Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Thursday, August 18, 2022
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83 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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Film director Wolfgang Peterson, most famous for Das Boot, has passed away.
Florida Republicans targeted Black voters, justice department says in filing
Translation: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”
― Anatole France
I saw this on twitter yesterday: Florida court rules teenager ‘not mature enough’ to have abortion
As the person I read yesterday pointed out, “Not mature enough to get an abortion, but mature enough to have a baby?”
These judges really have their heads up their asses.
The FDA will not require human trials for new COVID vaccines, specifically for a bivalent booster with the original strain plus Omicron BA.4 and 5 subvariants.
This quote near the end explains things: “And some scientists say health officials know enough about how vaccines work to start handling the COVID-19 vaccines like the flu vaccines, which are changed every year to try to match whatever strains are likely to be circulating but aren’t routinely tested again every year.”
If we’re going to be living with the trump virus, we need something like this.
As I expected.
I highly recommend the superhero series “The Boys” on Amazon.
Caveat: it is extremely violent, and very graphic and frankly gross and disgusting at that. But the political commentary works rather well.
I can’t say much without spoilers, so I’ll just leave this quote without attribution: “People love what I have to say. They believe in it. They just don’t like the word Nazi, that’s all.”
Kathy bait: Mexico’s citizens caught in crossfire as cartels launch attacks across the country
@OzarkHillbilly:
The good news is there’s no presidential reelection in Mexico.
The bad news is the king still has over two years left in his term (ends in December 2024).
‘I don’t see justice in this war’: Russian soldier exposes rot at core of Ukraine invasion
He is elsewhere now.
Court being obsessed about the insufficient supply of adoptable babies.
Privatizing costs/burdens of public priorities.
A lot of pros and cons in this piece but one thing that is not mentioned which I believe is very likely. That visual footage of FBI agents will subject them to identification, harassment, violence, and possible injury and death.
Trump considering releasing surveillance footage of FBI Mar-a-Lago search
@OzarkHillbilly:
But Weisselberg won’t testify againt Trump or any Trump family members.
OMG. This is truly the dumbest timeline to be stuck in. Little Susie didn’t win, the first place winner must be transgender!
https://www.ksl.com/article/50459857/utah-school-investigates-whether-athlete-is-transgender-after-state-championship-win
@CSK: Each thing in it’s own time.
@Jax: Trans hunts are the new witch hunts:
Peasants: We have found a trans! (A trans! a trans!)
Burn her burn her!
Peasant 1: We have found a trans, may we burn her?
(cheers)
Vladimir: How do you known she is a trans?
P2: She looks like one!
V: Bring her forward
(advance)
Woman: I’m not a trans! I’m not a trans!
V: ehh… but you are dressed like one.
W: They dressed me up like this!
All: naah no we didn’t… no.
W: And this isn’t my nose, it’s a false one.
(V lifts up carrot)
V: Well?
P1: Well we did do the nose
V: The nose?
P1: …And the hat, but she is a trans!
(all: yeah, burn her burn her!)
V: Did you dress her up like this?
P1: No! (no no… no) Yes. (yes yeah) a bit (a bit bit a bit) But she has got a wart!
(P3 points at wart)
V: What makes you think she is a trans?
P2: Well, she turned me into an also-ran!
V: An also-ran?!
(P2 pause & look around)
P2: I wan 2nd place.
(pause)
P3: Burn her anyway! (burn her burn her burn!)
(king walks in)
V: There are ways of telling whether she is a trans.
P1: Are there? Well then tell us! (tell us)
V: Tell me… what do you do with transexuals?
P3: Burn’em! Burn them up! (burn burn burn)
V: What do you burn apart from transexuals?
P1: More transexuals! (P2 nudge P1)
(pause)
P3: Wood!
V: So, why do transexuals burn?
(long pause)
P2: Cuz they’re made of… wood?
V: Gooood.
(crowd congratulates P2)
V: So, how do we tell if she is made of wood?
P1: Build a bridge out of her!
V: Ahh, but can you not also make bridges out of stone?
P1: Oh yeah…
V: Does wood sink in water?
P1: No
P3: No. It floats!
P1: Let’s throw her into the bog! (yeah yeah ya!)
V: What also floats in water?
P1: Bread
P3: Apples
P2: Very small rocks
(V looks annoyed)
P1: Cider
P3: Grape gravy
P1: Cherries
P3: Mud
King: A Duck!
(all look and stare at king)
V: Exactly! So, logically…
P1(thinking): If she ways the same as a duck… she’s made of wood!
