Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Thursday, August 3, 2023
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109 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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Kathy cautioned people not to feed the trolls and while I agree with the sentiment, long experience has taught me that she may as well spit into a hurricane. I think I realized it as a certainty back in the Usenet days when a troll would come into a group that had nothing to do with technology and insult someone as an obvious PC or Mac user. And then the group would explode. It would only be a small percent of the group members who would get involved, but they were so intent on painstakingly correcting every “error”, or just aquiver with rage, that they couldn’t see the initial correspondent was simply trolling them and had no real opinion on the matter. If it started to die down a “new” member (pretty obviously just a sock puppet of the original troller) would come in and make equally insulting observations on the opposite side and it would all begin again. This happened in group after group, over and over, and 9 out of 10 times it was the old Mac vs PC schtick.
I learned a lot in that era about human psychology and the futility of stopping a train wreck, but I never learned a thing about Mac vs PC from it.
@MarkedMan:
Except that both are horrible and you should use Linux instead…
*ducks* *runs away*
🙂
Some interesting details re: indictment:
“MSNBC”
Signs Meadows has flipped. Also, various other interesting details.
Chart:
https://nitter.net/jburnmurdoch/status/1686813844469858319
Of roosting chickens.
Gay Louisiana doctor says he’s leaving the state over its ‘discriminatory’ legislation
It has always seemed that since Trump came to the political arena there has always been a general belief among media and most people that there would come a time when most Republicans would abandon him and “wake up”. The “wake up” would be some sort of come to Jesus moment when they would re-claim their principles and go back to caring about their country and electing people who are interested in actually governing and not just winning elections. Presumable this would occur when Trump had bottomed out.
He’s now been impeached twice, indicted three times (with a possible fourth coming), convicted on defamation and found by a jury to have sexually abused a woman, and is up on fraud charges in the ACN lawsuit. He openly grifts his supporters, he threatens to primary any Republican who opposes him, and those who oppose him end up outside the party.
He has bottomed out and still is the leader of the Republican party. So the question is when will this great awakening occur? Trump once said he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and not “lose any voters.” He was correct, I just think he used too weak an example. He could go the homes of his voters and shoot their families and he wouldn’t lose their support.
@Sleeping Dog:
Losing access to vital health care for your children to own the libs.
Last night I dreamed that Barack Obama gave me an old brown paper grocery bag with his autograph and some encouraging words on it. He did this to persuade me to write my memoirs.
@CSK: One of my sources of comfort for my old age is that I’ve never led an interesting enough life to make anyone pressure me to write my memoirs…
@CSK:
On a paper bag??
@MarkedMan:
Me neither.
@Sleeping Dog:
I guess he had nothing else on which to write.
@CSK: Maybe a representation of what the world knows about you – the wholly inscrutable container of your life. Write your memoirs!
https://nitter.net/steve_vladeck/status/1686707595887673344
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F2ejcYzbMAAhnjo?format=webp&name=small
Happy Arraignment Day #3, to those who celebrate.
I hope someone explains how or why a self-professed billionaire, with his own jet, who is friendly with the leaders of states with no extradition treaties*, who has 78 felony counts currently pending against him and with more counts likely to be added any minute, is NOT a flight risk.
That he is currently walking free is the biggest indicator of a two-tiered justice system that there is.
* eg. Russia, Saudi Arabia, N. Korea
@Daryl:
We do have a criminal legal system that has at least two tiers and you are definitely seeing one here, just not the one you think.
What you are seeing here is the fundamental difference between the Federal and state criminal legal systems. Given the charges against Trump and the context of things, it’s totally not unexpected that he would have limited to no supervision–because that’s the norm for the Federal system in cases like these. It’s the same reason that Jan 6 defendants were allowed to travel outside the country.
I think my bonafides on being skeptical of Criminal Legal Systems are pretty well established. And I totally agree that wealth and privilege do impact outcomes. But sometimes there are other factors at play and this is an example of that being the case.
There are lots of things in the criminal legal system to be pissed about. This really isn’t one of them (regardless of how offensive we find what the former President).
I’m going to write more on the problem of bringing our own biases to bear when interpreting individual actions within the criminal legal system over the weekend (when I also deal with the clusterfuck that was the Hunter Biden plea hearing).
