Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
·
Saturday, November 14, 2020
·
66 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).
Follow Steven on
Twitter
linky
Nov. 1: 76,771
Nov. 2: 86,589
Nov. 3: 91,910
Nov. 4: 104,296
Nov. 5: 121,289
Nov. 6: 126,731
Nov. 7: 125,100
Nov. 8: 109,177
Nov. 9: 133,819
Nov. 10: 131,990
Nov. 11: 148,302
Nov. 12: 170,473
Nov. 13: 183,527
So. Much. Winning.
Just. Wait. For. The. Dying.
@Teve: That’s actually a real tweet from the President?
@Teve:
I’m guessing his supporters are now chanting:
“Count all the ILLEGAL votes!”
Kansas is leading the nation!
Norton County, Kansas has 995 confirmed cases of covid, which means that, based on the 2019 population estimates, 18.6% of the population have or have had covid.
Gove County, Kansas has 19 confirmed covid deaths, which means that 0.7% of the county population have died from covid.
Your Computer Isn’t Yours [If You Own a Mac, That Is]:
Perhaps this famous ad was prescient, but not in the way intended.
@sam: When you first sign on to a new Mac, or after a major upgrade to the OS, you are asked if you want to share debug info with Apple. Could this be part of that?
I read that, going forward, all of the Trump campaign’s fraud claims and lawsuits are to be consolidated and centrally directed by the firm of Nasty, Brutish and Incompetent, R. Giuliani, Senior Partner.
@MarkedMan:
I dunno. The article goes into more detail, but my takeway was that all this stuff is unstoppable by the user.
‘No One Is Listening to Us’
More people than ever are hospitalized with COVID-19. Health-care workers can’t go on like this.
@sam:
Oh, he left Robbem Cheatem and Howe?
An incredible display of collective irresponsibility from the parents of high school students in Rolla, MO.
The whole piece is full of nonsense like this:
We are not ever going to get a handle on this, it seems.
@Kathy:
Back in the day, Tom and Ray Magliozzi had a radio show on NPR out of Boston called Car Talk (hosted by Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers). The show was a gem. Tom and Ray had an office in Harvard Square, above a bank. On the window of the office was a law-office looking sign saying, “Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe.”
@Jen: Rolla is the home of the Missouri University of Science and Technology. It’s a pretty good school, ranked pretty high by many, but the stupidity runs deep in that part of the Ozarks.
@sam: I listened to those guys every week, frickin hilarious. So sad when Tom developed Alzheimer’s.
@sam: @Kathy: @sam: @OzarkHillbilly:
How about: Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish, and Short?
@sam: Click and Clack reruns Saturday mornings on NPR in my area. The show is timeless. I can’t recall any mention of current events between the bros, so it has stayed pretty fresh.
@OzarkHillbilly:
A grad school flatmate of mine, visiting me in Cambridge from South Carolina, made a special pilgrimage to the Good News Garage.
‘People got involved’: how Los Angeles progressives swept the election
@CSK: Sounds like something I’d do.
Can somebody explain to me why I don’t like Charles Pierce’s writing style?
@Jen:
This kind of imbecility started at the top. Trump set the tone, he gave these deadly false opinions legitimacy. And his utterly insane refusal to concede an election he has clearly lost and begin the transition to the Biden administration is going to cost even more lives. It’s enraging.
I’m preaching to the choir, I know. But expressing my anger helps keep it from causing ulcers.
@Teve:
Because he’s full of himself?
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m going into cuteness overload.
@CSK: A while back I thought to myself, I wonder why I don’t like Charles Pierce’s writing style? And my first thought was I should read about five or 10 of his columns to find out what it is that I don’t like, then I thought no, no I don’t need to do that. 😀
I have frequently driven by the offices of Abbot, Stringham and Lynch. Unfortunately, they are accountants, not lawyers.
So what happened in Miami-Dade?
https://www.thedailybeast.com/i-covered-congressional-races-in-florida-in-2018-and-boy-do-i-know-why-trump-won-the-state-in-2020
It continues on from there, the amount of disorganization, cluelessness and smug arrogance explains these seats going R pretty well.
OTOH, he found the R campaigns pretty helpful and courteous.
@PJ:
We’re marching toward herd immunity.
@charon:
Following both the 16 & 18 elections, there were numerous stories about how incompetent the FL Dem party organization was. For 20, nothing changed except the party was more defenseless than usual in allowing Rs to define them.
Trump’s supporters are gathering for their MAGA march today at noon. Meanwhile, Trump is going golfing.
He did wave to a couple hundred of his fans while his motorcade went past them on the way to the course in Loudon County.
Interesting analysis of the “media” pandering to the MAGA conspiracy crowd on the right.
Honestly, I don’t know how we manage to drag these individuals back to reality. They’re immediate suckers for anyone who tells them what they want to hear.
@Sleeping Dog:
Apparently the national DNC got on the case also. After many paragraphs of horror stories, this:
@charon:
That was, though, 2018. Then:
@charon: The Florida Democratic Party is incompetent and has been for years here. In not sure how Party Structure works but with Floridas importance in Federal Elections Im surprised there isn’t a mechanism for the National Democratic Party to hire some outside talent to come in and unscrew Florida Dems. The Florida Republic Party is simply more talented than the Democratic Party here.
