Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
·
Thursday, December 8, 2022
·
60 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).
Follow Steven on
Twitter
As somebody pointed out recently in another matter*, “If you rob a bank but later return all the money, you still robbed a bank.”
*I forget the particulars but I believe it was in reference to trump
Sausage making at it’s finest.
For those unfamiliar with Maryland’s political landscape, it is a solidly Democratic leaning state but had a two term, solidly popular Republican Governor, Larry Hogan, who, if he wasn’t term limited, would have likely won his third term. In other words, by nominating someone in his vein they would have had a legitimate chance to retain the state house. But during his time in office the state Republican Party was in an extremist spiral and in the event they nominated racist Neo-confederates to every state wide office and lost by a landslide. The Post has an interesting “Republicans in Disarray” piece focusing on the mess of a state convention going on now in the wake of their disastrous defeats. (No subscription needed)
Apparently, Ted Cruz stayed in DC, despite his daughter’s situation.
On brand.
Speaking of Ted Cruz’s daughter, Meghan McCain somehow managed to make it all about her, while also conveniently forgetting all of the horrible sh!t Republicans have said about Amy Carter, Chelsea Clinton, the Obama girls…etc.
@Tony W:
I wonder if this has anything to do with it:
Ted Cruz’s Teenage Daughter Says She’s Bi, Disagrees With Him
I guess Musk thinks the proper use of building inspectors is patrolling playgrounds for threats and not telling him he has to follow the laws like he was just another peon.
@Tony W: What a pos.
The nurse asked if I have anything in my mouth that could fall out. I said just my teeth. Thank you I’ll be here all week.
Anyway, catch you on the flip side.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl6Cbjuuo9q/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
@OzarkHillbilly: Just wait for the nets to be put outside the building’s windows to catch the workers attempting suicide.
@Beth: Happy trails to you, till we meet again,
@Beth: Good luck Beth! I hope it’s all smooth sailing and the recovery is quick.
@Beth: Best wishes to you for a fast recovery!
@Tony W:
I don’t knw a lot about the situation,but, from what I do know, the poor girl probably doesn’t care.
@Beth:
Best of luck, Beth.
Our thoughts are with you.
@Beth:
Sleep well and dream of tomorrow
Gen Z helped save Democracy.
https://fortune-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/fortune.com/2022/12/07/gen-z-voting-habits-proof-societal-issues-abortion-gun-climate-culture-politics-values-edelman-hagelgans/amp/
@Beth:
Best wishes. Pleasant dreams!
@Beth: Good Luck!
@Beth:
All the best!
@Beth:
Lots of luck!
@Beth:
Best wishes!
@Beth: sending my wishes for a great outcome!
@Beth: Wishing you a quick, easy recovery.
@Beth: Good luck and hope for a quick recovery with no complications!
@Beth: Break a leg!
Hell Week 1 has been peculiar. I don’t feel as swamped as in other years, but this week seems to be dragging on and on and on.Wednesday I had to get up at 4:30 for a run to Toluca to deliver samples. I kept going all morning on caffeine and stress. I had hoped to leave by 6 pm, to catch up on sleep. No luck. Out by 8:30 pm.
Today should be more relaxed. I already feel it’s like Tuesday next week, not Thursday this week.
On other things, I finished part 4 of Disenchantment.
I feel like the first few eps were better than the rest. I’d have liked to see more of Luci in Heaven. The rest was ok, but the storyline kind of meandered.
I hope the story gets resolved in part 5, and then the show ends. I would love if it ran longer, but I don’t think they can keep taking detours to lengthen the running time without losing the arc nature of the show. Besides, they have mostly exhausted all the magic/fantasy/medieval material as far as jokes and parody are concerned, IMO.
@Beth:
You have us in stitches. Good luck and may it all happen without a hitch.
I help at the front desk now and again, answering phones. This is one exchange from yesterday:
Me: Good afternoon, [company name]
Caller: Fred? (Fred is the company founder)
Me: Nope. Fred’s been dead for 4 years (he really has).
Caller: …
Me: Is there someone else you’d like to speak with?