@Senyordave:
For my part I never had this belief. One of the most common refrains in politics is “those so and so’s should get the candidate/law/court ruling they want and then they will realize just how bad things are” and it just never happens. Perhaps there is no greater proof that there is no pool of voters that will suddenly become aware of just how bad their candidate is then the existence of Boebert and Cruz and MGT and Gaetz and Michelle Bachman and… well the list goes on and on and on. Just thinking about the fact that they get elected and then usually reelected fills me with despair.
@Daryl:
On the other hand, wouldn’t it be great if Benito ran off to Pyongyang and stayed there?
@Matt Bernius: Thanks for that. But even if it was a State case I think we have to admit Trump is a very unlikely flight risk. First, he has Secret Service agents with him at all times, which surely has to complicate things. And second, the places that would take him are very limited, and he would have to put his fate in the hands of the very bad people that run them. Even he can’t be so stupid as to think it would work out well.
Sh*t. Every time I’ve uttered the words “even he can’t be so stupid” with respect to Trump he’s gone ahead and done the stupid thing. Trump is going to bolt! He and Baby Kim cuddling together poolside. You heard it here first!
@Matt Bernius:
Thank you.
I see it hasn’t been mentioned, and it certainly didn’t come as much of a surprise, but yesterday Robert Bowers, the man who shot up the Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018, was sentenced to death.
I wonder if the MAGAs will converge on D.C. today in a show of support for their savior? One Trumpkin has asked for a convoy of trucks with Trump banners to drive in a continuous circle around the courthouse.
@CSK: I believe the expression is, “Try that in a big city.”
@MarkedMan:
Agreed on that the outcome would probably be the same at the State level to. That said there is so much variation there, you never know. And they are far more likely to slap harsh restrictions on folks for lesser offenses.
This is definitely an area where I wish the Federal treatment was the norm.
@Senyordave:
I think this belief is more legacy media types than most people. I don’t think most Americans have any delusions about how far gone Republicans are.
A significant number of Republicans have woken up. It’s just they’re now “former Republicans,” identifying now as independents or even Democrats.
It makes sense that among self-identified Republicans Trump’s support remains strong, while support for Trump and Republicans among independent voters has dipped. The sane Republicans have left the country club and no longer identify as Republicans. At least for the moment.
@MarkedMan:
Is there some reason we shouldn’t want Trump to self-deport himself to Hungary, Belarus, Russia, or Saudi Arabia?
I mean, good riddance to bad rubbish, no? To me, Trump-in-exile poses less risk than Trump-under-house-arrest at Mar-a-Lago (sadly, he is never going to prison).
@ptfe:
Okay, that made me laugh out loud.
@Senyordave:
I mostly agree, but would toss in one soupçon of doubt as to intensity of support. I’ve gone down a YouTube rabbit hole of first person accounts by German soldiers in the later years of WW2. They were all ready to die for Adolf, but that didn’t mean they were unaware that he was failing. Some kept up the pretense of believing that wonder weapons were on the way, but most seemed to understand that they were going to lose.
Sunk costs. They’d already killed for Adolf, they’d lost friends because of Adolf’s war, how could they just throw up their hands and admit it was all a terrible mistake? Much easier to join a cult than to escape, even once they realize they’ve been conned.
The revealing metric would be small donations to the Trump campaign. I don’t know the numbers on that.
@MarkedMan:
I think it’s been fairly well established that the SS agents assigned to Trump are loyalists.
I don’t feel that people understand that Trump entered a swimsuit competition as a topless contestant. The people that were in the Republican party for a swimsuit competition then left the building. The ones ok with a topless contestant stayed. And a shit ton of people that never went to a swimsuit contest, or used to go but got bored, crowded in to replace the people that left.
Trump brought enough of his own voters into the Party to shore up the ranks of people that departed. Which is why there won’t be a “wake up” moment amongst Republicans. That moment already happened. Those voters that left are now right-leaning independents.
The task for the Democratic Party leadership is to craft a platform that will entice a few percentage points of these voters to hold their nose and Vote D. I would be direct with them: Help us run the table quick and decisively so you can get back to your Party.
@DK:
One way or another, unless trump were to win in 24, he’s leaving the scene, what will be interesting is what happens to the R party? MAGAts are a cult and the history cults surviving leadership changes is poor. DeSantis has tried the logical way to capture those voters, give them what they seem to want in policy and is flailing. So then what?