V: And therefore,
(pause & think)
P3: A trans! (P1: a trans)(P2: a trans)(all: a trans!)
V: We shall use my largest scales.
With all due apologies to Monty Python.
@Jax:
I for one am shocked, SHOCKED! and did not see this coming, at all.
@Kathy:
The really bad part is that the only thing Americans love more than drugs is moralizing and passing harsher laws against the use of drugs that mostly don’t apply to White people over a certain income amount. Until we get that nonsense sorted out there’s simply too much money to be made. So, so, stupid.
Every now and again you see a conservative say something not quite as extreme right as he might, and some conservative commenter will respond, “Of course Bret Stephens would say that, he’s a knee-jerk libturd.”, oblivious to Stephens’ actual history. I see the same reaction to the FBI “raid” on Mar a Lago. GOPs are screaming about political bias at the FBI. I’ve commented here a couple times that the FBI does in fact have a history of partisan bias, but hardly liberal. So I have to pass on this NYT column by one Garrett M. Graff making the same point, but with more research and examples. Their view of law and order puts way more stress on order than on law.
@Jax:
The article doesn’t say, but I’m wondering if the first place winner is non-white, because if you’ve been following this issue, these “secret trans” allegations are most frequently leveled at minority athletes who don’t meet white stereotypes of femininity.
via Betty Cracker over at Balloon Juice:
“Wow, who knew women were actual live, breathing, thinking, feeling people?”
@Stormy Dragon:
UtAh is 86.84% white and only 1.1% Black, so my guess is that the girl is white, but probably taller than average. Therefore, she has to be a biological male by some people’s “reasoning.”
Keeping it wild: how mules help preserve the last untamed places in the US
I never made it to the Bob Marshall, it was a place I’d always wanted to go but just never quite made it. Now I’m too old, too fat, too arthritic, too COPD, too ad nauseum. One life is not enough, maybe I’ll get to come back.
Willie Nelson’s Long Encore
As he approaches 90, even brushes with death can’t keep him off the road — or dim a late-life creative burst.
Most performers Willie’s age have faded away, with casual fans wondering if they are still alive. Occasionally one will take the stage at a tribute concert for them and the forgiving fans ignore the forgotten words and off-key renditions. The there is Willie (and Tony Bennett) approaching their 10th decade and still a performer worth spending your time and money to see.
Well, Laura Ingraham has officially made herself persona non grata to the MAGA crowd by suggesting that we need to move on from Trump. The commenters over at Lucianne.om are calling her a “Deep Stater” and “a whiny nasal-voiced c**t who thinks she’s smarter than everyone else.”
That final comment was made by someone whose screen name is “Jesuslover54.”
@Scott:
Which is, of course, exactly what Trump and his worshipers want.
@OzarkHillbilly: I don’t want to discount Collins’ recognition of his error, but I still want to yell “Motherfucker, we TOLD you this would happen and YOU DID NOT LISTEN.”
It’s like conservatives completely lack the ability for any sort of abstract thought. They simply can’t conceive of a consequence unless it happens to them or someone they know. Anyone outside their immediate circle simply does not exist as an actual human being.
@Mikey:
Sure, just as Trump’s calling for the release of the witnesses’ names in the affadavit. He wants them to fear for their safety and lives.
@Beth: Oh come on. You must have seen this coming. I didn’t happen to, but if I followed sports (and school) at all*, I’d have expected it.
*I only substitute teach/monitor classrooms; I don’t do school politics anymore.
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m not quite sure what his point is. Is he saying “we gotta stop playing dawg with stupid-shirt laws” or “whew, dodged a bullet on THAT one?”
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Oh, I knew it was coming. The only thing I’m actually surprised about is that they handled it sort of internally without harassing the poor girl that was the target of their bullshit. It’s going to happen A LOT more. It will happen for racist reasons. It will happen for stupid reasons. It will probably end up with a bunch of Cis girls harmed. All to ensure the tiny handful of Trans kids know their place to suffer. Eventually we’ll get to someone who won’t let it go and forces some kid to strip at a track meet.
@CSK: Well, I’m not sure that I can say Jesuslover54 is *wrong*…
The last couple years with the MAGA “community” I keep being reminded of how Star Wars (and probably older stories, since Lucas used well-known tropes) taught us that “Evil always turns on itself.” It’s terrifying how much damage they can do to others on the way, but fanatic personality cults really do eat their own in the long run.
