Post-SC Primary Open Forum
Hot takes for a Sunday morning.
Steven L. Taylor
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Sunday, March 1, 2020
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19 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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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.
I think they have Biden severely miscast but a good chuckle anyway.
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.
trump would probably blow an aneurysm at this tweet:
(the “American” is kind of redundant, is it not? or did England or France or Singapore or Hong Kong have a DJIA too?)
There is always a tweet:
ETA I might be having too much fun with that thread but what the hey,
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.
Is it just me, or did 60 days of the new year already ticked by?
@Kathy:
It’s both of us. have to pause before I date checks.
…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.
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.
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.
@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.
Breaking: Buttigieg is out.
https://twitter.com/AP/status/1234256581535174656?s=20
@Mister Bluster:
And did you bounce that Czech after a while?
I have been to the Czech Republic.
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”
@CSK:
“And did you bounce that Czech after a while?”
No, she hid from him. He was good at caching a Czech.
@Moosebreath:
She’s lucky he didn’t cancel her.