As you point out, there are a large number of former R’s that may or may not return, that will depend on what direction the party goes. Trump also brought a large number of non-voters into the party, will they stay? Will they stay if the party moves in a direction that will attract former R’s?
@Senyordave:
Remember he was going to “pivot” to the center after winning the election?
If by “Republicans” one means all the people who vote Republican or for Benito, and not just politicians and officials, then we’re in a kind of Catch-22. Republicans won’t move away from Benito until he becomes the reason for an overwhelming defeat, which won’t happen until Republicans move away from him.
Worse, I think the above is optimistic. In 2020 they lost the White House and the Senate, and failed to win the House. In 2022 they barely won the House but lost seats in the Senate. So in a way they’ve already had two devastating defeats, yet cling on to their man-baby savior.
@Daryl: @Daryl: I’m trying to play this out in my head. Trump, what, goes to his pilot and says, “Hey, we are going to New Jersey, but make sure you fill the tanks completely”, wink wink nudge nudge? And then when they are in the air he goes to the pilot and says “take a diversion into international waters and then head for the polar route to Pyong Yang”, because Trump of course understands such things. The pilot (it was reported that the pilot he employed before he was President made $70K/year) agrees to do this for… reasons, despite knowing he will lose his license over it. Gradually the Secret Service and everyone else on the plane becomes aware they are being diverted to a country they do not have visas for and on top of that, it is actually illegal for US citizens to fly there. And then…
There’s a movie script in there, but it would have to be a (dark) comedy, and would not end well for the Trump character.
In my understanding of Trump, running to another country would show weakness, and he doesn’t do that.
@Daryl:
Matt B provided a nice response but I also feel that you can look to Occam’s razor as to why the DOJ and other lawmakers really are not worried that Trump is a flight risk, he has 0% interest in living in those countries and others like them that are in your post, and everyone knows this.
He needs to be the Prime Authoritarian in the country he is in, and Hungary and other similar countries/states already have a strongman leader and will not share power with Trump. If Trump grifts in Hungary, for example, Orban will simply take his cut whether Trump gives him a percentage or not, Trump will not be able to stop this and he knows it. That would drive Trump mad.
Outside of his cult, with these indictments, more and more folks in the United States and elsewhere are seeing that Trump is a pretty weak man, and not at all someone we should fear.
@DK: Because he’d be “getting away” with it? Face it, Trump is the left-wing equivalent to Hillary or, in previous generations, the Ted Kennedy of the Chappaquiddick Island incident*.
*True story: Back in the day, my mom used to declare that no one should ever be convicted of murder again as long as Ted Kennedy was walking free. The degree to which people become deranged over politics is fascinating to watch in my declining years.
@DK:
I don’t know about this. My sister in law still voted Republican despite the fact that she has a Black step-son (she’s super White), and her sister’s family is, let’s say “suuuuper Queer”. We’ve told her that we might have to flee the country. She still votes Republican cause something something low taxes.
My father in law is so far gone in boomer delusion land that he thinks “there were no problems for Gay people in the 50’s”. All the problems for Gay people started recently cause we started whining about wanting special privileges. Hope he likes visiting us in Scotland.
A good friend of mine is a Ted Cruz Republican. This is still after he was forced out of the closet. He knows that his dreams of settling down with a beautiful twink would be crushed by the Republicans. He still thinks Cruz is smart and right.
These people should all know better, but they refuse to.
Trump wants his Jan. 6 trial moved from D.C., where he says it will be impossible for him to get a fair hearing, to the “politically unbiased” state of West Virginia, which he just happened to have won by over 30 points in 2020.
That’s his idea of an impartial venue.
@MarkedMan:
So, we’re agreed: Don’t feed the trolls 😉
@MarkedMan:
His beat up 757 doesn’t have the range to make it to Pyongyang, even if he stripped it down to nothing but fuselage and cockpit*.
He’d have to take it on an openly scheduled trip somewhere in the Pacific, and then make his move.
Here’s one: make a campaign stop in Guam for some reason. From there, he can easily reach Pyongyang. He should be able to make it to Guam by refueling in Hawaii.
Or maybe he could hold a rally in Alaska, and bolt to his boyfriend’s house from there. I haven’t checked the distances for that route. In any case, he’d have to traverse Russian airspace. his other boyfriend might be jealous and not allow it.
*Maybe if he used up the stripped cabin to hold fuel tanks. But that would 1) cost money, 2) be highly illegal without permission and oversight from the FAA or the NTSB, and 3) be impossible to keep secret.
