Sunday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Sunday, September 27, 2020
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78 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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Trump’s public lands chief axed after court rules he was serving unlawfully
Surprise, surprise, surprise!
So yeah, quite a bit at stake here.
As if 2020 wasn’t already bad enough: Texas residents warned of tap water tainted with brain-eating microbe
There must be a special place in God’s heart for Texas.
The Florida headline of the day-
Woman stabs man in car, dies after being hit by truck on I-4 in Orange County, authorities say
Of particular interest to Jen and Sleeping Dog:
A Trump Superstore has opened in Salem, NH. You may purchase all things Trump there, including bobbleheads, which arrived yesterday afternoon.
A very interesting read: Harvard’s Chetty Finds Economic Carnage in Wealthiest ZIP Codes
Plenty more about what he is trying to do and how he is going about it in the story. Their website: Opportunity Insights.
@CSK: I’d buy some of the bobbleheads if I knew none of the money would get to him. I can think of dozens of uses for them.
@OzarkHillbilly: Great news, both for addressing the problem of acting heads of agencies, and the BLM.
@CSK:
The town motto of Salem is Gateway to the White Mountains. As kids we modified that to be either The Armpit of the White Mountains or The A$$hole to the White Mountains.
So it is no surprise that this store would open there.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I wouldn’t mind owning a bobblehead or two myself, but the owner says he’s making donations to the Trump campaign, so…I think I’ll eschew patronizing the enterprise.
@Kingdaddy: Yep, and of course, the trump admin is appealing.
@Sleeping Dog:
Have you seen Salem lately? Rockingham Park is completely gone, and something called The Tuscan Village is replacing it.
I have to say that the state liquor store, the three Market Baskets, and the original Tuscan Market are still worth a visit.
The Trump Pandemic
A blow-by-blow account of how the president killed thousands of Americans.
@CSK: My daughter got me a Trump toilet scrubber/toilet paper for Christmas. I’ve been waiting for Trump to lose before I use the toilet scrubber, it looks like a “single-use” device. They should make industrial strength ones, I’ll happily scrub the crap out of my toilet for years with a Trump toilet scrubber. It’ll be therapeutic. 😉
Don’t think I’m gonna use the toilet paper. It’s probably got cooties of some sort.
@Jax: No doubt it would inflame the hemorrhoids.
@Jax:
I could get enthusiastic about a Trump toilet scrubber.
@Kingdaddy: I assume the damage has already been done to BLM. Announcing the move of budget and Congressional liaison staff to Grand Junction seemed to be targeted at getting anyone who was any good at that sort of jobs to leave voluntarily rather than have a lot of their future opportunities cut off. After a year, the good ones are probably gone and major rebuilding will be needed.
@CSK:
As much as possible, I try to avoid Salem, so if I go through there it is on my way somewhere else and I avoid Rt 28 like the plague. It helps to know the back roads.
I knew the track was gone but never learned what development was going up. If this Tuscan Village was developed by the same Tuscan chain that is HQ’d in Salem, MA or Peabody, they’re endanger of failing. That group dropped nearly $2M in projects in Portsmouth that are failing. One was the redevelopment of an abandoned strip mall into a high end restaurant, event center and market, the market failed almost immediately and the restaurant and event center closed due to Covid. Downtown they bought a office building and first floor restaurant. This is more a pure real estate play so it may survive, but the restaurant is tenuous as the weather cools. At the time of the purchase, the transaction was considered a bit of an overpay, but the long term value should be good, but the debt service they must be facing.
@Jax:
If the TP comes with Trump brand bronzer pre applied, it might be just the solution for those pesky tan lines from laying out while at Maralago.
@Teve:
Trump didn’t bother to attend Franklin Graham’s prayer march in D.C. yesterday, which seems to have split into two parts. He did, however, send Pence to one part and a written message to be delivered by “readers” to the other.
I imagine our good Christian president spent the day either golfing or watching television.
Wisconsin Republicans gave Rittenhouse’s mother a standing ovation for raising a murdering little shit who murdered the “right” people.
