Sunday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Sunday, January 24, 2021
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46 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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“If it is a good idea to impeach and try former presidents, what about former Democratic presidents when Republicans get the majority in 2022? “Think about it and let’s do what is best for the country.”
–John Cornyn
If Cornyn gave a rat’s ass about this country, he’d resign with a public statement acknowledging the bottomless pit of moral depravity that drives what remains of the GOP, and then disappear never to be heard from again.
Speaking of moral depravity, Arizona Republicans censure McCain, Flake and Ducey over Trump split
Words fail.
@OzarkHillbilly: Just repeating a headline seen on Rawstory while I had early coffee this morning, so check for yourself before repeating this BUT apparently Kelli Ward was reelected head of the AZGOP by 48.5% to 51.5% at that meeting. It became so chaotic that the live feed to social media was cut. And that is the party that hopes to win back AZ. Hmmmm…
Make Britain Great Again!
Move to EU to avoid Brexit costs, firms told
SpaceX successfully launched and recovered a booster this morning that was making its fifth trip. This Wednesday past they did the same with a booster on its eighth trip. They’re spoiling me.
OTOH, between the two launches just over 200 small satellites were placed into orbit. If memory serves, the multiple committed internet access service from orbit projects will need ~20,000 more satellites. Kessler syndrome, anyone?
@OzarkHillbilly:
This is a tell and Cornyn is admitting that if Rs were to return to power, they have no positive agenda for the country.
@JohnMcC: Yes, she won by 3% on the second ballot. This has become a pretty standard story across the western states. Once the Republicans start losing the suburbs, they have no plan B.
The discussion yesterday about wearing a watch seemed dated to me. I wear an Apple Watch and evaluating its usefulness based on using it to tell time is like evaluating your mobile phone based on its ability to make voice calls via the traditional telephone network. I use my Apple Watch as
– An unobtrusive way to check who a message is from
– Fitness tracker
– to set timers for all sorts of things
– to unlock my computer without a password
– to trigger my iPhone camera remotely (ok, I only use it for that a few times a year but when you need it, it’s dead useful)
– to check items off my grocery list. Especially useful in these mask wearing times as I can’t open my phone with Face ID
– to control the volume of whatever I’m listing to on my phone, rewind or pause it
– to show me my route when I’m walking to a new place in the city. Especially useful when in a somewhat sketchy neighborhood and I don’t want to pull out my expensive phone.
– to vibrate when I’ve got a message, since my phone is always on silent
– when driving, to remind me I’ve got a turn coming up
– to let me know when I’ve been washing my hand for twenty seconds
– occasionally, to check the time
@JohnMcC: Nothing begets winning like hitching your political wagon to a dead horse.
@OzarkHillbilly: The AZ GOP seems very intent on staying as close as possible to the first Republican presidential candidate to lose their state in 24 years.
@Kylopod: It’s become a habit with them. They appointed Martha McSally to a senate seat and she lost to Kristen Sinema. So they appointed McSally to the other Senate seat and she lost to Mark Kelly.
I encourage them to do more of the same.
I just got the “your connection is not safe” message again.
@CSK: I got it earlier too, but only once. I have also gotten a couple “Your comment did not post.” which is a new one for me. Both times hitting the Post Comment button a 2nd time was successful.
@Michael Cain:
Of course they have a Plan B. Disenfranchise the voters who aren’t them.
@Flat Earth Luddite: That’s Plans A, B, and C. D,E, and F too for that matter.
@OzarkHillbilly: They do it with RNC heads as well. Ronna McDaniel has now presided over two consecutive cycles of losses for the GOP–and they’ve kept her.
Part of their rationale is that they refuse to admit they lost either of those cycles. Trump credited her with a great job after the 2018 midterms. And of course after Trump’s historic 2020 landslide, how could they ever repay her?
@Kylopod:
The Trumpkins have decided they hate Ronna.
@Flat Earth Luddite: Sure enough! A headline at Politico: State Republicans Push New Voting Restrictions After Trump’s Loss.
The article is principally about these efforts being pursued in Georgia because the other tightly contested states (AZ, WI, PA) have D-party governors or legislations.
@JohnMcC:
@OzarkHillbilly:
For further proof that “the common clay of the new west” is alive and well:
The common clay of the new west, indeed.
Not much of a surprise. Per CNN—
It’s not just the food that’s no good…
@JohnMcC:
@Flat Earth Luddite:
Guys, tried responding 3x, each time it said it was posting but it vanished. Washington GOP committee strongly condemned the two (R) congress-kritters who voted in favor of impeachment by a vote of 111-2. As Cracker is wont to say, WA!
@flat earth luddite:
and immediately after posting the above snivel, my previous comments magically appear! Where’s my unicorn?
@flat earth luddite: I remember back in 2009 when one Republican voted for the House’s initial version of the ACA, it was a Vietnamese-American named Joseph Cao, who represented Louisiana’s heavily Democratic 2nd district. A lot of right-wingers began calling him “Mao.”