As none of the immediately above has ever proved an impediment, I expect a Cheeto fundraising letter, asking specifically for funds to flee to Pyongyang, to be posted in his website beforehand.
@MarkedMan: From what I understand, $70k/year was/is not a lot for a commercial jet pilot. Is this another of those “all the best people” stories about who Trump attracts or was this some sort of part-time “on call” job? Anybody know more?
@CSK:
Is The Hague available?
I would LOVE to see Trump flee. It won’t happen though. He’s widely known to only want to stay at home or one of his properties, and he’s a really picky eater. Not enough ketchup in Pyongyang. Or McDonald’s.
@Beth: Lots of people are willing to vote/hold political views against their interests provided that the politics seem correct to their worldview/principles. It’s what keeps “po white trash” types voting for country club GOP candidates.
Well, that and bigotry, of course. Can’t leave it out. 😉
@Kathy:
Don’t forget that in 2018 the Rs also lost the House.
Trump only won by the merest fluke in 2016, and has been on a losing streak ever since.
Whenever Trump says something imbecilic, you can count on at least one other GOP contender to come up with a “hold my beer” moment. In this case, young Ronald DeS. has been reported as saying that, come his inauguration, “we start slitting throats” among the Federal workforce. That will never make it into a new edition of How to Win Friends and Influence People.
@Kathy:
Does Trump know what The Hague is? Or even where it is?
@CSK: It’s a burger joint near Mar-a-Lago. The fries are criminally good.
Trump wouldn’t go to North Korea, he’s got the UAE ad Russia as better possibilities. Or he could just pick someplace nicely corrupt where the DoJ isn’t going to lean too hard on the locals to extradite. The Philippines would be nice.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I believe that’s The Hog.
@Beth: Probably very bad form to make this remark about a feature of human nature, but… the Jews of early 20th century Germany were remarkably assimilated and patriotic.
If one thinks that’s analogous to Log Cabin Repblicans, well OK then…
@Michael Reynolds:
Same objections for non-stop flights on Air Farce One. The 757 was made as a replacement for the 727, a mid-range jet. Quite naturally it was designed with longer range and larger passenger capacity in mind, but not that longer or larger.
Bottom line is it can handle “short” transatlantic trips, but not much more. If Benito stops to refuel in London, Paris, Barcelona, Reykjavik, etc. odds are he’d be detained. Very politely and with velvet cuffs, of course, but detained.
Of course, since he’s not under any travel restrictions, he can simply file a flight plan from Mar-a-Lardo to Dubai, with refueling stops as needed, and then stay there a few years.
But it would take someone smarter, richer, and with a much hotter daughter to think of implementing such a brave scheme.
@Kathy: All kidding aside, there isn’t a country in the world that would let him in if he was on the run. Nowhere, nohow
@MarkedMan:
All kidding aside, if Al Cheeto decided to run to Pyongyang, I’m serious when I say the Biden administration would most likely tell Kim “no backsies.”
After a proforma performance of demanding Kim return the fugitive. You know, formal petitions, formal meetings in neutral soil, maybe even formal negotiations at the DMZ. All very propper, all ending with Benito’s death of “old age” natural causes.
@CSK:
@MarkedMan:
Your exchange calls to mind this poignant essay.
Obituary for a Quiet Life
@JohnMc:
Fun fact. Nobody’s sure of the exact etymology of the k-slur (there are several competing theories), but it seems it didn’t begin as an anti-Semitic term used against all Jews. It was apparently coined by American Jews of German extraction and used against their brethren from Eastern Europe, whom they viewed as lesser than they. There was a class element to this, as German Jews were typically better educated and better off economically than the Eastern Europeans. So it was kind of their version of “redneck,” but soon Gentiles appropriated the term and made it a general anti-Semitic slur.
And yes, German Jews were among the most patriotic and assimilated of European Jews at the time. It’s no coincidence Germany was the birthplace of Reform Judaism, and even the variety of Orthodoxy there was focused on fitting in with the general populace and making religion more of a private matter.
So maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that this existed:
Trump has announced on Truth Social that he’s a martyr. He also maintains that it’s “a great honor” to be arrested for the American people.
@CSK: Maybe future followers of the religion of Trumpism will wear around their necks a tiny replica of a Jack Smith indictment document.
