1,000 points in two days the president should be impeached immediately!

    ETA I might be having too much fun with that thread but what the hey,

  6. mattbernius says:

    The more I think about yesterday’s Covid press conference at the White House, the worse I think it was. The reality is now that testing is increasingly available, the more chance their is we’re about to have an “explosion” in diagnosis.

    That isn’t a bad thing in so much as it makes things easier to control. But pretending that isn’t a high possibility isn’t a good strategy. An administration with deep credibility issues, after trying to cling to a best case scenario, is going to have real problems calming to a country when infection numbers start climbing rapidly.

  7. Kathy says:

    Is it just me, or did 60 days of the new year already ticked by?

  8. CSK says:

    @Kathy:
    It’s both of us. have to pause before I date checks.

  9. Mister Bluster says:

    60 days

    In 1973 when I was in Telephone School I was taught that we had to build the copper cable splices that we made to last 20 years. At the time I was 25 and 1993 seemed far into the future.
    Today I am 72 and retired.
    1993 is 27 years ago. I can drive down the road in places and see my work still there up on the telephone poles I was climbing almost 50 years ago.
    It ain’t the Pyramids but it makes me think I did something right.

    4
  10. Kathy says:

    Checks? 😉

    Ok. I do get most of my company reimbursements by check. And I recall writing a check to the insurance company a few years ago.

  11. Kathy says:

    I’m currently reading “Chasing the Scream” by Johann Hari, about the war on drugs.

    I want to check some of his information about the availability of heroine and cocaine in the late XIX and Early XX centuries, as well as how the Harrison Act and the Bureau of Narcotics affected law enforcement, as well as the motives, and actions, of his prime move, Harry Anslinger at the Bureau of Narcotics.

    But his analysis, thus far, of the violent effects of prohibition (drug prohibition if you prefer), are spot on.

    Caveat, there is a great deal of detailed descriptions of addicts, beatings, deaths (some beyond horrible), and racism.

    My take hasn’t changed: it’s not beneficial to do drugs, but a lot of people who do would manage better under a legal drug regime, and most of the violence associated with drugs would simply vanish.

    One interesting bit Hari brings up is that when drug dealers get busted and jailed, the amount of drugs dealt doesn’t go down. This is unlike any other crime. But the answer is obvious: no one pays people to rape or murder. Drug dealers are paid for dealing drugs. So if some go away to prison, others will seize on the open opportunities, and nothing really changes.

    We also see this involving countries. Chase the drug traffickers out of Colombia, and the Mexican cartels will step up.

  12. Mister Bluster says:

    @CSK:..I date checks

    Me too! Back in the ’70s. Her name was Emi. Short for Emina. She was born in Czechoslovakia in the early ’50s and her family was able to relocate to the United States when she was young.

    1
  13. Teve says:

    Matthew Yglesias
    @mattyglesias
    ·
    2h
    Let’s have high taxes & a big welfare state.

    That’s socialism!

    OK, I’m a socialist.

    Like Stalin?

    No like Denmark.

    Nordics aren’t socialist they’re market economies with high taxes & a big welfare state.

    OK let’s have high taxes & a big welfare state.

    Socialist!

  14. Mikey says:
  15. CSK says:

    @Mister Bluster:
    And did you bounce that Czech after a while?

    1
  16. Bill says:

    I have been to the Czech Republic.

  17. Tyrell says:

    Biden says that he will let the people keep their insurance plans. That sounds good to me.
    “If you like your health plan you can keep it”

    1
  18. Moosebreath says:

    @CSK:

    “And did you bounce that Czech after a while?”

    No, she hid from him. He was good at caching a Czech.

  19. CSK says:

    @Moosebreath:
    She’s lucky he didn’t cancel her.