@Just Another Ex-Republican:
Here’s a list of the people the MAGAs like:
1. Trump (above all others)
2. Marjorie Tazylor Greene
3. Lauren Bosbert
4. Matt Gaetz
5. Kari Lake
Everyone else is a Deep State Communist devil.
I think you and Jesuslover54 have completely different reasons for disparaging Ingraham.
@CSK: If he’s not going to testify about people, the gubmint be’s only after the money. FG goes banko yet again, Treasury shrugs and pitches “we did our job.” Win-win. 🙁
@Beth: I thought so. You’re too aware of the world in which you live not to have.
@OzarkHillbilly: I attended a couple of tai-chi seminars with a man that was very, very good. (He was Chinese-Canadian). He said, “I try to be hard only at the point of application”. In tai chi, and jujitsu, one strives to cultivate softness and relaxation in all one’s movements. Some tension is necessary, but we strive to limit it to very specific points and moments.
This runs counter to our off-the-shelf reactions. However, it is also very effective. One does not get caught up in extraneous details.
In politics people of all persuasions can get caught up in “They are all a bunch of crooks!” and delving into minutiae. I feel that pull myself, and sometimes get caught up in it.
So, here is the point where I am hard:
The rioters on 1/6 were attempting to reverse the outcome of a legally-conducted election. This is anti-democratic. This is an insurrection. Donald Trump wanted them to do this, planned to put pressure on Mike Pence to help him overturn the outcome of a legally-conducted election, and tried to go to the Capital to urge the insurrectionists on.
Here is the stuff I don’t care about: What Trump looks like. How much he eats. Whether he has ketchup on steak. Whether he sometimes throws dishes at the walls. And so on. Whether Trump supporters are evil or deluded or both. These are not points of application.
It’s about focus. That’s my response to Thomas Zimmer.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
See this:
http://www.cnn.com/2022/08/18/politics/allen-weisselberg-pleads-guilty/index.html
Weisselberg gets 5 months in the slammer and pays his back taxes, plus interest and penalties. Nobody else gets fined or imprisoned.
@Just Another Ex-Republican:
The people you need to seize power aren’t the people you need to hold power, and once you’ve seized power, you should eliminate any power centers that are no longer needed, lest they become available to someone trying to replace you.
Rules for Rulers
Because nothing reflects the love of Jesus like calling a woman “a whiny nasal-voiced c**t”.
I’m quite skeptical, in the broad scheme, of “Evil Turns On Itself”. Sometimes Evil is a team game, and the Evil team keeps it together quite a long time.
However, the icon of a certain group of people is not a team player at all. He throws people under the bus with impunity. And of course, lots of others emulate him.
Fragmentation of both political and religious movements is a pretty common thing among humans, regardless of specific outlook (Evil vs. Good, or D vs. R). So, the Catholics have kept it together, except they haven’t. There was the Reformation, and there are people who regularly leave the Church. So add (Catholic v. Protestant) to the list. I’m guessing Buddhism fragments too. There’s a famous schism in the Muslim world, and probably many more lesser rifts.
Which is to say, keeping a big coalition together is tough, and takes someone actively working to do it.
@Jay L Gischer:
If you insult Trump’s hair on twitter, he’s not going to feel bad, because he’s never going to see it. The person who is going to see it is your friend who is already struggling with self-image because of hair loss and now feels even worse because they know that’s what you really think about them too.
@Jay L Gischer:
The solution is Discordianism, where Eris actively encourages all followers to go form their own sect.
@Sleeping Dog: “The there is Willie (and Tony Bennett) approaching their 10th decade and still a performer worth spending your time and money to see.”
I just learned that Tony Bennett lives in my building — or I guess we live in his building — about six floors up.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yes indeed. This Jesuslover54 has also made anti-Semitic comments.
Jesus must be so proud, because nothing, absolutely nothing, sazys “I am a follower of Christ” like anti-Semitism and misogyny.
Ok, time for Luddite to take a different freeway off-ramp here in the Twilight Zone:
With a h/t to Daily Pnut and Food Network
@Flat Earth Luddite:
Well, that sounds ghastly.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
I joke that after trying Malört I ran and licked the bathroom floor of the gay dive bar we were in cause it tastes better.
In actuality I ran to the bathroom to try and not puke before I got the taste out of my mouth. Horrid, horrid stuff.
@Beth: Never heard of Malort so I googled it. One commenter wrote: “It’s like if shame and regret were left to ferment before being distilled through an old, sweaty shoe”.
Sounds delightful.