@CSK:
No one’s a martyr until they are dead, meaning killed by fairly horrible means.
On the upside, there should be no shortage of people eager to help Benito achieve this particular goal.
Also, I’m sure he’ll be showered with many more honors soon.
@Kylopod:
In her memoir Enter Talking, Joan Rivers recounted that her mother, Bea, of Russian Jewish ancestry, told Joan’s father Meyer, also of Russian Jewish ancestry, that Meyer “came from kikes.” It was never explained why she believed that, or what it meant, other than low class.
@Michael Reynolds:
Max Hastings wrote a history of the end of the war in the East under the title Armegeddon. I was struck reading it by German civilians, as they watched the Russians advancing into Germany, saying, “We’ll lose our freedom”. They were living in a repressive dictatorship where they could be arrested and killed by secret police for listening to the wrong radio station, or keeping an honest diary, or mentioning skepticism about the war to the wrong person. But most of them were, of course, good Germans who knew such things couldn’t happen to them. The leopards won’t eat my face.
But on the other hand, you have a good point about intensity. I wonder how many MAGA in Nov 2024 will find it awkward to get off work to vote. Meanwhile anti-Trump enthusiasm goes even further up with each new revelation.
@Kylopod:
A variation on the brown paper bag test. The inclination to discriminate is so depressingly common.
It should be noted that Jews in 1930s Germany were not only well assimilated, they were IIRC just under 1% of the population. Just enough to be noticeable, but too few to resist effectively.
@JohnMc:
The reason German Jews in the early 20th century were so patriotic is, the development of nation states and nationalism through out the 19th and later 18th century precluded them from being part of the nation, since the development was around ethnic/religious identity. Jews, Roma and several other groups were considered stateless people.
Germany was late in unifying, under Bismark in ~1880’s and by that time the issue of stateless people had become a recognized problem, Jewish, super patriotism was an attempt to show that they belonged in Germany as nationals. Unfortunately the attempt was a failure. But in truth all the stateless peoples became the victims of oppression and discrimination, while being blamed for whatever was wrong.
@Sleeping Dog:
Someone will step up. It was never going to be DeFascist because he’s charmless, humorless, and dull — as those not addled by the media’s “Where does DeSantis go to get his apology?” fawning (gag) long pointed out.
MAGA has voices with national potential, starting with Trump’s VP options — Kari Lake, Byron Donalds, Tucker Carlson among them. Glenn Youngkin is another. The only thing keeping Youngkin from going full-blown cray cray are the constraints of Virginia politics.
Conservatives establishmentarians would maybe prefer Tim Scott or Brian Kemp, or a governor like Kim Reynolds. Relatively normie rightwingers like them could maybe lure back disaffected Republicans, as at least they’re not skin-crawling weirdos like DeSantis. But they are all too boring for the “own the libs” right. So we’ll see.
Republicans better figure it out quick, because 1) millennials are already becoming the most liberal and ethnically diverse middle-agers America has ever seen and 2) there is pipeline where people evolve from disaffected Republican to independent to moderate or liberal Democrat. The longer it takes for the GQP to right their ship, the more time those who left the party have to question their old beliefs and decide Democrats aren’t so bad after all. That’s my own testimony, as McCain voter who grew disgusted with the Tea Party and the mistreatment of Obama and Hillary.
Post-Dobbs, lots of formerly Republican women are never going back. You can thank Trump and McConnell for that.
@DK: Republicans better figure it out quick, because millennials are quickly becoming the most liberal and ethnically diverse middle-agers America has ever seen.
Except for white males. A significant amount seem to be very attracted to the Elon Musk/ Joe Rogan type of white nationalism. The type that is more of the we own the libs (with the undercurrent of that white males are the true oppressed class). The kind of people who have Andrew Tate as their role model.
@CSK:
Joan of Urk?
I see CNN is still falling for it. They are giving more airtime to locations awaiting Trump’s arrival than to any other candidate. Trainwrecks = click hits.
His people will not abandon him until they think him weak. The Germans around Hitler’s bunker knew that he could have any of them killed with a snap of his fingers right up to the moment he killed himself. Everybody was afraid of McCarthy labeling them a commie right up to the moment he was publicly pantsed before Congress.
This is a street-thang, not an intellectual one. He must be publicly humiliated by one of his peers or quit fighting before his followers will abandon him. If he is smart he will not participate in any of the R nomination debates. He is clearly smart enough to recognize the moment he stops fighting…he is done.