@Terri:
Yeah, and members “silently walking out” had nothing to do with the politics of being associated with a dumpy old loser, right?
@OzarkHillbilly: For some reason, call me cynical or whatever, I suspect that eventually it will come out that quite a few small to medium British enterprises started this process months ago. But I suppose I might be overestimating business people. It’s happened before.
@MarkedMan: This is going to sound snarky, but thank you. I’ve never understood what Apple Watch was about and though I need to do almost none of those things–particularly fitness tracking (with Afib and COPD, fitness tracking might be pretty dismal)–but I can see that an Apple Watch is far more utile than I’d imagine.
I’ll still go shopping with a pen and paper list, but at the rate my handwriting is deteriorating, one never can tell…
@flat earth luddite: I’m not sure that Clark and Cowlitz Republicans have as much hazard from their attitude as other places might. Even if Herrera Beutler were to be primaried out by a complete whack job, the Dems are likely to go with Carolyn Long again because that worked so well the previous 2 or 3 elections, and she can’t become anymore toxic than the Republicans have already painted her to be.
@Terri: @flat earth luddite: Maybe they just realize that Trump is going to be there all the time now. Who’d want to go to a club with THAT problem?
@OzarkHillbilly:
As frequently noted here, he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anything except his own ass.
@CSK: Hmmmm… I may have to reconsider my intense dislike of her.
@flat earth luddite: So. Cancel Culture is a bi-partisan affair.
Who’da thunk it?
@JohnMcC:
AZ remains a Republican trifecta at the state level. I believe that will change in 2022, but it hasn’t happened yet. That said, AZ has been a very largely vote by mail state for years, recently the approved ballot initiatives have leaned to the left, and redistricting is done by a largely non-partisan commission.
@Michael Cain:
Only narrowly, unlike Georgia. The legislature I mean. There hasn’t been a recent AZ gubernatorial election anywhere near as close (*cough*stolen) as in 2018 GA.
Had an interesting conversation with a gentleman young enough to be my son (late 30’s/early 40’s) who explained to me that he was a died-in-the-wool Republican and Trump supporter because the only reason for taxation was to punish people with money. No, seriously, that was his fixation. He thought my idea that taxes were a price people paid to have nice things (you know, like police/fire departments/schools, paved roads, indoor plumbing, and the like) was simply ludicrous. Taxes are only in place to keep people like him down. He was very offended by my follow up that the reason that wealthy individuals should welcome reasonable taxation levels (to keep the proletariat from stringing them up by their entrails) was a sign that I was senile and/or demented.
I didn’t bother pointing out that while I may well be senile/demented, I’m also a practicing, card-carrying sociopath.
@flat earth luddite: While in the military, I was always amused at fellow service members who would bitch about “unfair” and “outrageous” taxes on their pay. They just never got the irony.
@flat earth luddite: Did you pull a gun and point it at his head to illustrate your point?
I would really like James’ reaction to this story, which has me wondering:
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/20/biden-pentagon-transition-460768
@flat earth luddite: Really? Where can I get that card?
@Jay L Gischer:
Ok, I’m an old luddite, but what in the wide world of sports is this supposed to mean? Besides FOAD?
@MarkedMan: You have to go to the meetings. And pay the annual membership fee. But there’s a really nice monthly journal that comes with your membership!
@flat earth luddite: I have no idea. That’s why I’d like James to weigh in. It could be legit, or it could be crap. Or it could be halfway between.
But lawyers in meetings saying “talk/don’t talk” is kind of a red flag. The whole thing struck me as a response to the cyberattack, and the rest is maybe smokescreen. But who really knows?
@flat earth luddite:
He was asking for it, but I bet that by your age you just don’t have the upper body strength required to string him up by his entrails.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: The Apple Watch is one of those things where if you don’t see the need for it, it will quickly become a novelty, and then just sit on its charger for a few weeks after you stop bothering to put it on and then you’ll need the plug space for something else.
That said, each generation adds something new. This version was background SpO2 readings, which is kind of handy in the days of covid, or if you have damaged lungs from a pulmonary embolism years ago, and should be watching trends. And better monitoring of cardiovascular health, since it has the SpO2 data along with heart rate.
@flat earth luddite:
It’s actually a huge tell. “Predecisional” is an accepted criterion for denying a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request — the public has a right to know what was decided/implemented, but not how the sausage was made to get to that point. This indicates that the Trump White House was treating the Biden White House as if they were the general public, with no more right to know these things than any rando FOIA filer.
@flat earth luddite:
Where does he think roads come from? The asphalt fairy?
The more advanced form of this particular dementia is found in people who think that free markets are the Most Important Thing, but don’t quite grok the necessary, irreplaceable role of government in keeping markets free.
@DrDaveT: Said people also don’t understand the concept of “tariff’s”, or why their tractors and washing machines are suddenly so much more expensive under Trump. I mean, they really thought Mexico was gonna pay for the wall!!