I hate Illinois Nazis.
The National Senate Republican Committee is selling Notorious ACB t-shirts, because they a fucking ghouls whose only platform is to trigger the libs and make America a shithole country.
I hate NRSC Nazis.
Been thinking a lot about Reynolds’ question from Friday on the dearth of protest songs in the top twenty over the last few decades.
There are plenty, but few Top 20.
Also what is protest vs. political?
I have thought of two that fit the political bill and were top 20:
Luka by Suzanne Vega
Runaway Train by Soul Asylum
Both were implicit calls to action lyrically. The video for Runaway Train was a very explicit one.
Both make me cry to this day.
Runaway Train hits me very hard.
But these are from so very long ago.
@Teve:
Chrissy Teigen is incredibly savvy. Fierce when provoked. Best back clapper extant.
@Gustopher: ok that’s a little too Germany 1938 for my tastes.
@de stijl:
Generally, the highest profile protests songs in pop music are coming from hip hop, but the performers aren’t popular enough to crack the top 50. There is a smattering of protest songs from folk music, but what rises to notice on Americana (music for old, white folks) is pretty subtle. Protest in country music has always been subtle and now it is gone due to the treatment of the Dixie Chicks. Performers no longer are willing to offend some part of the audience.
@Sleeping Dog:
Agree on hip-hop. Would add punk.
Metal as well, but I am not as well dialed in to that scene.
Yo! I like Americana. Give me some old Jayhawks or Golden Smog.
You did peg me; I an an old.
@de stijl:
@Sleeping Dog:
Not explicitly political, but definitely protest. If we get a GONE TV series I’d love to use this as the theme song. Hollywood Undead:
Of course that’s like 10 years old and I doubt it charted.
@Sleeping Dog: 0
Fond memory confirms this. About 2009 Daughter and (almost) SOL got me tickets to see Charlie Daniels at the local (90 miles away) tribal casino by the sea. Sucky acoustics, great tickets, front row. No one cared that I brought my Canon with 70-200 2.8L lens (think coffee can size). Burned about 400 frames (thank gosh for digital). Spent half an hour talking with Charlie and band after the show. They did a solid 2 hours IIRC. I commented that the one song I wished he’d sung was Uneasy Rider from my college days. He sighed, chuckled, and said, “S***, I haven’t been able to perform that one anywhere in maybe 10 years. Even then.
@Michael Reynolds:
If you like Hollywood Undead, check NF.
Also I know you are a Rancid fan. Tim Armstrong would kill it. Anybody who can do Olympia, Wa and Under a Blood Red Moon and Ruby Soho is a talented and far-reaching fella.
Be you, though.
@de stijl:
Red Hot Moon not Blood Red Moon.
I knew people like Casey.
@Michael Reynolds:
True story….
5-6 years ago, I go to see “Hollywood Undead” in a venue in Atlanta. Small-ish venue. Holds maybe 1,000 people. I’m a big fan. I’m also not the target demo. I’m the oldest guy in there by 25 years, easy. So I go to the show, enjoy it. They do put on a good show.
As I’m walking out, I hear some kids behind me say, “Dude. Somebody brought their dad, man!” I looked around. Yep. They were talking about me.
A few months later, I’m in South Florida at a Rammstein Concert, and walking out, I hear the exact same phrase, “Dude. Somebody bought their dad, man!” Different kid. Same “dad”. Me.
At the Paul McCartney concert, I was one of the young’ins.
This is something who sort of have to feel from the inside, but whaling down the street with a mohawk and pegged pants and high boots is indescribably fine and right.
You feel like a righteous god.
And people react to you so differently. I would go out of my way to be as proper and polite as possible to mess with folks. I am proper and polite by nature.
I would go out of my way to be the pleasantest person they had interacted with that day.
It amused me greatly.
@EddieInCA:
Fuck that noise. Be you and fuck them.
@EddieInCA:
In my case it’d be, ‘someone brought their grandpa.’
