Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, April 10, 2021
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43 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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Yesterday a dolt on Facebook was praising the confederacy because “that’s our Southern Heritage” and “they were fighting to be free of tyranny from Northern Carpetbaggers” (his profile photo featured Donald Trump, who I presume was born in Tuscaloosa Alabama) and I remarked that Nazis are a part of German heritage but only racist dipshits go around celebrating them. This morning I awoke to a response from one Kristi Mashburn, who said
I shall not be engaging Kristi in a discussion. I think instead I’ll be browsing the issue of Vanity Fair which just arrived.
@Teve:
Ironic, isn’t it, that the epitome of a loud, brash, vulgar New Yorker should have become such an icon to southerners (or sympathizers) such as Kristi Mashburn, who otherwise despise anyone from the north and especially from one of the five boroughs.
It’s even more ironic that they’ll never know how deeply Trump despises them because they’re not of the Manhattan haut monde, which he’s always wanted to be more than anything else.
@CSK: other people made similar comments to mine, and Kristi has devastated our arguments by telling us “you need to read a history book.”
I fear my self-confidence may never recover.
@Teve:
You could tell Ms. Mashburn to read the Declaration of the Secession of South Carolina, which makes it eminently clear that the only state’s right SC was interested in preserving was the right to keep slaves.
I’m deeply sick of these ignoramus revisionists.
@CSK: the Secession Statements are really hard to dispute, aren’t they?
@Teve:
I would think virtually impossible.
Fascinating:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/inside-egypt-s-3-000-lost-golden-city-n1263585
Speaking of Egypt, the restored tomb of Queen Nefertari. A reminder that the Egyptians, like the Greeks, painted their statues and temples.
LOL Paul Rudnick said Lauren Boebert needs a gun in case that person in the mirror calls her stupid.
Slate (which is apparently a pay site now?)
Trump will be delivering the keynote address at the annual RNC spring donor bash this weekend. Conveniently for him, it will be held near Mar-a-Lago.
Max Boot says that the GOP can’t be saved and center-right voters in the GOP need to be one “Biden Republicans”
https://www-washingtonpost-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/07/gop-cant-be-saved-center-right-voters-need-become-biden-republicans/?amp_js_v=a6&_gsa=1&outputType=amp&usqp=mq331AQHKAFQArABIA%3D%3D#aoh=16180771544846&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fopinions%2F2021%2F04%2F07%2Fgop-cant-be-saved-center-right-voters-need-become-biden-republicans%2F
@Teve:
Hundreds of Jews served in Hitler’s army, some as high-ranking officers. I wonder if Ms. Mashburn thinks this is an important fact.
@Teve: @CSK: Do remember that in the minds (or lack thereof) of the Kristi Mashburns of the world that there’s no particular connection between racism, slavery, and the proto-Christian apologia that allowed Southerners to proclaim that blacks were an inferior race ordained by God to live a slaves.
And yes, that level of cognitive dissonance IS breathtaking.
For a long time Max Boot was an apologist for the GOP. He still portrays the rot as a recent aberration, instead of a 5-decade progression. But it looks like he’s not immune to reason:
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Staggering.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Kristi has left the discussion and been replaced with some brainless chump saying things like “Yall need to learn what it was really about cuase yall believe them liberal professors who wanna act like it was slavery and it weren’t about that at all…” and I Peaced Out hours ago. 😛
@DrDaveT: Yes, it’s most likely that she does. Cognitive dissonance and all that.
@Teve: Continuing on the cognitive dissonance theme, there’s no such thing as “peaceful” protesters. All protests are forged in the furnaces of violence and Satanic evil, merely waiting their opportunity to erupt in a frenzy of violence against the innocent.
And before you even start, Teve Tory, let me note that the event of 1/6 wasn’t even a protest. It was the patriotic citizens of a great nation rising up in anguish at the injustice of a system perverting democracy and threatening our great country. Rising in unison to try to save this great nation.
And they’d have succeeded, too, if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids.(Oops, accidentally pasted something from another script. My bad. 🙁 )
Proud Boys and other far-right groups raise millions via Christian funding site
It’s the Christian thing to do, right?
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
And also, too, it was violent and deadly because it was really Antifa in a False Flag operation to discredit Patriots, and Real American Trump supporters weren’t within 100 miles of the place.
@OzarkHillbilly: I’ve got half a mind to start the 6 Percenters* and start fundraising to save America from the Globalist Soros One-World Yamulke-wearing WINK WINK FEMINAZI HILLARY BENGHAZI SECOND AMENDMENT UN SOY BOY SODOMITE LIBTARD ANTIFA PAJAMA HUGO CHAVEZ DOMINION…uh..where am I?
*our motto: why give money to the 3%ers when we’re twice as powerful!