He can prove it by burning himself at the stake.
@gVOR10:
MAGA will crawl over broken glass to vote for their orange savior, especially after he is martyred by the corrupt deep state.
Republicans might create turnout problems among their non-MAGA voters, if the Biden economy stays solid, keeping the election focused on Trump. If you’re a loyal Republican voter who does not like Biden but is fatigued with Trump, and it’s nearing the end of Election Day and your back hurts, and you’re tired, you have that other thing to do — are you still gonna drag yourself to the polls to vote for four more years of drama from a multiply-convicted felon?
Kinda like what happened to Hillary in 2016, where the Hillary fanatics/deadenders and anti-Trump alarmists showed up, but many marginal would-be Democratic voters stayed home: “I’m not comfortable with this email thing, but Trump is a total nut — but also they don’t need my vote, she’s gonna win easily anyway. I’m going to bed.”
The electoral upside of Trump for Republicans was that although he juiced the opposition, he also juiced the right, replacing those he excommunicated with his own cultists. As indictments and convictions pile up, maybe Republicans find themselves left mostly with his die-hards alone.
@SenyorDave:
That’s actually more Gen X that’s falling for the white nationalism they push. Millennials and Gen Z losers are swarming to Elon and Tate because of the misogyny and alpha-fake-superhero BS.
Devon Archer Transcript Released – Says Joe Biden Never Discussed Business with Hunter or His Business Partners
Surprise, surprise, Comer and Jordan are still full of shit.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: I couldn’t find the original article but I remember the context – it was about how much less the pilot was making than the norm, which I was able to find to be about $120K/year. But I also found articles about something else related to his pilot that I had forgotten about: Trump wanted to nominate him as head of the FAA.
@SenyorDave:
Well yeah, but I thought that went without saying. Someone currently in an interracial relationship dating a white male, we love them, God love em but…every demographic has their stuff, for reasons excusable and inexcusable.
As the sun rises and sets, the incels gonna do what they do. So it is written. But they’re not stopping millennials and Zoomers overall from being stubbornly liberal at an unprecedented rate. And even young white men are more liberal than their predecessors were at the same age, if not more Democratic. So.
Apparently Melania declined, for the third time, to accompany her hubby to his latest arraignment. Probably a hairdresser’s appointment intervened. Or maybe there’s a new clause in the revised pre-nup that absolves her of the obligation to attend any event involving criminal or civil proceedings against her spouse.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Having found zero evidence of a crime by the POTUS, Republicans will now escalate their inquiries to the level of Impeachment.
MAGA = upside-down world.
@CSK:
Aided and abetted by Comey and Putin
@MarkedMan: So yeah–one of those “getting all the best people (on the cheap)” things. Thanks!
@Daryl:
Yes, but that aid was the fluke that enabled him to win. Even Trump himself expected to lose.
@CSK:
Might just be the PR brain in me, but I would have thought even her original prenup would carry conditions that would amount to not being obligated to engage in actions that could harm her public image. I sort of thought that was par for the course in celebrity prenups.
@Jen:
This is beginning to feel like Catch-22 day.
If Melania had a clause like that, wasn’t it breached the moment she said “I do”?
Jen:
Yes, but doesn't someone like Trump acquire a trophy wife principally to burnish his own image? She drove a pretty hard bargain back in 2016. She refused
to move into the White House, using Barron’s
schooling as an excuse, for months before Trump presumably gave in and conceded to
her demands. One of those demands might entail not havng to stand by her man in the eventuality that he got busted.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: I vaguely remember thinking at the time, “how does this reporter know what this guy was paid?”, so there’s that. I think I assumed at the time that he was billing it to his campaign so it was reportable.
@CSK:
Fair bet Trump forced a pretty harsh pre-nup on his semi-successful slavic model bride. Likely she used the opportunity to renegotiate a better deal. His accountant’s soul makes everything, to Trump, transactional.
Not to break a streak stretching back decades, Benito lied in court today.
That’s ok. He’s allowed to lie in response to that question. But one hopes he thinks getting off without consequences will lead him to believe he can do so again in the future, to all questions faced in court.
Slim hope, I know. even he’s not that stupid.
In addition, now he has motivation to run to Pyongyang or Moscow. He signed an appearance bond. This is a document where he promises (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha) to pay (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha) a certain amount if he fails to appear in court.
