Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Thursday, August 17, 2023
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56 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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Happy Friday Eve, everyone!
The headline of the day- A Texas father was arrested after a gun was found inside a 3-year-old pre-K student’s backpack, police say
The Florida headline of the day- Aldi to acquire Winn-Dixie and Harveys Supermarket stores in Southern expansion
This ice cream maker looks really good, if a bit expensive.
Here’s video of it being used, not sponsored by the product in question.
“NewYorker”
DeSantis messaging problem, other candidates must see same problem.
https://twitter.com/DecodingFoxNews/status/1691984979243221428
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1691984979243221428.html
@charontwo: So if you say, “Do you agree X was bad” to a MAGA you might get 70% agreement. But if you ask the exact same thing but append Trump’s name before X (“Do you think Trump’s X was bad”) you get 70% disagreement. A shift of 40%. I bet it’s even more, as some of the originally 30% probably shifted too.
This, in a nutshell, is why there’s no point in arguing with a MAGA. They are purely team based animals and Trump is their quarterback. Logic, principal, reality, etc doesn’t even enter into it.
@charontwo: Can Meatball Ron message away his main problem tho: coming across as a frigid, humorless, unlikeable incel? DeSantis is giving vampire. Shudder.
Pence is pathetic too, but at least he comes across as warm due to his comedic value, per Politico aka Tiger Beat on the Potomac::
Such a beta boy bottom lol. Can you imagine being terrified of Putin’s Puppet, that traitorous, anti-American, bloated sack of orange dung? Weak! This wuss Pence wants to be commander-in-chief…uhhhh, of what country? The USA? Come on bro lol
Conservative men are supposed to be masculine, no? Hahahahaha. I can’t wait till white-haired Ryan Gosling plays Pence in the movie.
Grifter alert!
Kyle Rittenhouse launches nonprofit with far-right Texans as he ramps up political engagement in the state
Tim Dunn and the Wilks brothers have been a bane on Texas politics for decades. So sick of billionaires running and ruining this country.
San Diego ramps up arrests of unhoused people: ‘Harder to survive’
Yeah. Sure. That’ll solve the problem.
eta: I forgot I had this teed up too.
All – I wanted to repost this, as I ran across it late yesterday, and wanted to give people a chance to read this great in-depth reporting.
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/what-the-heck-happened-in-coffee-county-georgia
It really gives an entire timeline of the how and why the MAGA folk are farked in Georgia.
@OzarkHillbilly: Still, it probably depends on what “problem” one wants to solve.
@charontwo: To repeat what I wrote the other day:
From a TPM reader:
One additional point I’d make about DeSantis: his problem isn’t just that he’s alienated the MAGA voters by going after Trump. He’s also disappointed the big money people who were looking for a Trump alternative, since he’s falling into the same trap that made them turn toward him in the first place, which is relitigating the past. Except in his case it seems even less justified since he was never president. And however toxic and deranged Trump’s election lies are, at least they have some ability to animate his core voters through the central story of persecution against their orange god. It’s hard to see what benefit DeSantis can gain by trying to relitigate lockdowns and Fauci; even most Republican voters see those things as yesterday’s news.
“NewYorker”
DeSantis messaging problem, other candidates must see same problem.
I suppose attaching “Joe Biden” to a policy or proposal would have a different result.
@Kathy: I have had a Cuisinart ice cream maker for twenty years now. I use it a lot and it still works great. It’s the smaller model. Back then it cost 50 bucks. Now it costs 70. Compact and easy to store.
As an aside, I only use cream, sugar and whatever flavorings or fruit. I quit making custard and then cooling overnight. No milk, either. Very rich and obviously very creamy.
“MSNBC-Disney”
Disney is known for aggressively litigatiog, so …
@Kathy:
I have a Ninja Creami and love it. It’s actually pretty cheap considering it is a consumer version of a commercial device called a Pacojet that runs $5000-$8000
I’m currently in the process of figuring out if the Creami is capable of some of the alternative uses that have been figured out for the Pacojet.
What exactly is FIDE implying with this decision?
World chess federation bars transgender women from competing in women’s events
It will also be interesting to see what the US Chess Federation does, since this directly contradicts their existing policy on trans players.
@Stormy Dragon:
They’re not implying anything. They are directly saying:
1. Trans Women are men.
2. Men are inherently smarter and superior to women in all things no matter what.
@charontwo: DeSantis is very much a traditional pol dependent on lobbyists and donors. He had enough money he thought he could buy the GOP nomination. He’ll do favors for his donors, but he’ll also threaten non-donors. I’d love to know the donation history of Disney in FL. I can’t help but suspect that behind the scenes this is either or both revenge for lack of support or threats if they don’t support. On the other hand he does have a deep psychology of “I’m the boss and everybody has to do what I say, or else.”