This is hopeful: Police call for Bolsonaro to be charged for spreading Covid misinformation
@Scott:
It is one of the most wretched things I have ever put in my mouth, and I’ve made lots of questionable choices.
Here’s a pretty accurate review of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCYC7fI-qxw
@Beth:
Like @Scott, I’d never heard of Malort, but after looking it up and watching your provided link, it sounds like the closest thing on the outside to grapefruit pruno (and the accompanying distilled slash) that I’ve heard of since 1981. You really drank that? Just proves that you’re waaaayyy rougher and tougher than this Luddite ever was.
@Beth: That was great. The comments were awesome also. The best was the one about being the Secret Santa for someone you don’t like.
And I thought Jaegermeister and Soju were bad.
RFKjr’s anti-vax group perma-banned from Facebook and Instagram.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
Lol, the only reason I drank it was my mouth wrote a whole bunch of checks, that we had assumed were worthless, but came due anyway. I’m usually pretty good at talking/charming my way out of things, but I was surrounded by a bunch of vindictive women, one of whom is a butcher and another who is a neurologist. All of whom can be remarkably impervious to my nonsense when they want to be. Oh, and a hard ass Ukrainian butch lesbian bartender. The only think she likes more than my antics is a good comeuppance. Also, as proof she’s a hard ass, she drinks Jägermeister & Redbull. She’s so cool.
Anyway, I thought I was gonna die.
Looks like the Ukrainians are really lighting it up tonight.
Reported “incidents”so far:
Depot, Timonovo, Belgorod
Stary Oskol Airfield, Belgorod
Nova Kakhovka, Kherson
Belbek airport, Crimea
Air defence activity near Kerch strait, Crimea
Multiple explosions in Sevastopol, Crimea.
Ukrainian Defence Ministry tweets:
@Jay L Gischer:
100%. Just out of curiosity, who was the instructor? And was it in the Toronto area or Vancouver?
And when you mention juijitsu, are you referring to Japanese JJ? I can’t remember if we’ve had this conversation before, but I’m always interested to see who else practices martial arts on the site.
@Scott:
Dawg, not at the same time/glass, I hope. I mean, I have a lifetime of less-than-bright decisions, but I’ve never tried that. Nor the Jägermeister/peppermint Schnaps cocktails a buddy used to drink 50-odd years ago.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
That made my stomach clench.
@Flat Earth Luddite: No, no. Not at all. I’ve done dumb things but not that. To be fair, I don’t remember much of the soju experience, including how I got home.
Brandy and pernod.
“Go on, just try it…”
Bad mistake.
@JohnSF:
Been there. Done that. Got the hat, t-shirt, and souvenir beer cozy. Still better than ouzo.
@Scott:
Hey, Cracker introduced me to soju. I actually like it. Tastier than ouzo.
@Beth:
Yes, me too. This particular friend was (at the time) a 6’5″ 280# MP. To say his drinking caused problems for those around him (usually me) shouldn’t surprise you.
@JohnSF: Had a squadron mate in Viet Nam whose drink was pernod and root beer. His nickname was Lurch.
@JohnSF:
Nope, nope, nope, nope. I prefer a nice watermelon vodka & Sprite with a fist full of skittles as a garnish. Elegant. Klassy.
@Flat Earth Luddite: @Flat Earth Luddite:
Was he at least able to participate in helping get out of said problem? I mean, he IS the brute squad.
This always cracks me up. I can’t count the number of religious arguments* that I have stopped dead in their tracks with the words, “You know, Jesus was a Jew.”
*believe it or not, even with the odd atheist. In the days when Islamophobia was running rampant, I could always stop people with, “You know, the Muslims consider Jesus a prophet.” and it’s always an amazement to me the number of folks who don’t understand that Jews, Christians and Muslims all worship the same God of Abraham.
Lord knows, I am no religious scholar but even I know that.
@Mu Yixiao: CANCEL CULTURE RUN AMOK!!!
@Beth:
Well, 50 years later he’s a doting grandfather, and no longer a head-knocker (reason he went into MP’s was “it’s a justified fight”). The schnaps/Jägermeister episode involved him nearly missing deployment, and my escorting him through a metal detector at Sea-Tac (mid 70’s) while armed.
For some of us, if we live, we learn. He’s retired, raised a loving family and is a genuinely good guy.
@a country lawyer: “whose drink was pernod and root beer.”
Maybe there’s something wrong with me… but that sounds pretty good.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Years ago, I was doing some reading about medieval religion relating to a course I was doing about the millenialist tradition and popular revolts.