If he ever deems his only chance not to go to prison is to flee, he’ll do so. Adn the only way he can keep his money is to get behind one of his powerful, manly paramours. Surely Mad Vlad has that iron curtain stashed somewhere.
@dazedandconfused:
Oh, indeed. But the second time around with the pre-nup, she was in a much better position to make demands. I think at this point, Trump wants only two things of her: that she not divorce him, and that once a month or so she have dinner with him in the public/member dining rooms at Bedminster and MAGA-Lardo.
@MarkedMan:
There are ways. the reporter can ask the pilot, they can ask an accountant in the Benito organization, they can ask his friends and professional acquaintances, etc. the thing is how to confirm it. You need a pay stub, a check, a contract, etc. That seems a lot of work just to find out what a pilot gets paid.
BTW, the 757 requires two (2) pilots, same as all commercial jets and most private ones of any size.
Commercial pilots get paid by how many hours they fly per month, plus their seniority rank on the job. I think international flights (from the US) pay more than domestic flights per hour, but I’m not sure. I don’t know whether the plane type makes any difference. Pay scale depends on the airline, too. This is relevant because those Big Three liveried E jets and prop planes are not operated by the big airlines, but by what are essentially contactor airlines like Mesa Airlines or Endeavour Air.
So, it’s complicated, and highly variable these days between pilot shortages, pandemic closures, pilot surpluses, and new pilot shortages.
No clue how private jet pilots get paid.
@SenyorDave:
I don’t claim to have an entirely representative sample, but based on the rugrats that I’ve seen at various jobs, even the Millennial white males are pretty decent (less worse than Gen X on average), except for the ones that aren’t, who are worse and defiantly want to show it.
That mushy middle of “not great” may be just smaller than previous generations, so a few more Proud Conservatives, along with more Clueless White Boy Liberals* and very little in between.
There are polls that show a slight rise in young white males identifying as conservative. But there are lots of ways to slice a pie, and that polling data is incomplete at best — progressive views poll stronger among millennial white men than the population as a whole (not as strong as among millennial white women or minorities, but compared to Gen X, Boomers, etc…)
I’d be cautious about using the recent polls to predict much of anything, unless it is correlated with voting data.
Meanwhile, Gen X is voting pretty much 50-50, cementing our amazing ability to make zero impact on anything.
——
*: “my fondness for tacos makes me anti-racist!”
@Kathy:
Legal definitions often differ from colloquial definitions.
“Guilty” roughly translates to “you got me,” and “Not Guilty” is basically “prove it, motherfucker!”
So, I don’t think he lied in court today. I assume he has lied many other times today, though, so his streak likely remains unbroken.
(Does anyone check his Truth Social Disease emissions?)
While checking to see how our friends in the land of alternative facts was covering the Trump plea, I came across this:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dianne-feinsteins-daughter-holds-power-attorney-ailing-senator-family-finance-fight
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that when someone needs to start granting power of attorney, they should probably retire from the Senate, at least if it will not affect the party balance.
(I would support legislation that limits the governor’s choice of caretaker replacement to someone on a list given by the Senator’s party, who is then prohibited from running for re-election — preserve the will of the people as much as possible)
Anyway, this is elder abuse. Still, as elder abuse goes, Feinstein is getting the softest, nicest elder abuse of basically anyone on the planet. I hope she is happy.
I just wish she was happy at home, perhaps always believing it is Saturday and that she is prepping for a hearing next week (or not, because she can just do it tomorrow)
Thanx for that image Jim. May you feel the dribbles of a thousand polecats peeing down your back for all eternity.
eta: polecats just sounds better
This is interesting.
That’s not dead-enders, that’s people begging to be stopped before they kill again. They need us to make this happen, they lack the strength or integrity. Rather like my earlier reference to late in the war German soldiers. American GI’s kept asking, “Why don’t they give up?” The answer was, “You have to make us.” A less historical reference: the wife who goes through the house pouring out all the alcoholic husband’s booze.
Sunk costs. They can’t admit they fucked up this badly, they can’t admit it was all a mistake. They never will, they’ll shift to a new ‘lost cause’ narrative, just like their Confederate forbears. My instinct has long been that MAGAts are losers, know they are losers, and expect to go on being losers.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-news-today-arraignment-indictment-b2387336.html
So – what is going on here?