I almost never go to live music. I don’t dance or respond to rhythm – no, really, some wire in my brain is loose – so I just watch, like an alien trying to pass as human, observing. Enjoying, too, but sort of like a Mainer enjoying a good joke*: no external indication.
*Applying for work in Portland, Maine, early 80’s, I was starting to think either I’d had a stroke or Mainers were slow, because none of the interviewers ever responded to a jest, a snark, a wry comment, nothing. Slowly it dawned on me: they got the jokes, they’d just be goddamned if they’d laugh. Mainers.
Now, see, if the edit function were available I’d correct ’80’s’ to ’90’s.
@Michael Reynolds:
Well, you were applying for a job, which suggests you didn’t know any of the people with whom you were joking. It used to be customary for New Englanders not to acknowledge people they didn’t know, or to return a greeting with a blank look. Since you were being interviewed, the interviewers were forced to acknowledge your existence–but by God they weren’t going to laugh at your jokes.
New Englanders, up until about fifty years ago, were accustomed to “not knowing” people with whom they’d worked or attended school for several years.
The influx of people from other parts of the U.S. and the world has, thankfully, pretty much ended the habit of ignoring people unless you knew of their great-great-great-great grandfathers.
The LA Times today:
Looks like about a 5,000 word piece, with details and specifics of their failures. Toward the end:
Kudos, LAT.
A prime example of how vile tribalism is…when even this guy can’t turn against someone he knows is total trash, how can the rank and file be expected to turn against their party…
@CSK:
That’s it, exactly, they didn’t know me, and didn’t owe me a laugh.
I quite like Mainers. I’m taciturn and anti-social, they’re taciturn and anti-social. I waited tables and managed at a restaurant in Old Port (the historic downtown of Portland) and – under another name – was the weekly restaurant reviewer for the Sunday paper. My column did well, and I’d basically decided to write it as a sort of humor column. They have a sense of humor, they’re just not giving it away.
not that these religious fanatics will give a shit
@CSK:
@Michael Reynolds:
Do Mainers not understand how rowdy and crazy back of the house gets?
I thought I was jaded until I worked a pizza delivery joint.
@Michael Reynolds:
Ayuh.
@Teve: And please note that she’s not refusing the appointment because taking it would be wrong. “Somebody’s gonna get the seat, it might as well be me.”
Principles shminciples.
I knew NOFX had a cover of Olympia WA but I found a Mexican band called Sin Efectos (clever) doing NOFX doing Rancid in very traditional norteno Mexican style. A cover of a cover.
Sin Efectos – Jalisco, MX
Instead of 52nd and Broadway NYC to Olympia they want to go from LA to Jalisco.
It is astounding.
@de stijl:
Once again, I nominate Muse Uprising
Because a) I like Muse b) it charted and c) I generally have very little clue about what’s been in the charts this century.
@CSK:
“New Englanders, up until about fifty years ago, were accustomed to “not knowing” people with whom they’d worked or attended school for several years.”
@Teve: It will make no difference, but it would be nice to see her asked about it, just because I enjoy shamelessness.
We aren’t going to keep her from being seated. We could delay it by tossing articles of impeachment over the wall again, or denying unanimous consent to every single thing and getting quorum calls, and dragging out the entire thing.
But, we definitely should get the shamelessness on record. Just for our amusement and fundraising.
Really, all we can do is generate cute memes at this point. So we should at least do that.
The NYT has Trump’s tax returns.
God, I wish Drew would drop by so I could dance around him and sing, ‘toldja so, toldja so.’
The man loses money like an Atlantic City retiree working the quarter slots. And even when he owned the casino where that retiree fed the machines, he still lost money.
The Times has got its ink-stained fingers on Trump’s tax info:
@sam:
True, true. But I have to tell you, back in the good old days of student protests, and claims by bluebloods of their solidarity with the, uh, less privileged among us, nothing–absolutely nothing–was funnier than listening to somebody named Winthrop Winslow Cabot Lowell Forbes Quincy Adams Lodge XIV agonize about getting back to his working class roots.