Caller: … uh… Fred is the only name I have. Um…. I.. uh… guess I better do some more research.
[end call]
😀
We’re a company with 1,200 employees in a dozen countries on three continents. Does he seriously think that the company owner is going to be answering telephone calls like a receptionist?
Cold-callers are getting really really stupid these days (and this wasn’t even one of those Indian call centers).
Nothing surprising here.
Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Accountability Committee released a report on Trump’s pandemic response, today.
Not surprising – the report says Trump failed to recognize the threat, failed to mount a cohesive response or take timely mitigation measures, and failed to communicate effectively with the public. The Senators conclude these failures “Resulted in the avoidable yet devastating loss of human life” and calls it “one of the worst public health responses in U.S. history.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/democrats-detail-effects-early-pandemic-failures-new-senate-report-rcna60453
@Mu Yixiao: In fairness, sometimes contact information is just handwritten on a piece of equipment. Sometimes old equipment. The caller may very well have something that was made many years ago when Fred was one of 25 people in the office
@MarkedMan:
That would have been 45 years ago. It was a stupid cold-call (we field dozens of them every day). The guy looked up the company name, saw that Fred was the founder, and thought he could just call the CEO and get right through to them. That’s like calling Apple and asking for “Steve”.
today keeps getting better. The House passed legislation to protect same-sex marriage.
there may be many opinion pieces saying it doesn’t go far enough, and many more on the right predicting the end of the universe, but what I wonder is, how did Cheney and Kinzinger vote?
@Kathy:
Cheney and Kinzinger voted in favor of it.
http://www.thehill.com/homenews/house/3566600-these-are-the-47-republicans-who-voted-for-a-bill-protecting-marriage-equality/
@CSK:
Bad link. Try http://www.thehill.com/homenews/house/3566600-these-are-the-47-house-republicans-who-voted-for-a-bill-protecting-marriage-equality/
@CSK:
Thanks.
I’m afraid, though, as the piece is dated in July, that was the version passed in the House before the Senate amended and voted on it.
Don’t worry about it. I’m sure the data will turn up later in the day.
@Tony W: Not surprising. What he values can be found in Washington, but not in Houston (??). We go where what we love is.
@Kathy:
Damn it. I think this is today’s news:
http://www.nationalreview.com/news/house-passes-same-sex-marriage-bill-with-support-of-39-republicans/
Cheney is still on the list.
There is a maddening piece up on the Post about how we are fighting about the wrong things because polls shows that the majority of Dems and Repubs say they want the same things about what we teach in school concerning our history and other hot button issues. While it may be true, it is useless. What matters is what the leaders of the respective parties are doing and care about. In practical terms it doesn’t matter a bit that 70% of Republicans want students to learn that slavery was bad. The Republican leaders who can get legislation passed most certainly do not.
@MarkedMan:
And the worst of it is those leaders don’t give a damn what’s taught in schools. They’re pushing to ban CRT and grooming, issues they mostly made up from whole cloth, because they know it gets them votes from those same GOP voters who supposedly want it taught that slavery is bad.
I commented on this story at WAPO that if they want to end the divisiveness they have to get rid of FOX “News”.
@Tony W:
Are there no flights from DC to Cancun?
Ted Cruz really is a piece of work, and he doesn’t even appear to have staff that can convince him to fake a normal human reaction.
@Beth: Have fun!
@Tony W: Do you have a link? I ask because I’m trying to check my own “can I vs. must I believe this” reaction.
@Gustopher:
The NY Daily News said that it is unknown whether Ted and Heidi Cruz were at home at the time.
ETA: The Lubbock news says Cruz was in D.C. at the time of the incident. No word on whether he returned home.
There is something about today’s weather. It brought up a memory. It is oppressively gray.
I killed a deer once. Sanctioned. I had an out of state license. Those cost like three times more than a resident license – so maybe fifteen bucks back then. I was pretty young.
I was at a friend of a friend’s cabin up outside of Wascott, Wisconsin. For four or five days. At night we would hole up and eat like woodticks. Play cards, drink way too much beer and spirits, bullshit, josh, joke around. There were six or seven guys. I’d met two previously. The heat source was a wood stove so bring a good sleeping bag. A quite primitive cabin / hunting shack. No running water.