@Gustopher:
If it’s all the same to you, I’ll stick with my morally correct interpretation.
Nuance and precision is wasted on the likes of Benito.
On other things, I tried the milk in the older frother, the one that heats and froths the milk. It worked much better. The two differences is 1) the older one has a wider frothing mechanism, 2) it took over a minute. With the hand held I think I quit after 30 seconds. That might have something to do with it.
@Michael Reynolds:
I’m smiling at the thought that some guy in rural Alabama thinks of Trump as the new Robert E. Lee.
@charontwo:
He was probably drugged to the eyeballs so he wouldn’t do or say anything monumentally stupid.
@Daryl:
And NYT and WAPO.
@Gustopher: The reason Feinstein is not retiring may be because the Senate Judiciary Committee on which she sits has an 11-10 D-R split. The Senate’s byzantine rules allow Republicans to complicate or possibly block a replacement — as they did when Feinstein was convalescing — ensuring future Biden judicial nominations (including a Supreme Court nod, should an opportunity arise) are held up in committee.
Senators are typically sent on committee by unanimous consent, but the process is subject to debate and thus not outside the filibuster.
The whispers out here in California Democratic clubs are that so-and-so party delegate heard from so-and-so in Newsom’s office heard from so-and-so in Feinstein’s orbit that Republicans allowed another senior Democrat to replace on Judiciary while she was sick and shut-in, she never would have returned to the Senate at all.
Those urging her to retire should know they may be advocating an indefinite hold on judges preferred by Democrats.
@DK: The rules can be changed. I’m happy to add Manchin and Sinema to the list of people insisting upon this elder abuse, if they won’t chip away at the filibuster to change the rules to allow a party to set its own committee members.
I think we’ve had enough of load-bearing old people with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and we need to fix our systems to reduce the consequences of their inevitable collapse.
@charontwo:
I’ve vague memories reading, long ago, about some type or types of dementia that, in the early stages, are season or time of day dependent. That is, the patient may do better in daytime than night time, or in winter rather than summer (or vice versa).
Benito might be suffering from one such, where he gets worse on days that end in “y”.
@Kathy:
I think that’s called “sundowning,” where people with dementia get worse in the evening.
@Gustopher:
Hahahahaha.
Hahahahahahahahahaha.
*breathes*
Hahahahahahahaha.
Quick! Somebody tell Biden and Schumer “The rules can be changed,” so they can get rid of Sen. Tuberville’s military-appointment hold. I don’t know why nobody thought of this before.
Also, we’re waiting for changes, we do already have a fix for politicians we’ve had enough of. They’re called elections.
@CSK: That’s what my Dad is exhibiting. Anytime after 3 pm, he doesn’t remember who he talked to or what he said.
@CSK: There’s also the relation between UTIs in old women and dementia. Fix the UTI, the dementia clears up.
Makes one wonder how many elderly women are being considered gaga when it’s a condition that can be fixed.
@Jax:
I’m sorry you’re having to cope with that.
@grumpy realist:
Yes. My mother went through that when she was in her mid-eighties. Once the infection was treated, she was fine, more or less.
@grumpy realist:
In my mother’s case, she did have dementia, but the symptoms were relatively mild for a long time. If her dementia symptoms suddenly became much worse, a UTI was usually the culprit.
@CSK:
Sundowning is a real thing.
@charontwo:
Don’t know. Let’s see how he does on Monday…
@anjin-san:
I know.
@anjin-san: My auntie, at the end….every time she started hallucinating and fighting nursing staff or family members, we learned to start requesting a test for a UTI. I’ve often wondered, since then…..what makes older people so much crazier with a UTI? We get them as younger people as well, and we don’t start hallucinating like that.
@CSK:
You mean like lie about his name?
@dazedandconfused:
That would be literally historic. Unprecedented. Unique in the annals of human history.
Really, can you imagine any other time or occasion in which there was a reason to want to get out of bed on a Monday?
@Jax: Purely a guess, but my hunch is that it has to do with pain. When you’re of sound mind and have pain, you know where it is/what it is. With dementia, your brain probably cannot make that connection and basically, you start acting out. Sort of like toddlers losing it when they cannot express what is wrong because they don’t have the vocabulary yet.
@CSK: When our last dog started showing signs of dementia, the vets at Tufts let us know that sundowning was also common in dogs with dementia.