Some things make me want to punch God in the the dick and scream NOOOOOO as loud as I can.
That sounds like “protest” to me.
If anything – a book, a poem, a song encourages one person to vote or to be motivated to engage, it is a positive good.
@Michael Reynolds:
I dunno. Drew and the like. I mean how fucked up does your life have to be? How beleaguered and put upon do you have to feel? How powerless to shape the contours of your existence must you believe yourself to be? To lodge your hope for the relief of the pain of these deeply felt inadequacies in the over-flowing sewer that is Donald Trump?
So, the NY Times got Trump’s tax returns.
I wasn’t stopped by a paywall.
I don’t think this will make any difference.
@Michael Reynolds:
@sam:
How da fwk do you lose money running a casino? My grandmother ran a card room for the Seattle area mob (Asian) in the 40’s-50’s. I supplemented my income playing in mob-run casinos in old Vegas (when single deck and counting were actually things you could do) and HOW DA FWK do you lose money running a busy-ness where EVERYONE is GIVING you their money? I mean, GOP, I understand we wanted a venal, corrupt rube in the WH, but you honestly want me to believe that nincompoop was the best you could find?
I mean, even the guys at bespoke make money selling 24k gold rolling papers. Casino losing money? Nah…
@EddieInCA:
Went to a Bowie concert in Tacoma in, IIRC, 82 or 3 (after I returned to society) with Cracker. We both had followed Bowie since he first started getting airplay; when we were leaving, we both joked that we needed our nurses to wheel us back to the “home.” Saw Dweezil play in Portland a few years ago… I was definitely at least 1.5, maybe 3 generations older than the rest of the crowd. Even without the tinnitus, I can’t deal with it any more. Maybe I’ll change my handle to Cranky Old Dude.
@Michael Reynolds: I don’t generally watch debates. The only thing that matters is reaction the next day. I think I’m going to watch Tuesday’s debate.
@flat earth luddite:
Not only did Trump go broke promoting gambling, he lost money selling booze. Trump Vodka was a major league flopperoo.
Gambling and liquor…two sure-fire ways any imbecile can make money, except for Donald J. Trump.
@CSK:
Losing money like that makes my whiskers twitch.
The next question a certain type of curious mind will ask is “who are they losing the money to…”
And in these sorts of affairs there’s generally a rather high probability that somewhere between the “millions in gross income” part and the “even more millions in tax deductible losses” part will be the “crooked b@stards squirreling it away in offshore accounts” part.
Paging Michael Cohen, Deutsche Bank, and Allen Weisselberg…
@sam:
People like Drew support Trump out of a mix of racism, misogyny and spite. As long as someone other than them and their friends is hurt, they’re happy. It’s how they deal with their hollow, empty lives. As long as they have someone to hate that’s as close as they can come to joy.
If I were a better man I’d feel sorry for people like that.
@CSK:
Every third actor in Hollywood is selling booze and shoveling the cash. But then, as a businessman, Trump is obviously no Diddy or Ryan Reynolds.
@Michael Reynolds:
Diddy? Reynolds? Shit, man, I made more money selling lemonade when I was 10 than Trump did peddling vodka.
@Kathy:
True, it’s not really news or any surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention for the past five years.
And it’s not going to change the views of the committed Trumpkins; or of anti-Trumpers.
But there’s still that remarkably large section of the public who pay zero attention to politics; and the smaller subset of those who are “floating” voters, who may pay attention coming up to an election and who will vote.
Not a massive number perhaps?
But also, perhaps enough to be significant in e.g. Pennsylvania.
@Kathy: I knew you were probably cooking today, so I wanted to share my Sunday recipe with you…..I’ve been watching a lot of Iron Chef lately, so I combined a french onion/roast pork soup base with salt and seasonings in the crock pot all day, added fresh mushrooms finely diced, carrots and celery sliced super thin, and cabbage, with some homemade baguette. Deeeeeelicious!!!