@Sleeping Dog: Damn you beat me to it..Lol
But yes, they run poor candidates and have dumb messages. For some reason, Florida Democrats think they can run on the most Progressive message allowable for Statewide elections.
Instead of accepting the electorate they have and running Blue Dogs, the run AOC-like candidates for the electorate they wish they had and continue to lose.
@charon: I voted for Gillum but didn’t think he was a great candidate. The last several Statewide elections here proves my point that Turnout politics has a natural end and Persuasion has to enter the equation.
Democrats here are still preaching to the choir in the largest media markets and ignoring everywhere else. Meanwhile, Republicans here are working to steal margin from Democrats in those media markets and making up the difference with overwhelming victory is rural counties and the retirement towns.
Until Democrats alter their strategy to spent time in Northwest, Southwest, Melbourne, Ocala and West Palm with a winning message…they will continue to lose.
@Jim Brown 32: Honestly, it sounds like just running a competent campaign at the level a student council level would be a general step in the right direction, and that’s not even getting to finding a good candidate or finding the right agenda. Honestly, I’m surprised they can win as often as they do in Florida.
And from what Rick Wilson says, the Florida Republican party is one of the best in the country, so it’s like a High School Junior Varsity football team going head to head with a pro team.
Okay. This time the pandemic has gone too far.
There are no mason jars to be found in my entire city!
I’m cooking down tomatoes (30+ lbs) for my New Years Chili Feast* and wanted quart jars instead of the pints I have. I’m on my second round of 8 pints in the pressure canner, and I still have more left to do. Fortunately I had lids in the pantry.
* I’ve been doing a New Years Day Chili Feast for 23 years (including in China!). I’ve got a month and a half to figure out ways to do it in a safe way this year. I’ll definitely be doing some sort of “porch pick-up”, just need to work out the details.
@Mu Yixiao: That’s been the story since spring. Just finding caps has been impossible. Same story with chickens. Getting new layers last spring turned into an ordeal. Buying feed has been hit and miss all year. Waterers, feeders, anything chicken related has been in shortage. Covid freaked people out and a whole bunch went “back to the earth”.
On the upside, come spring I’ll bet there will be a boom of canning supplies and chicken stuff on the 2nd hand market. I might finally dive into Beekeeping.
@Jim Brown 32:
Well, you have to get up pretty early to beat JB32. And thanks for verifying my hearsay.
@Mike in Arlington: They got a crook and imbecile like Rick Scott elected Governor twice and (so far) once as a Senator. We don’t even need to talk about “Tweedle” DeSantis. Yes, the Florida Repub Machine here is pretty good–despite the fact that Florida Dems make it pretty easy for them.
@Sleeping Dog:
Looks a lot like a cliff to me.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I knew that baking and cooking were seeing a big up-tick, but I didn’t think canning would be a part of that. Only old people can food. Young people freeze it.
And for the shortage to last this long? You’d think Ball and Kerr would be ramping up production big-time.
Fortunately, I have a lot of jars. And if I really wanted more (or quarts, mine are all pints), I could get them from my mom. I don’t think she’s doing any canning now that she no longer has a garden*. Lids are going to be the problem.
Fortunately, it looks like Amazon has them at reasonable prices.
* At 85 she decided that tending a garden was “just a bit too much work”. 🙂 Gotta love that woman.
@CSK:
Trump had an adoring crowd right in front of him and he decided to go golfing instead?? The towel has been thrown.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-sore-loser/2020/11/14/b6c58500-2375-11eb-a688-5298ad5d580a_story.html
Moscow Mitch’s actions regarding McSally refusing to concede to Kelly will be interesting. Since McSally was appointed to fill in for McCain, she should relinquish the seat and allow Kelly to take over when the Senate returns to session. The Senate is the final arbiter of who it will seat and when, it is possible the Moscow can choose to play hardball and force the caucus to not seat Kelly.
@dazedandconfused:
That’s what I think. Of course, it could mean that he’s so contemptuous of his fans that he can afford to dismiss them with a wave and a smile.
Maybe it means both.
@Sleeping Dog:
But IIRC same applies to the House.
How would McConnell take to Pelosi blocking the seating of Republican Representatives?
@dazedandconfused: More important than a MAGA gathering is that Trump is not participating in the ASEAN conference. He hasn’t attended since 2017. Heads of state usually attend-except for Trump. This year the meeting is virtual which should make it easy. Of course, a round of golf is more important than building relations with Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations in our efforts to restrain Beijing’s influence in that region.
@Slugger:
Bloody typical.
Trump spouts rhetoric about China, but pulls out of the TPP which was crafted to create an economic constraint on Beijing; and also downgrades Obama admin’s efforts re. internationasl financial transparency which could limit the Beijing pattern of “belt and road” loan term/bribery of elites.
Biden’s appointees at State are going to have a mountain of work ahead of them.
Not gonna be a job for the lazy!
@JohnSF:
Because McSally was appointed, Kelly should be seated promptly. The regular terms for the rest of Congress all start in January, so this does not apply to Pelosi in the House.