During the day I just wandered around. In that particular neck of the woods it is basically endless pine forest with a few open glades and some low lying bogs with some deciduous trees clustered around. Basically, a North American taiga. There is a belt of taiga that extends into the the US in northern Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and in northern Maine. I was in that.
I just walked slowly and quietly and looked at everything intently. It was intensely gray and gloomy sometimes snowy the entire trip, but when you are tramping about in a dense pine forest you almost never actually see the sky. It is that dense and tightly forested. You need a compass or you are fucked.
Day four.
4 of the group had already bagged a buck. I hadn’t. I was sporting a borrowed rifle, a .308 Winchester with iron sights, no scope. I was a noob, a virgin.
The group decided to do a drive so the unblooded could get a kill. I was unblooded. A drive is basically a line of people walking boldly and loudly through the woods in the direction of the anvil. It pushes deer out of hiding in an arc away from the line. Towards were I had holed up beforehand.
A young buck, not a two point yearling, but a four point two year old – a teenager in deer terms – came barreling into to the open glade. He was pretty close, maybe twenty five yards. My blood was hot, my heart was pumping hard, there was a complete adrenaline dump thing going on.
I lined up and pulled the trigger. A tad low. I hit the foreleg just below the shoulder, basically blew his left front leg off except for a sinew or two. I jacked in the next shell. He was hobbled and slow and spewing arterial blood. I lined the shot up and pulled the trigger again.
Good hit. Upper mid torso. Missed the heart by a smidge, but a super solid lung shot.
I was fairly close. I walked up within a half minute. He was dying loudly. His leg was lying splayed out at the most obscenely unnatural angle on the snow. He was very confused and really, really pissed off and his response was to bellow. To scream into the void. The void directly approaching him due to to rapid blood loss and extreme ballistic trauma caused by me and me alone. Blood on the snow.
I witnessed his death. It was not clean. At the end his bellow brought up frothy blood he aspirated into the cold air. It took about a minute, a minute and a half, maybe two. I could see one eye the way he was down and that eye was locked directly onto me. He was looking at me, the cause of this idiocy, as he died in front of me. I was looking at him.
I was vaguely elated and simultaneously felt like the biggest, stupidest, jerkiest asshole mother Earth ever shat out. “The kill” was not what I had expected by a long shot. It was profoundly different. It was shocking, jarring, and deeply sad. I knew immediately then it was a life changing event. That I had fucked up really badly.
I lacked the skill and knowledge to gut the deer carcass. I had seen it done twice before and the second time I asked the person to walk me through the process and asked a bunch of questions. I killed a living creature for “fun” or “sport” and I had to outsource the proper treatment of the body. I participated (I had to) in the disembowlment procedure. Not the crucial cuts. The guts are warm. Fun fact: when you cut open the belly of a freshly killed large body and all of the innards plop onto the ground when it is below freezing it steams slightly like your breath on a cold morning standing around waiting for the bus to show up.
A person I did not know well and had only met a few days prior dipped his fingers in the blood and wiped it on both my cheeks. I had to front as if that was not just okay, but welcomed. I smiled. Everybody cheered and hooted. I wanted to vomit, not because of the blood, but because of what I had done. I caused this mess to happen because I chose to pull the trigger. I fronted.
I had, by my own choice, killed this teenaged boy deer because I wanted to know what that felt like. It felt shitty, so very, very shitty.
That day was a very big learning day for me and I will never forget it. You learn a lot by fucking up hard around others.
@Mimai: Good call.
I am persuaded that I have been had by the internet rumor mill.
There were three votes today on the Senate floor and Ted Cruz did not vote in any of them.
@Tony W:
See here: @CSK: I’m assuming Cruz went home.
@CSK:
Hell, or where his family lives?
@Kathy:
Well, Houston. Think about it. Would Cruz, even if he doesn’t give rap about his daughters, want a reputation as an uncaring father? Isn’t he into family values?