Appears, the common view in the Middle Ages could be summed up as being that Jews were not Jewish any more, in the way Jesus and his disciples had been.
Nutty, but their reasoning was that in failing to recognise Jesus as Christ and Messiah, Jews who didn’t convert had repudiated their status as the Chosen People.
And the expulsion and destruction of the Second Temple displayed the judgement of god.
You may imagine what their views of Muslims were.
To give the official hierarchy of medieval Catholicism it’s due, it formally repudiated antisemitic persecution as a vulgar crime, though the Jews were also “perfidious” in their “error”.
But often went along with persecution in practice.
See eg Spanish Inquisition and the expulsions.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
That’s awesome to hear. Too many people don’t get the learn part. They live and leave a wake of destruction in their wake.
My grandpa had a ton of stories about his time in the Navy that usually took a detour through almost spending his WWII time in the brig for drinking. Great Lakes, Virginia, New Orleans. So much booze, so many narrow escapes. Unfortunately for him, he learned his lessons way to late to make any sort of real amends to anyone except maybe me.
@Flat Earth Luddite: Now I see why I never went to dive bars–peanut allergy! Here all this time I thought it was because they looked like good places to get killed by mishap during a bar fight.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Yeah, and remember, the scary part about that one was that he didn’t remember why I cold-cocked him with a full pitcher of beer, palmed his pistol, and got the bouncers to help me stuff him into the passenger seat of my car. Or why his tow truck was in the bar’s parking lot the next morning. Or why I had the keys & his S&W).
@Scott: Soju is nothing. It’s what Koreans drop by the glassful into larger glasses of beer so that there’s some alcohol being consumed. And Jaegermeister is certainly better than Campari. I came of age during the “Campari and soda” days. Had one. Promised myself that I would never make THAT mistake again.
Jaegerbombs, on the other hand are a really nice tipple. The best one I ever had was in a bar in Daegu where the bartender used Mountain Dew because she was too tight with a buck to want to buy Red Bull. An important flavor difference between the two mixers. Mountain Dew brings a much better balance.
@Beth: Jaegerbombs may well be the Platonic ideal of the cocktail! And much better than a Saphire gin and tonic. I don’t know why, but Saphire gin doesn’t mix well with tonic–at least to my taste. Ordering a g&t at a bar that only poured Saphire was my only drinking mistake while I was in Korea. Well, maybe the only one I can still remember, but that still counts, right?
@Flat Earth Luddite: @Beth: I might have to try that…
But I’d have to find someone who had a recipe for it. Sounds like a highwire skill level mix. Might be good, tho.
@wr: That was my reaction, too. Certainly better than rye whiskey and cream soda–which I have done before, thank you.
@JohnSF: “Nutty, but their reasoning was that in failing to recognise Jesus as Christ and Messiah, Jews who didn’t convert had repudiated their status as the Chosen People.”
I agree, and yet, I understand dispensationalism better now than I did 5 minutes ago. Thanks.
@JohnSF: Thank Dawg I’m an atheist. I’m going to hell no matter what.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Campari is necessary for making a Negroni, one of the finest classic cocktails. Much better than wasting it in soda.
Jaegermeister’s sole purpose is to facilitate digestion after the consumption of large quantities of Schweinebraten.
I have a bottle of Malört but only for laughs. That stuff is utterly vile.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
The only time I’ve had Sapphire and tonic was the free drink with you at PF Chang’s. Meh. Straight up was pretty good though.
Too many bartenders have told me to never waste top shelf booze in a mixed drink, that’s what rotgut is for.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
Very true. I never understand why people waste $50 on a bottle of vodka. It’s all the same, particularly if you mix it with juice or tonic.
@JohnSF: what is the “Smoking Kills!” reference?
So there’s this non-profit that buys and cancels medical debts.
@Kathy: Those people are heroes.
If I ever win big on the lottery, I’m going to go through every legitimate medical GoFundMe and make that shit happen.
@MarkedMan:
It’s Ukrainians trolling. 🙂
Russian reports of several suspicious fires at depots in Russia explained several as “accidents caused by careless smoking”.
IIRC something similar was initially said about the “accidental sinking” of the Moskva
At any rate, it’s become a running joke among Ukrainians.
For instance a a shot of a burning Russian vehicle captioned “Smoking kills; and this is a smoking kill.”
Or “We hit the target: it was just a Lucky Strike”
Or photoshopped HIMARS launchers with the missile pods replaced by cigarette packages.
etc etc etc