You would think, but apparently not. I’ve always used wide mouthed jars and after a month of not finding lids I finally gave up and bought 48 narrow mouthed pints for my beans,pickles, salsa and tomato sauce, and considered myself lucky to find them.
Hats off to your Mom. I doubt I’ll make it to 85 at all much less still gardening, tho I hope I have the energy for a few tomato plants in my doddering years.
@JohnSF: It does. The House and Senate are the judges of their elections.
@Teve:
No. I can’t. Pierce is indispensable.
@becca:
And remember: “Where there’s smoke, there’s a Saab.”
@OzarkHillbilly: People around here had so much trouble getting baby chicks, I decided I’m going to go into the hatching business. Cackle accidentally sent me a GORGEOUS Speckled Sussex rooster we’ve named Seymour, so I plan to pimp his ass out next spring. I’m lucky enough to have two chicken coops (only one is winter-insulated), so I’ll give him some hens in April/May and let him do his job. 😉
@Jax: Cackle always sends me an extra bird or 3. Sometimes I even get lucky. 😉 One year they sent me a rooster that looked like no breed I could find anywhere on the net. A beautiful bird but definitely a mistake of some kind. I started off calling him Brave Sir Robin because, well… It fit. But once he started crowing he sounded just like Bruce Lee throwing a punch, so that became his name.
Sadly he met his end when a weasel got into my coop. So did a half dozen other birds.
@Slugger:
I expected Trump to abandon all duties the moment he accepts he’s lost the election. The man is utterly self-absorbed. I would not be at all surprised if he fails to pardon the turkey this year.
@grumpy realist: We probably don’t drag these people back to reality. What we’re experiencing may be what cultural entropy looks like.
@Mu Yixiao: In the places I’ve lived–where canning/preserving was a thing at all–there was basically a “mason jar season” of about 3 or 4 weeks where inventories were strong and jars sold quickly. Lids were more available throughout the year, but jars were always a buy-them-when-you-see-them thing.
Washington State has an inventory tax though, so things that have only seasonal saleability tend to not stay in the inventory of stores year round. Last thing you want when you have a year end tax audit is a pallet load of jars, lids, and rings that aren’t going to sell until next July or August. Even in the warehouse I worked in, we avoided bringing in any staple items except on a day-by-day basis from just before Thanksgiving until after New Year’s day.
A nearly empty warehouse was easier to inventory, too. 🙂
@Joe:
@JohnSF:
Joe has this right. Except for McSally, all other senators and reps are completing lame duck terms. Because McSally was appointed to fill in to the next scheduled election, she should be replaced by Kelly.
Vacancies in the House and Senate are handled differently. In general when a senate vacancy occurs, the governor of the effected state makes a temporary appointment that may last till the next scheduled election or till a special election can be held. A vacancy in the House is different. The seat remains empty till a special election is held. At times, that special has been only a couple of months before a scheduled general election.
@DrDaveT: My favorite Tappet brothers advice of all time was against taking a Citroen on a cross country tour no matter how much fun it was to drive. They advised against it because of the possibility that a tire would lose pressure and they’d discover “that American air won’t fit in it.”
@OzarkHillbilly: I was ordering chicks when the first word of COVID in Wuhan came in January, so I ordered extra. 55 or so of commercial, guaranteed layers, and then a few polish, because Polish chickens bring a smile to my face every day! Crazy Cackle Toppies, they called them.
Crazy, indeed. Batshit crazy, “makes kids never want to be around chickens again” kind of crazy. I ordered 10, 6 were banshee roosters. My 6th grader is the toughest “chicken whisperer” I’ve ever met, as soon as they started acting up she’s like “Sooooo, I turned Napoleon out into the corral yesterday, we’re gonna leave him locked out.” Then she’d bring me his head the next morning. “Well, that worked. I don’t know what’s eating them, but it saves having to shoot them.”
The only roosters left were Genghis Khan (Yes, we named all the polish after famous warriors) and Seymour. Genghis survived for over a month out by himself, all of the rest quickly succumbed to “survival of the fittest”. I finally had to put Genghis down, his ability to remember an ass kicking was limited to about 3 days, and his spurs were becoming dangerous.
Seymour is currently pimpin it with 95 hens. 🙂
No word from de Stijl yet? He’s a weekender, he should be on now.
How do I send help, on an anonymous internet forum? 🙁
@Jax: Polish chickens are hilarious! I’ll always wonder if they were breeding for those crazy mop tops or if it just a happy accident.
Ha! That’s exactly what we do with our problem roosters! We even have a word for it: “So and so got weaselized last night.” While I’ve caught coons in the hen house, and even a Cooper’s hawk once (literally in the coop, hanging on the screen of the back window with a look on his face that said, “Uh ooooohh…”) I can always tell when the weasel has done the deed. They take off the top of the head and drink the blood leaving the carcass for the maggots. The night s/he got into the coop and killed Bruce Lee and 5 or 6 others they left a bloody damned mess, drinking only the blood. The term “bloodthirsty” was coined because of them I think.
Seymour is living the dream.