As an aside, many of you are familiar with the travails of the New College of FL after DeUseless appointed a new board, including Chris Rufo, the activist who invented CRT in grade school. The school was a very well regarded liberal arts school with high entry requirements and a flexible curriculum. Mr. Rufo apparently wants to turn it into mostly a college baseball power. Although it’s unclear the school actually has a baseball diamond.
DeSantis has crews out doing door-to-door in NH. I live in a pretty small hamlet (~5K residents, bedroom community with farms) and have had two door knockers from his campaign show up. They must have pulled lists of people who have voted in the primaries, because they were not going to every house.
I was home when one of them showed up with his spiel, ending with “…can he count on your support?” My response was “absolutely not.”
I find it shocking that he’s got a big enough team to cover middle of nowhere spots like this.
@becca:
I use dry ice on a custard made from scratch.
“Bulwark-plus”
According to The Guardian, Trump’s lawyers are urging him to cancel his Monday news conference because it will complicate his legal problems. Apparently Trump’s so-called “large, detailed, and irrefutable report” is making some, ah, dubious claims about voter fraud.
So…will Trump heed his attorneys’ advice?
https://twitter.com/OmarRiverosays/status/1691971224505630728
I can see going after the local AZ shmucks. The “top-level” will likely be pretty moot by the time this has time to mature. (AZ investigation got a late start, only after midterms new (D) AG, SOS, Gov.).
@Beth:
That was a rhetorical question! ;P
@becca:
@Stormy Dragon:
My problem is finding sugar free ice cream. There isn’t a lot. Dependably there’s one local brand, and all they have is chocolate and Neapolitan (chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry).
So, I figure I can make my own. In particular I’d like to try some mixes I’ve already tried with yogurt, like mixing it with instant coffee and sugar free chocolate powder. They do dissolve nicely in Greek yogurt.
For the challenge, I want to make mint chocolate chip.
The good thing is the heat waves seem to have passed, for now, and we’re at a more normal summer weather: cloudy, rainy, and not too warm at all. So, I’ve time to look up several brands and methods. Also to see which ones use less electricity as well.
@CSK:
Please, please nooooo!
@Joe:
It would be hilarious if they quit en masse after this debacle.
Trump is obviously never going to let this go. He’s obsessed, like some cut-rate Captain Ahab.
@Beth: There are lots of women in this world who are better at chess than almost everybody. (And this definitely includes me, I am a patzer, though I do follow the chess world a fair bit.) With that perspective, the current state of affairs has the best 100 to 200 players male.
While I do not support their decision, I expect FIDE is worried that a trans woman will win the Women’s World Championship, and that it would play badly on the world stage. Another factor is that FIDE is strongly influenced by Russians. (Though interestingly enough, they don’t support Russia’s adventure in Ukraine, and have banned at least one Russian player for inflammatory remarks on behalf of Putin.) And well, Russians are not ahead of the curve on trans issues, to say the least.
Yes, I do agree that they probably hold the belief that, at the very least, a different policy would allow a man to “fake it” to win women’s tournaments. Whether they believe that trans women are men is something I can’t tell. I certainly can’t say your take is wrong, but I lack confirmation.
@Stormy Dragon: Because a body that matures under heavy doses of testerone makes you able… to move chess pieces faster? Slam them down harder?
@Beth: Honestly, my immediate reaction was, “Why are there separate tournaments for men and women in the first place?”
@MarkedMan:
I agree. That makes no sense. You might as well have boy and girl spelling bees. Or math competitions.
Trump is miffed. The picture’s hilarious:
http://www.rawstory.com/trump-fox-and-friends-2663997631/
https://twitter.com/secretsandlaws/status/1692201722175783397
My thought, likely much slippage will happen to the proposed trial date.
@gVOR10: “Although it’s unclear the school actually has a baseball diamond.”
It’s actually not unclear at all. They don’t.
@MarkedMan:
My understanding is that it’s because chess playing men are known for being sexist assholes and putting chess playing women in separate tournaments was “easier” than expecting chess playing men to behave.
It’s kind of like the problem in video gaming where there’s a sizable contigent of gamer men who consider the hobby a men only space and take it upon themselves to drive off any women who try to participate. Even if they’re a minority, there are enough of them that it’s a problem.
