Tab Clearing Friday

Quick takes from the week.

Some links from this week’s news that I never had time to fully write about:

A couple of good columns from AL.com’s Kyle Whitmire on the CRT debate in Alabama:

And a tweet on the general topic:

Via WaPo: Texas governor puts $250 million down payment on a border wall because there is not a better way to spend such funds like, say, on the electrical grid.

Via the DMN, Texas Reps. Cloud, Gohmert and Roy vote against awarding Capitol police gold medals for actions on Jan. 6. Because, reasons, I guess.

From the correlation may not be causation, but… file:

Things that make you go “hmm?”

And, for no reason, LBJ orders some pants:

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Steven L. Taylor
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

Comments

  1. PT says:

    The LBJ call makes me laugh every time.

    Maybe it’s the drawl, but it could easily be a relative.

    3
  2. Mister Bluster says:

    “…the crotch, down where your nuts hang, is always a little too tight. Makes me do crazy things to the dog.”

  3. Unsympathetic says:

    The historical revisionism and/or ignorance Biden showed in asserting that the US does not interfere in the elections of other countries amused me.

    Just for everyone’s edification, here’s a list of US interventions in foreign elections and/or regime changes since world war 2:

    1948 Greece
    1949 Syria
    1949-1953 Albania
    1953 Iran
    1954 Guatemala
    1956 Syria again
    1957 Haiti
    1957 Indonesia
    1958-1960 Laos
    1959-present Cuba
    1959 Cambodia
    1960 Ecuador
    1960 Congo
    1961 Dominican Republic
    1962-1964 Brazil
    1963 Iraq
    1963 South Vietnam
    1964 Bolivia
    1965 France
    1965 Indonesia again
    1966 Ghana
    1967 Greece again
    1970 Costa Rica
    1971 Bolivia again
    1973-1975 Australia
    1973 Chile
    1974 Portugal
    1975 Angola
    1975 Zaire
    1976 Argentina
    1976 Jamaica
    1979-1989 Afghanistan
    1979 Seychelles
    1980-1992 Angola again
    1980-1989 Libya
    1981-1987 Nicaragua
    1982 Chad
    1982-1984 South Yemen
    1982-1984 Suriname
    1983 Grenada
    1987 Fiji
    1989 Panama
    1991 Albania again
    1991 Iraq
    1993 Somalia
    1999-2000 Yugoslavia
    2000 Ecuador again
    2001 Afghanistan again
    2002 Venezuela
    2003 Iraq again
    2004 Haiti again
    2007 to present Somalia again
    2011 Libya again
    2012 to present Syria for a third time
    2014 Ukraine
    2016 Brazil again
    2018 Bolivia
    2018 Ecuador
    2019 Brazil again

    I love the smell of democracy spreading in the morning.

    4
  4. @PT:

    but it could easily be a relative.

    I had the same thought.

    1
  5. Flat Earth Luddite says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: @PT:
    For me, what’s scary/funny is that, growing up, I had Scandahoovian-descended uncles (who’d never been further south than Tacoma) who sounded just like LBJ. One of the reasons it’s so easy for me to speak/understand the regional dialect? But I always thought LBJ was unfairly maligned as prez. Not a perfect man but even with the hand he was dealt, he got folks out of the back of the bus.

  6. JohnSF says:

    @Unsympathetic:

    1949-1953 Albania

    AYFKM?

    1965 France

    wut?

    If you define “interference” as “expressing an opinion” then your list might work.

    Otherwise: Noam Chomsky meets Ron Paul, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin and enjoy a Cambodian clusterf*ck in a burning wilderness of mirrors.
    aka the moronic inferno.

    “Whatabout, whatabout, whatabout this,
    Whatabout this, and whatabout that,
    And whatabout things unconeccted at all,
    And whatabout, whatabout s***”

    1