@CSK:
On the topic of secessionists, Allen West:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/09/politics/allen-west-texas-kfile/index.html
A black man urging southerners to secede takes the biscuit.
JEN PSAKI STUFFS FOX NEWS’ PETER DOOCY IN METAPHORICAL LOCKER DURING WHITE HOUSE PRESS BRIEFING
LOL
Holy Fork.
I’m at a loss for words.
@Teve: I’m not:
Dear Matt Gaetz: You are a dumb f*ck whiney ass rich boy who had the skids greased your entire life and was never taught how to treat a lady. Canceled? I wish. Hear? Hell’s Bells boy, how can you hear when you won’t STFU? But you won’t STFU because you know if you do you will be forgotten, canceled, ignored, marginalized and not even bothered to be targeted. You wrap yourself in victimhood as tho it were a kings robe: “Oh woe is me….” gack.. ack… gag me with a spoon.
That silent majority you hear is a chorus of one. You, and we just wish you really would stfu.
via Anne Laurie at Balloon Juice, Tom Lehrer turned 93 yesterday: He was/is the greatest musical satirist of all time (until a better one comes along)
One funny mf’er.
@Teve:
“Pity Matt Gaetz ain’t…” (murmured Matt Gaetz’s lawyer).
@Teve: Yeah. That was what I meant to write, but I clicked the wrong sentence in my stock list. 😉
@OzarkHillbilly: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=I%27ll+hold+your+hand+in+mine&view=detail&mid=A995759AE87D6F5AA947A995759AE87D6F5AA947&FORM=VIRE0&ru=%2fsearch%3fq%3dI%2527ll%2bhold%2byour%2bhand%2bin%2bmine%26cvid%3dff3d93e79dae42b9965aecf2cfb14ee4%26aqs%3dedge..69i57.22567j0j1%26pglt%3d299%26FORM%3dANNTA1%26PC%3dHCTS
I sang this at a “talent show” party held by (and at the suggestion of) the woman I met in graduate school that I eventually married (and divorced several years later, oh well). A relatively young tenure track professor and his wife had been invited, too. Professor to be loved the song, his wife looked at me like I was an ax murderer while I was singing it.
I used to play Tom Lehrer songs as background music at parties I threw, too. It was fun watching people’s expressions as they realized the songs weren’t what they sounded like.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I wonder if “Proud Boys” in American usage has anything like the snigger-inducing connotations it has in Britspeak?
“I’m a Proud Boy!”
*entire pub collapses in helpless laughter*
@JohnSF: Not when a Proud Pus… I mean, Boy says it.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: My old man loved Tom Lehrer and had every one of his albums so I came by my love of him honestly. I play him from time to time and my Spanish born wife always gives me a bit of a queer look when I do.
What can I say, English was her 4th language and I think that’s why she just doesn’t quite get it.
PS: I am seriously jealous of your piano talents. I think I’d have gotten laid a lot more if I could have played Tom Lehrer.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: I had forgotten all about the Masochism Tango.
@Teve:
Joe Biden gives side-eye: “C’mon, man.”
The U.S. did 4.6 million vaccinations today if what I’m reading is correct.
@OzarkHillbilly:
When VITAS, the hospice company he founded, was sued by DOJ for filing false Medicare claims, Don Gaetz publicly said that the suit was for action taken by the company after he sold it.
He sold VITAS in 2004, but the suit alleged that the activities under investigation go back to “at least 2002.” Call me cynical, but if the fraud indeed started in 2002, it’s not difficult to see it as his company committing fraud to inflate the value of the company before sale and him being able to distance himself from wrongdoing in the future.
Florida sure loves their politicians who make a habit of defrauding Medicare.
Matt Gaetz, one of the people most likely to invoke “the swamp” is, quite plainly, a creature of said swamp. The whole family, as a low-rent political dynasty, is the epitome of the stated fears of their most loyal defenders.
Williamson should be careful what he wishes for when he advocates “better voters.” The dumbest, least informed ones seem more likely to vote the same way he does.
@Kurtz: If he really wants to require a civics test, I’m down. I suspect most anybody who’s recently become a US citizen knows more than some so-called “Real Americans™”.
@Jax: if we want to bias voting strongly away from conservatives, all we have to do is give them a one question test. Name the recent law that protects your medical privacy. Everybody who spells it HIPPA is disqualified. Boom. In 2024 Kamala Harris wins the Presidency with 538 Electoral College votes.
DJ TJ appears to be smashed in this video
@Teve: I recognize that slit-eyed look. It’s part lizard and part drunk/on drugs.
Little shout-out to DMX…Trump’s gonna make me lose my mind, up in here, up in here.
The less we link them, the less they make. 😉