@de stijl: Thanks for sharing. I had a similar (but milder) experience when I was much younger. I had a BB gun when I was maybe 8 or 9 and would take pot shots at various targets around the yard. For whatever reason, a common bird in that area landed a little ways away, and I took a shot at it. It being a BB gun, it didn’t do all that much damage, but the bird did lay there unable to move, its eyes darting around. I felt terrible. I’ve never shot anything since that BB gun.
I say this with respect, but I would back the fuck up on the Ted Cruz’s daughter story speculation and schadenfreude.
Be respectful. Be careful. Think through the ethics of it. Apparently, she was having a mental health crisis and self-harmed. If she were not his daughter it would be a non-story and would have never been reported. This should be a non-story. This is a private matter. This is her business.
Look, I am all in favor of mocking Cruz. When Trump went after his family Cruz rolled over like a submissive, beaten dog. He is pathetic. Demonstrably so. He is both bad and weak. Focus on that. Mock away!
Using his daughter’s mental health as a partisan cudgel is unseemly and reflects badly on you. It will backfire and will look and be judged as really bad taste to go there. Please don’t!
If only voter would take notice.
@daryl and his brother darryl:
Nothing surprising, no. The early actions in a disease outbreak have the most impact. Three may not be one right action. In New Zealand, a hard lockdown executed promptly kept contagion to virtually nothing. In South Korea, effective testing, tracing, and isolation proved almost as effective.
We should draw lessons from the COVID disaster. America wasn’t the only country to massively fail early (or throughout). For example, given how hard lockdowns are on people and the economy, and how hard it is to really lock down everyone (see essential workers), it might be best next pandemic to issue mask mandates at the first hint of an outbreak.
Some businesses should either reduce capacity or close outright. Restaurants,bars, and theaters, for instance. And monetary support should be given to employees and employers. Airlines and other means of transportation might need to scale back as well, with the same support.
I’m sure there’s much more, and others well-versed in such matters undoubtedly know better than I do. I’m merely pointing out the obvious. There should be stocks of PPE to distribute to hospitals and the public at large. Things like that.
And yet, this is one time when predictions are easy: the next pandemic of an airborne transmissible disease will be just as bad or worse in most countries, as people refuse to apply the lessons learned, or to be inconvenienced by temporary rules.
@de stijl: I feel so bad for Cruz’s daughter. I know the emotional stuff my own kid is going through that’s her age, and discovering her sexuality….being the daughter of a Congress-critter is hard enough, let alone her being bi and him being….the way he is. She probably takes a lot of flak from both sides at school.
@Beth:
I was in public once when a tooth fell out of my mouth. No fooling. Literally fell out of my jaw and onto the floor of a restaurant. Ted’s Coney Island, the second or third best gyro joint in town. Front top incisor. One of the top two front teeth just fell out of my jaw onto the floor. I scooted down and picked it up off the floor.
I knew it was going to happen soon, but, dear Odin, not there in public! So fucking embarrassing!
Pyorrhea is implacable. Now, thankfully, all of my teeth are fake and they fit neatly into a glass in the bathroom. I wear them when I eat (mostly) and when I go outside my house (always).
95% of the time I have zero teeth.
@Beth: Dammit, I needed you whispering that answer in my ear last week when I got that same question!
Best wishes. And seriously, turn off your lawyer brain for a few days or weeks!
@Jax: Considering she’s bi, what do you mean by “both sides”?
@Franklin: The conservative kids consider her a traitor, and so do the LGBTQ kids, just because her Dad’s Ted Cruz.
You could not pay me enough to go back to middle or high school. These kids are so tuned in, and so rough on every single thing.
When I was that age, my biggest worry was that I didn’t have enough hairspray available to make my hair do “that thing”, and my Mom was pretty sure the bell bottoms I inherited from my older cousin were still popular.
@Franklin: I’m not sure what the person you’re addressing was referring to but I’d like to share a snippet of personal experience. I don’t know how it is now but when I was younger being Bi meant neither the straight people or the gay people considered you one of them. Even now I’ve had gay people tell me I’m just confused while straight people just call me gay.