I wish I could make flatbread as well as I can make baguette!
@Jax:
Sunday night for me is either tacos or curry.
I have stopped browning meat for both. It’s an added step that adds less than the time required. You lose some fond depth though. Let it bubble on low heat the longer the better.
Dicing, adding, timing is really low key. Make some rice. Char some tortillas (if taco night). Chop some cilantro. Cut some lime wedges.
The brilliance is you have leftovers for days you want to eat instead of if I don’t eat this soon it will go bad. Two hours on Sunday usually gets me through til Tuesday night.
@Jax:
That sounds really good.
I made some rethreads this week, nothing of note.
@Kathy: I finally got time for some Shepard’s Pie earlier this week….added creamed and whole corn to both the meat mixture and a layer on top of the mashed potatoes, topped with cheese. It ended up being big enough for a turkey roaster pan, so I fed my parents, all the neighbor kids that came over during the week, and myself and the kids for 3 full days! It was delicious, though, I’m gonna do that creamed corn trick every time.
@de stijl: If it wasn’t for the kids demand for variety, it would be Saturday night slow cooker carnitas every week. With cabbage ribbons and rice and or tortillas.
@Jax:
Lately I’ve been thinking I should try to mix cornmeal with mashed potatoes, which I’m sure is a terrible idea (the cornmeal won’t cook). So instead I may try adding potato flakes, the ones in instant mashed potato packages, to cornbread the next time I make any.
I get this odd notions from time to time. Sometimes they work well. Like adding a mix of orange juice, peanut butter, and soy sauce to sautéed cabbage with soy bean sprouts and onions.
@Michael Reynolds: This, of course, won’t make any difference to Trumpers, as they are impervious to reality, and in any case, are voting for Trump because he stokes their anger. Although they claim they support him because “he’s a business genius” that’s just an excuse and even it they believe the NYTimes it won’t matter. They’ll find another excuse.
This won’t make any difference to the likes of us, as we always knew that Trump’s bragging was based on nothing, that he was a lazy moron who burned through his father’s fortune, then had an incredible piece of luck with “The Apprentice” and used it to gull many millions out of suckers who thought playing a business tycoon on TV was the same as being an actual tycoon.
But I wonder if it will make a small difference with a few fence sitters, people who voted for Trump because they were fed up with politicians and thought that putting successful businessman was a real chance at change. It won’t make them rally behind Biden, but it might keep them home.
I said it in 2015: Anyone, and I mean anyone, who thinks they can ride the Trump Train to their own advantage is a fool. The lives of everyone associated with him turns to shit.
@MarkedMan:
My thought exactly. It makes it a bit harder for him, and he was already likely fucked.
From Sullivan:
@flat earth luddite:
I’m fortunate to make a decent living. My wife, unlike alot of wives, doesn’t spend money. She’s not into designer clothes, hates branded anything, and doesn’t do jewelry. The one thing she loves is music, and live music. So I’ve told her, “Spend whatever you want on Music. That’s a whole lot cheaper than Chanel or Prada.” So she does. I’ve mentioned our (her) ridiculous music collection, which she has bought, song by song. But we also like live music. We flew to see Pink in New Orleans last year, week after Mardi Gras 2019. And we were Green Day groupies for three days in 2018. We saw Green Day at the Staples Center (Los Angeles) on a Thursday, drove to Las Vegas to see them on Friday, then drove straight to San Diego to see them on Saturday night. It was a blast. I still love going to concerts. That’s one thing I’ve really missed during the pandemic.
@EddieInCA:
I love Green Day. I think Billy Joe Armstrong is one of the best songwriters in the business.
My wife used to laugh at the idea of diamonds and jewels. Hah hah! she would cry. Ptui! Then, I bought her a diamond and sapphire ring.
Don’t do that. It doesn’t end well. Or end.
@Kathy: You never know when you might find delicious goodness in a food idea, or that’s what I’ve learned from Iron Chef! 😉 I never would’ve imagined liver ice cream, but there ya have it.