@CSK: May he suffer a similar fate.
@Stormy Dragon: That reminds me of the “Behind The Bastards” podcast episodes about “Bobby Fischer, Chess Nazi”
(Available many places, but here’s YouTube)
https://youtu.be/z4QyUOX65MM
Chess Bros are the worst kind of Bro, and deserve every bad thing that can happen to them.
(There are perfectly fine, non-Bro, chess players, but few chess players who are only “just a bit of an ass” — they’re either delightful people, or into eugenics and some flavor of phrenology, with nothing in between)
@Stormy Dragon:
This sounds a lot like the situation Maria Konnikova describes in The Biggest Bluff, a book where she details her adventures learning to play poker professionally. There are women’s tables and small tournaments, but they’re more a way to draw women into the game. The major tournaments, and the vast majority of all others, mix men and women in play. The only requirement seems to be the ability to pay the buy-in.
To be sure, she describes several instances of men being sexist a**holes with her.
@Jay L Gischer:
Perhaps I am about to be guilty of eugenics, but… if those Chess Bros are willing to have bottom surgery and remove themselves from the gene pool… I don’t know, I just think we might want to hear them out on this, give them a chance, etc.
Let them put their genitals where their mouth is. Ok, that’s not the right phrasing.
@charontwo:
I agree, this is a mechanism to go after the local schmucks…as Michigan has already done to their 16 Fake Electors.
Lost in all the hubbub over Trump’s 91st Felony Indictment is the story about Charles McGonigal.
FBI Special Agent in Charge of the NY Counterintelligence Division, Charles McGonigal, pleaded guilty to Conspiring to violate US Sanctions on Russia. Seems he was taking money from Oleg Deripaska, the infamous Oligarch who was under US Sanctions, in exchange for digging up dirt on another Oligarch.
Here’s where it gets interesting…
It is very possible that McGonigal is the same NY FBI Agent who forced Comey into announcing the investigation into Clinton’s Emails 11 days before the 2016 Presidential Election, as well as being the source of the NY Times article, published a week before the election, that falsely claimed; “Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link to Russia.”.
But the whole Russia thing was a hoax. Indeed.
@CSK:
Just as an aside, one of my nieces is involved in sound engineering in the movie biz and is acutely aware of the sublime power of scoring. She recently recommended, as an aesthetic exercise, that Trump’s Truth Social rants and other whines could be read slowly…and scored with Barber’s Adagio.
@dazedandconfused:
Oh, that’s brilliant.
@CSK: I expect Trump will issue some message about his beautiful irrefutable report that he would love to share with the American people, but his attorneys have forbidden him from doing so . . . yet. But he will release it when some unknowable deadline passes.
@Stormy Dragon: There’s an episode of Mythic Quest where they come to realize that more and more skinhead 3percent types are joining and wrecking it for everyone, but since they also bring in a decent chunk of change the money guy won’t let them just kick them out. So they stage a hideously attractive battle that is sure to suck them in and then they isolate them on their own server where they happily attack each other.
Fiction, i know, but I’m imagine chess tournaments with a sign that says, “Burley Burley He-man Chess This Way!!” And they lead all the jerks off to play each other and leave decent people in peace.
@Joe:
He’ll take a page from the pillow guy, or was it Rudy, and say he’ll present it at the Supreme Court.
@Joe: @Kathy:
Or he’ll say some bullshit about how his attorneys want him to save it for the trial.
@DK:
They are really quite embarrassing to men. Sort of our Caitlyn Jenners. I so want to call them pussies, but the shriveling, overly-tender, unattractive character of these guys says ball sac to me.
@DK:
@Michael Reynolds:
For people who were supposed to be all about rugged self-reliance and integrity, a lot of them turn out to be rather weaselly little shits who are desperate to cling on to a living in DC, and to heck with standing up to enemies of the Republic.
See also Brit Conservative upholders of “time-honoured tradition” who spent about one micro-second considering which side their toast was buttered before going all in for May/Johnson/Truss/Sunak/whoever.
@dazedandconfused:
Nice!
What other options might there be?
Arvo Pärt, “Miserere”
Ligetti, “Lux Aeterna” (for you 2001: A Space Odyssey fans)
Janis Joplin, “Oh Lord Won’t You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz”, muzak version
…
@DrDaveT:
The ever popular Yakkety Sax?
@DrDaveT:
Those would work. It would be fitting if something from Russia be included in this list.
Makes one want to find a bowl of borscht to drown oneself in, doesn’t it?